Five Minute Friday! Writing on the prompt "distant."
Distant. Far in the distance, the curtain blows softly with the wind. I draw near, sandals on my dusty feet, across the floor of the wilderness to where we have been temporarily banished. Far from the promised land, the place promised to our ancestors. I draw near, slowly, will God see me?
The curtain still blows as I slip gently through the alley of tents watching the tabernacle in the distance, the place where God dwells. If He is so Holy and so Mighty, so Loving, yet so filled with justice and mercy, surely He will see me.
I pause at the place I saw from across the space of landscape. Here I am, hineni. Moses stands at the left of the curtain, his grey beard curling against his chin, his kind, focused eyes stare at me. "Moses our leader," I start filled with conviction, "my father died in the wilderness for his own sin, and he had no sons only daughters. We do not believe he should die and have his name wiped out forever just because he had no sons, give us the land promised to our ancestors, the land of inheritance so we might raise our families there."
Moses pauses and whispers. I cannot hear his words, but I am used to seeing him mumbling, talking to God at every second of every hour of the day. He nods, sparkling eyes as he looks at me, the daughter of Zelophehad. "Yes," he proclaims, "God says yes..."
STOP!
I wrote this while thinking and reflecting on Numbers, where the daughters of Zelophehad approach Moses and ask God to give them an inheritance. The beauty of the original Hebrew words used int his passage expresses the delight of Yahweh, as His daughters ask Him for an eternal law to be passed. He says yes to their request and history actually changes because they dared to speak up! Our God is waiting for His daughters to speak up, not for themselves but for others so that the world as we know it and history itself will be forever changed, granting greater freedom to many.