The Hidden Prince

by Tessa Afshar

“God wants your hearts to learn to endure, too. Endure in love. Love him even when he seems absent. Love him when he has offended or disappointed you. Love him when you feel he has not protected you.”

If you do not learn to lean into God’s enduring love, in time, you might become slaves to bitterness. And that’s a far worse slavery than merely being captives in Babylon.”

“That is why you must learn to endure. Endure in the fire, because God’s love for you endures. Trust in his plans for you, my sons and daughter.” His hand glanced over my head. “Let him give you the strength to bear the flames.”

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7, ESV

“We must trust God, both of us. He brought you here, just as he brought me. Obviously, he must think we are somehow equipped for this task.”

The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. Psalm 121:7, ESV

And we had God.

“Because I love you. And I would rather die than see you hurt again.”

“What I dreaded most came to pass, and we all survived it. God made a way. He did not need me to keep everyone safe. And even though my presence actually placed you in danger, he managed to save you. That fear had been hanging over me like a savage dragon. That night, God pulled its teeth.” He shrugged. “Without the shadow of that anxiety pressing against my mind, the pain is tamed.”

“I love my parents, and I am not ashamed to be a shepherd’s son. I have learned many good lessons from Mitradates as I have looked after the king’s sheep. But you are right in saying I do not wish to be a shepherd. If you think that means I would prefer to be a prince, you are wrong, O king. I plan to be a general and to lead armies into victory. You don’t need to be a prince for that.”

“I’m eleven. It’s not for me to make such grand claims or dispute them. All I know is that if they are true, I have one set of parents who, though kind and caring, lied to me every day of my life. And another set of parents who, though loving and powerful, managed to misplace me for eleven years. For this, I owe thanks to a king. And if everything you have been told is a lie, then for that, you owe thanks to the same king, and perhaps to Lord Harpagus, but not to me.”

“Lady, you can trust your heart,” he whispered.

God was reminding me to endure. To trust in him in the midst of so much discouragement. Something in my soul bowed before that invitation. I would limp out of bed tomorrow and be brave. And I would bear the weight of the burden before me.

“What if I believe you and it’s all a lie? . . . What if my heart fools me?”

“What if my heart fools me? As soon as I heard those words, I realized why I could not forgive you. I felt like I had landed back into my childhood with my father. I had trusted you with everything. And you broke my trust. Every day since then, I have been screaming at my heart for fooling me again. For making me believe it was safe to love, when it was not.”

“No. I am sorry. I am sorry to have confused you with my father. You are nothing like him.” His hand dropped to his lap. “I told the queen what I needed to hear myself. You can trust your heart. As a child, I learned that my heart is untrustworthy. And sometimes, it is.

“But this is also the heart that loves the Lord. The heart that is fixed on him. The heart that has learned to be loyal and to choose right.” He pressed his palm, my fingers still entwined with his, against his chest. “This heart, though imperfect, can be trusted. And this heart tells me your love is true.”

“Love does not preserve us from mistakes. You made a mistake. But your love is trustworthy.”

“You were right, you know. I am like the Hanging Gardens. Good things growing in impossible places.”

“Good things coming out of this. Not merely pain and loss. But faith, and strength.”

“Well, this is a sorry pickle,” he said. “Why?” “Because I want to marry you, and your father is somewhere over there.” He pointed over his shoulder to the west. “Across some tall mountains.” “You want to marry me?” “I have wanted to marry you since you were a head taller than I was.”

For I am with you to save you, declares the LORD.

He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though he is surrounded by light. Daniel 2:22, NLT

“Let your people know they are more important to you than your personal revenge,” Jared said.

“You can be a father to Cyrus, or you can be a father to your people,” I added. “Help the Persians understand that your reason for not going to war immediately is not weakness, but rather a long plan. The first step in ensuring that, one day, your people will become great amongst the nations. When they comprehend your intention, your people will think you patient, not weak.”

Cambyses was silent for a long beat. “You really believe in my son, don’t you?” “Yes, lord.” “Why?” “Have ...

One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend. Proverbs 22:11, NIV

“I have a feeling that if we pick up the bundle of our disappointments and unfulfilled dreams and follow God’s plans one wobbly step at a time, in the end we will find our way home.”

“Grace means allowing room for someone to grow. If we abandon him at the first painful mistake, what will that teach him? Let us wait, Jared. Wait and pray.”

“If we don’t offer each other grace,” Jared said, “then how will we become the men and women we are meant to be? We forgave you, Cyrus, because we want to give you room to grow into the man you are meant to become. That means allowing you to make mistakes and not loving you any less because of them.”

“Not at all. Otanes took it from him by force.” He sat up. “I understand your point. Otanes took the coat by violence, and that was unjust. Whether it is practical or not, a king must first choose justice.”

“I told you, Otanes, when we were on our first hunt together, that by killing the honeybee, you wasted the honey it would have given you. Seems like a habit with you.”

“They were the ones who helped me understand that my duty is to uphold what is right, not what is efficient.”

“And what is right is that friends should be rewarded for their loyalty, not discarded because they don’t fit in. Friendship is not based on whether you were born here or in another nation. It is based on love. On loyalty. On truth. A palace should be filled with friends like that, regardless of where they are from.”

“I see we have been blessed by a wise son. We would ignore his request at our own peril, I think. Therefore, we assign you both to his household—you, Keren, as his scribe, and Jared as his cupbearer and adviser.”

Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it. Ezra 10:4, ESV

“But I am.” Her hand fisted. “I did you wrong, Keren. I told myself I was protecting my son. The truth is that I was protecting my heart. Like my father, I find I am possessive of what I love.”

Cyrus stared at the diadem with something akin to loathing. I realized in that moment that God himself had allowed the boy to taste the bitter fruit of human ambition and power. It would have been easy for him, at this young age, to grow too proud of that diadem. Too fond of the crown he was trying to win. Instead, God had taught him the price of it at the very outset.

“I am sorry, Son,” his mother said, pressing her hand around his shaking fingers. Cyrus gulped a deep breath. Dropping his head, he placed the diadem upon his brow again. When he looked up, he no longer had the eyes of a child.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jeremiah 31:33, ESV

As he drew her against him, his arms locking around her with fresh desperation, he thought for a moment how odd love was, for it made you blinder than he was in his left eye. And then, with his lips on hers, he forgot to think. After all the years of waiting and yearning, his dreams finally turned into reality.

“One day, another will come. A true Savior. One with power to write God’s law on our hearts. And blessed are those who live under his rule.”

Cyrus asked me to continue my work as his senior scribe. I would hold my babes, one on each leg, as I dictated Cyrus’s letters and trained new scribes to organize his official correspondence. Little did we know that these same scribes would one day become the backbone of his empire, a weapon every bit as acute as his invincible army. We were laying down the foundations of a future none of us could truly grasp yet. To us, it was merely everyday business. The ordinary work of our hands. God knew that brick by brick we were establishing the means to manage the greatest empire the world had ever seen. But that is a story for another day.