One day, the shepherd’s wife asked, “Take me with you to the wilderness. I also want to take a look around it.”
The shepherd looked at his wife and said, “No! That’s not a place for you. This place is better for you. You can be delicate and capricious here, but not there.
But the woman kept persuading and begging so that the shepherd would agree to take her with him.
When he finally agreed he said to his wife, “But I have one condition.”
“What is your condition,” his wife asked.
“This is my condition, that you stay for 3 days & nights with me in the wilderness,” said the shepherd.
The woman agreed to his condition, and they left the next day for the sheep’s grazing area. The woman saw all the hardship that her husband endured in the wilderness. She saw the conditions of how he prepared food, made tea, how he rushed here and there to take care of the sheep and how he spent his days in the storming rain or in the burning sun and she felt compassion for him in her heart.
Everyone knows that shepherds live in the wilderness without a house in the snow, rain, burning sun and suffer always following after the sheep. This is the way they spend their lives so that their children will not go hungry or suffer.
When the woman saw her husband’s work and life in the wilderness she regretted that she had come. She said to herself, “Why did I come here? Being one day out here with my husband feels to me like 30 years have passed! I should do something so I can go back home,” but after a few moments she remembered her promise to her husband.
“Now I have to stay here for 3 days and nights. Then after 3 days I will go back home and get on with my life,” said the woman to herself.
Spending 3 days in the wilderness felt like 90 years to the woman because 1 day felt like 30 years.
After that whenever she thought of those 3 days in the wilderness with her husband, she resolved to do her work the same way her husband did in the wilderness. Under the burning sun she would work in her courtyard cooking, making tea, cleaning, doing laundry. Whatever her husband was out doing in the wilderness she also started doing at home, working hard even in the burning summer sun.
After several months the shepherd came back to his wife and children. When he came into the courtyard, he saw that everything was clean and tidy. He noticed that his wife’s manners, behavior and interaction with him were completely different.
The shepherd and his wife sat around the table drinking tea when the shepherd said to her,
“What has happened to you? You are acting completely different!”
The woman answered her husband’s question, “Before I went on the trip to the wilderness I was so happy, but after going, my regret was immeasurable.
Three days with you in the wilderness felt like 90 years to me. I saw with my own eyes all the work and suffering you endure there and God gave me compassion for you in my heart. I also am trying to be like you, working hard in the burning sun. God forbid on judgment day that you have a claim against me. I will never forgive myself for all the time you were suffering in the wilderness and I was relaxing here at home. Whether at work or at home, we must be equal in life,” said the woman to her husband.
When the shepherd heard his wife’s words he became extremely happy. After that the woman became a God-fearing woman and showed her husband respect for the rest of her life. And they lived happily ever after.
