Sand was everywhere. In our packs, our food, our eyes. We tasted it when we woke in the morning. We hated the sand. The sand was hell.

Our salvation, the glorious Shekinah cloud of YHWH, spread shade over the desert by day and struck awe in us at night in a terrifying hurricane of fire. It guided us, it shaded us, and it threw more sand into the weary sky.

We were nowhere. The Red Sea lay behind, and with it Pharaoh’s army– and the last water we would ever taste. Moses brought us here to die. Better he had left us in Egypt where we could die in old age but no! He sought a deliverance of death, of dehydration and sand. Curse him!

A murmur in the crowd rose to a riotous pitch. Our children are dying. There is no water, no water these three days, and our children die before our eyes! Moses must die, die now while we linger on. Curse him for his cruel leadership!

A rock in the sand. A man stoops to pick it up, aiming for Moses’ head. Wait! why the yelling in the front. Water? Life has found us! A surge forward. Babies hauled toward to cool desert pool. But a groan reaches them first. The water is bad! Poisoned! A groan. A yell. An angry mob of desperate parents.

WHAT SHALL WE DRINK!

Madness. They will kill him.

Stop! the voice of Moses thunders. His face is darkened in rage. Fools! Would you doubt the Lord our God, the God of our Fathers, even YHWH? He turns to face the glowing cloud, now fierce in its wrath.

“Your stiff-necked people despair! What am I to give them?”

—-

Moses returned from talking with YHWH. The crowd makes way as he passes through toward the pool. A half burned log rots at its edge. Moses grunts as he lifts it, then hurls it into the pool.

Nothing.

He turns.

“Drink, and be filled.”

The crowd stares. He mocks our pain. Unbelief is overcome with bitterness. You will die for this! But at that moment, a child steps forth: dry. dirty. dying. She falls to her knees, inches from the water. She cups a hand, dips water in her filthy fingers. Up, up to her mouth, and then a sip, cool, sweet.

A smile on her face.

The crowd is silent. Humble. Slowly they quench their thirst in the pool.

All hope was gone; we were dead. My child was dying in my arms, with only tears to quench his thirst.

Yet He provided again. When will we trust?