Forty years is a long time to wander the wilderness.   As a dear friend says, 36 years is long enough. 

I haven’t been in the wilderness for 36 years, but sometimes it feels like it . . . when the days are equal parts pain and joy.  When everything seems to end with a goodbye of some sort.  When it’s unclear not only when I’m getting to the Promise, but also what the Promise is.

I suppose this is what it feels like to be sustained by God, but sometimes, I totally get the Isrealists and their whining.  Manna can get really tiring day after day.

The Isrealites were not just stuck in the wilderness.  They were wandering in it.  Moving all the time.  Doing what each day required.  Never sure whether the next day they would reach where they were meant to be.  I imagine this was the substance of equal parts hope and frustration.  I wonder who gave up.

Some days, all I can do is look up and stare.  I can’t really even question most of the time anymore.  I’m out of questions.  I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and gaze at the sky.

Each day that sky gives me just enough to keep me going . . . clouds stacked like bricks in the softest wall, streamers of pink hung for my personal sky party, reds that dye the air like God has poured out a perfect table wine.

It is this that keeps me going – this sky with its Promise of change each day.  This place where the pillar of cloud and fire hung, unchanging. . . this mutability (both silent and changing) shows me Promise.  If God can do this, God can do anything . . . I think this each time I see the half-moon hanging in the sky .

If God can do this . . . the Promise of the sky.