Noah, the last righteous man on Earth, what must you have seen? How evil the world must have been! 
When God told you the plan to drown the world in pure sorrow, what were your thoughts? We only know your faith and obedience, the animals two by two, those clean seven by seven, all the wood and lumber, the pounding, and gathering of supplies. It must have taken years of labor and community ostracization.

Tell me as you built the ark, did you plead with God not to open the flood gates? Did you plead with the people to change their evil ways, to turn back to God, or did you accept their fate? Did you take pleasure in knowing wicked men would finally receive judgement for their deeds? As you gathered all the animals and your family, and the heavens broke open, and the ark lifted, did you have your doubts? Were you ever scared of what was to come? Of the new world that rested on your shoulders?

Did you ever lose faith in God, even for a moment, in the ark after watching the entire world drown, after the forty days and nights of rain, after the constant sea sickness of you and the animals, the foul stench, the delirium of cabin fever, the constant bickering between you and your family? Did your humanity ever get the best of you? When you kept sending birds out, did you feel defeated? Did you believe your eyes when you saw the dove bring back the olive branch?

When you saw the mountain, did you think it a mirage? A trick of the mind at sea? Was it lonely forging a new world on a tip of a mountain? Everyone in the world, we are your seed, your offspring, that you’ve sewn from Mount Ararat scattered in the wind in all corners and crevices of the Earth, some good, some righteous, some bad, a few downright evil, mostly ruling the rest of us, and yet I cannot imagine how wicked the world must have been for God still to destroy the world in its human infancy. I cannot fathom a more wicked world than the one I live in. ’m not sure if humans got better, or if our hearts are still just as wicked, but I do know God’s heart changed, and showed mercy.

Rainbows bring happiness to me their color spectrum peering through the clouds showing hope, promise, like warm colorful beams of better days, but do rainbows make you feel uneasy? A double-edged sword gleaming of peace and destruction? When a storm came in, did you still pray for God not to destroy the world? A trauma response of what you went through. When do the trauma responses stop? When does peace come in? Is that why the sky is riddled with rainbows? One promise is not enough, one rainbow is not enough, we as humans, need constant reassurance of God’s promise? I know I do.

You saved the world, you preserved humanity, conserved nature, watched the world drown, and dead bodies float, the rain came, the boat rocked, and your body shivered and shook, you didn’t do it alone, you had your family perhaps your saving grace, perhaps your backbone to keep you standing, looking upward at the heavens waiting for the rain to come, waiting for God to fulfill His promises in your life, to use you to do impossible tasks, to use you to save us from our wicked desires, one righteous man stood and obeyed to save humanity from the tip of a mountain.

By Hyacinth Hale

*1 Poem Inspired by Genesis Chapters 6-10 of the NIV Bible