We woke to feel the earth trembling and to hear the sound of hundreds of pounding animal feet and raised animal voices.
The flesh rose on my arms as we stood in the door of the tent and saw the procession of animals walking two-by-two, as if led by an invisible hand toward the ark.
Noah squeezed my shoulder. “He says it’s time,” he whispered in my ear.
I had no idea how he heard anything over the ruckus outside, but again I had to trust him.
“We have seven days to get everyone inside.”
I turned and kissed his cheek. “We’d better get started then,” I said. If I ever doubted my husband’s message about the ark and God’s plan, this incredible sight in front of me wiped those thoughts from my mind.
For the next week we led animals into their rooms in the ark. Creatures that would eat me without a thought in the wild, walked docilely inside like house pets. And even though the door remained open at night, none of them left the boat.
Noah hardly slept that week as he continued to preach to those who’d gathered to watch the miraculous parade. But the people were just enjoying the show. They would never give up their free lifestyles to live like our family did.
“If you think I’d ever go inside that boat with that stench, even for a minute, Noah, you’re crazy!”
“Feeling any sky-water yet, Noah? What time is it supposed to start?”
Mocking comments echoed off the side of the ark. These were some of the kinder things said.
On Day 7, our family went into the boat as well. Noah gave a final plea on the ramp leading to the door. I squeezed his fingers as we walked inside hand-in-hand to the laughs and jeers.
The crowd went silent, however, when God Himself shut the door. They weren’t expecting that bit of magic in their show.
It was days later before we heard the sound of rain on the roof above us. “Forty days and forty nights,” Noah whispered. My husband was six hundred years old. A little over a month on a cruise ship didn’t sound so awful.
But when the animals were quieter a few evenings later, I swear I heard cries from outside the ark. Noah said it was impossible with the thickness of the lumber and the noise in the boat, but a few impossible things had already happened, hadn’t they. I covered my ears to block out the heart-wrenching sound.
Neither Noah or myself slept at all that first week as we thought about all the people we knew and didn’t know who were drowning outside of our ark. All of the innocent children who were dying because their parents wouldn’t repent; I cried for them until I had no more tears. Noah just held me, occasionally wiping his own cheeks.
“You tried to warn them,” I whispered. “They just wouldn’t listen.”
We set a routine inside the boat with everyone taking turns with the responsibilities. The animals had to be fed and their stalls cleaned out. We had to prepare food for ourselves as well. It was hard to ration since we didn’t know exactly how long we’d be in the ark, but our store of supplies never seemed to replete. There may have been some more miracles at work in the pantry.
One of our boys tracked the days with a mark for each on a wall. The forty days of rain passed quickly as we kept busy. But after the rain stopped hitting the roof, the marks continued filling the wall with no further communication from God. The days were long and monotonous. I longed to feel sunshine on my face.
According to the wall, we lived in the ark for five months before we felt a sudden jolt and lost the sensation of floating.
“Praise God. We’ve landed on something; likely a mountain peak,” Noah explained. “The waters must be receding.”
“At this rate, we’ll be here till we’re old and grey like you, Father,” Ham quipped.
Japheth pinched his arm hard enough for Ham to wince. “You want to get off the boat, Ham? We can make that happen,” his brother said. The close quarters were taking a toll on their humor.
“Patience, boys. Patience,” was all Noah said, as he turned to me with a smile. “It’s almost over.”
But Ham was right and Noah was wrong. It wasn’t almost over. We were in that boat much longer – for a year and ten days, in fact, and I did feel myself growing older and greyer.
Noah took the covering off the ark so we could at least see outside and feel the fresh air. He sent out several birds to scope the land. But even after the second dove did not return because it likely found a place to nest, we waited two more months.
Then finally the two words left Noah’s lips that we’d all been waiting for: “It’s time.”
We’d walked into the boat holding hands, so I held out mine to exit the same way. It felt glorious to feel the dry ground beneath our feet.
From our mountaintop, the view was spectacular with lush green forests and waterfalls. Noah dramatically hugged a rock as he thanked God for His mercies.
As the animals filed out of the ship in a similar calm manner as they’d entered, Noah insisted on building an altar there at the top of the mountain. Some of those clean animals and birds that we had brought were sacrificed to our Maker and Savior.
When he’d finished his ceremony, Noah got that gleam in his eye. I knew God had spoken to him again. Before he shared the message, though, Noah pointed to the sky. A magnificent colored arc with stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple stretched across the horizon. A strange sense of calm filled my chest as I gazed at its beauty.
“God put that there for us. It’s a sign of his covenant with me and with all the future people on the earth.”
“Covenant? What do you mean?” I couldn’t tear my eyes away, even as I wanted to call the boys to come and see it.
Noah squeezed my shoulder. “God has promised that he will never destroy the world like this again. The colored bow will be a reminder of that covenant every time humans see it.”
I smiled. Yes, it made sense that God would make something so beautiful. And I liked the sound of that promise too. It gave me hope for this new start.
“If it’s up to our children to populate the earth, maybe the next generation will be more in tune with God. Hopefully He’ll never feel the need to destroy mankind again because people will be good, rather than evil.”
My husband didn’t answer, but I knew that standing next to me was one very good man who would live out his days serving God, and I would be right by his side for as long as we both lived.
genesis 9:12-15
Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life.”
This week in my Kindergarten class we explored rainbows as part of a spring week that included St. Patrick’s Day and its myths about an elusive pot of gold at the end of such an arc. Did you know that a rainbow is actually a full circle? We see it as an arc because of the horizon in our sight. We only see a part of the whole glorious phenomena. While this discovery kills the dream of ever finding that pot of gold, there is treasure to be found in rainbows.
A rainbow is a physical sign of God’s promise that He’ll never destroy the earth and its people again with a flood. But when we see that beautiful bow, we can remember so much more.
God’s Word, the Bible, is a story of love. From cover to cover, it tells how God created the earth and its inhabitants and how He loves them. It is filled with promises He has made to His people – to us. Here are just a few: a promise of salvation; a promise of His presence in our lives; a promise of His help; and a promise that He is committed to us – He will never abandon us.
We can’t see the full rainbow, but God does. Just like we can never see the full picture of the challenging events in our lives. But God sees those too.
Are you going through a challenging time right now? He knows how the situation will be resolved; how the experience will impact your life; and he knows the emotions you feel as you navigate through it. He invites you to trust Him. Put your faith in Him like Noah and his wife. Trust Him when it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
We can turn our back on God and get angry with Him when we don’t understand why certain things happen. But God will never turn His back on us. He waits patiently for us to turn around and run into His arms.
Let your Father take care of things.
In His time.
He sees the full circle.
Lord, when I see a rainbow, help me to remember Your promises. In the lens of the earth as a whole, I feel so insignificant, but Your Word says that You see me; that You care about me. Thank You for salvation. Thank You for being my comfort and shield. You’ve got this.
I hope you enjoyed the fictionalized account of Noah and the ark, as told by his wife. I have taken liberties with the story to make it a relatable and interesting read, so forgive my divergences from the original script. In the manuscript I am working on called “You’re the Star: Step into the Spotlight, Daughter of God”, I retell the stories this way of nine women in the Bible who exemplify traits that God wants us to live out as well. For Noah’s wife, it was patience. From the first day that her husband announced what seemed like a fantastical instruction from God to build a boat where there was no water, to finally getting off the ark, she showed a lot of patience as she stood by his side. Stay tuned for more tidbits from my book as I continue my journey toward publishing it.
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