Speak
to the rock.
In the thirty-ninth
year of my two-week journey from Sinai to Canaan, I was beyond calm speaking. I
wanted to strike something or someone…better the rock than one of God’s
complaining chosen.
Water exploded from
the rock, God honoring his promise. God had always called me his friend, but
now I had dishonored him and there was a price to pay: The covenant he had
sworn to Abraham God now snatched from my hands. I would never homestead in
Canaan. Though I had successfully pleaded for other offenders, the Holy One
would not consider my case.
So he stood with me on
Mount Nebo, two old friends who had traveled countless dusty miles together,
and we looked toward the horizon: fields
green with new barley, olive groves and vineyards, hills and valleys—a breathtaking
panorama, a fertile land that would soon be a home for my people. God dried my
bittersweet tears, and I slept with my fathers.
But I’m awake now—though
I can’t understand how or why—standing again on a mountain. No longer distant,
the green fields and lush groves seem close enough to touch, a promise returned
to my trembling hands.
I turn and shade my
eyes from the white-hot brilliance of the man before me, but he grasps my
shoulders and pulls me close. Gazing into his eyes, I recognize the holy fire I
had first glimpsed in a burning desert bush.
Welcome
home, Old Friend.
(I wrote this several
years ago and just rediscovered it in my files. It is based on events in
Numbers 20 and Mark 9.)
Beautiful, Roberta! I love this dramatic monologue.
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