Thursday, March 17, 2011

Noah's Wife

For our Young Adults Worship Night coming up, we are focusing on some of the miracles within our everyday Bible stories. So often, we, as Christians, take for granted the amazing complexity of the miracles that God has preformed in our forefathers. My task is to reveal the supernatural phenomenon of Noah's flood through a perspective not often thought of - Noah's wife:


THE STORY OF NOAH’S ARK FROM HIS WIFE’S PERSPECTIVE

"For one hundred and twenty years we were scorned. Imagine! One hundred and twenty years! Aaah...it was the best of times, it was the worst of time. (pauses)

My poor husband couldn’t even walk to the market without mockery being hurled at him across the market square. “Hey, Noah! When’s this rainstorm supposed to be coming?” “What do you have there, Noah? More building supplies for your ark?” Still, my husband managed to hold his head high and bravely spoke of the Lord’s coming destruction.

My three sons? (sighs) Oh my poor children! There was a time at the beginning when all the neighbour kids would flock around them, interested in the “building project” that my boys’ father was constructing. It didn’t take long, though, until the children’s parents warned them to stay away from my sons and the monstrous shell of a boat that towered in our fields. Yet, as the years passed on, my sons clung to the promises of the rain and the revenge of our most holy God. I’m amazed, to this day, at the Lord’s goodness for keeping our sons faithful to Him.

As for me, well, there is nothing quite like the gossip of women! And oh, how it spreads! When Noah first started to build the ark, most of the women in my social circle just dismissed it as another “manly” building project. However, once the frame for the ark started to take shape, it threw a shadow over my friendships. I always knew when my family was being talked about, because as I would walk to the well each morning, the other women would stop to stare at me, whisper to each other, smirking as they quickly shuffled out of my way.

It was as if we had a disease! They were hard times, but times that definitely brought us closer together as a family, and closer to God. I smile now when I think of the way we boldly proclaimed the inevitable destruction that God was going to bring upon mankind. We had no shame.
No matter how hard and long we preached to our neighbours, nothing seemed to sink in. It was draining. There was nothing that we wanted more than for our former friends to believe that God’s punishment was coming!

It was an ordinary day when Noah and I awoke to the strangest of sounds. Imagine our disbelief when we looked out our window and saw animals of every kind, spreading out as far as the eye could see, all heading towards our boat. Imagine how it felt when the first rain drops started to fall! Up until that time, we never knew what rain was!

We were ecstatic! God was fulfilling His promise! And yet...I couldn’t help but feel sorrow wash over me as I thought of all our neighbours! Noah and I grew up with some of these people! For close to 600 years we had all toiled and worked the earth together...and now, their evilness had brought upon THIS. (sighs)

I can still hear the echoing thud of the ark’s door as it shut. The chaos of hungry animals and the pelting rain above us could not drown out the cries from outside the ark as the waters rose. What was even worse was the deafening silence after a mere hour of rainfall. I shudder to think of what it must have looked like beyond the sturdy walls of our ark.

It was over a year before we ever saw or walked upon dry ground again. My feet were wobbly as I stepped out of the ark, unsure of the muddy ground beneath my feet. We were exhausted. And yet, in that desolate landscape, all Noah could do was kiss the ground and sing praises to our God. We even erected an altar to thank our Lord for being faithful to us. Just when we were thinking that God could not provide us with any more miracles, we were dazzled by the most beautiful one of all!

The sky was awash with vivid reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues and violets that stretched from east to west. I remember looking at Noah and seeing the glow of this miracle reflected in his face. I recall kicking off my sandals, raising my arms as if to embrace the hues arched above me, and laughing. I twirled around, feeling the mud squish through my toes – thinking it was the most beautiful feeling I had ever felt. And there, on the top of that mountain where we rested, I fell to my knees and thanked God for His faithfulness and His breath-taking hope."

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