DAY 21- MINDY LABRANCHE
Day 21 – March 28, 2025
1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.
– Exodus 16:1-4a (NIV)
Wilderness
In October of 2019, we decided to drive from Huntsville to Magnolia, Arkansas, for a family wedding. Henry was 4 and Clara was 2 at the time.
We split the (alleged) eight-hour drive into two parts, making a long haul to Little Rock followed by the last two hours the following day.
We arrived in Little Rock late at night after the six-hour drive turned into a nine-hour drive due to bad traffic and the usual stops you have to make with kids that age.
The next morning, after visits to Heifer International Headquarters and a children’s museum, we again loaded up the car. We were feeling a bit suspicious of Google Maps’ claim it would take only two hours to complete the trip, including our planned lunch stop a little over an hour away in Fordyce, home of the Fighting Red Bugs (yes, it’s an actual mascot) and Paul “Bear” Bryant.
Not long after we pulled off the interstate and started zinging past the endless pines of central Arkansas, and after some grousing and Clara being fussy, Henry piped up from the back seat, “is this the wilderness?” and minutes later, “how much longer are we going to be in the wilderness?”
I’d like to say that we responded patiently and explained the plan for the rest of our route… but we didn’t. Instead, we responded with something about how short this part of the drive was and said not to ask again how long it was going to take. This, of course, did not improve matters. It led to some grumbling of the rather loud and sustained variety that toddlers have perfected until we found manna in the form of McDonald’s for lunch in Fordyce.
We eventually made it to Magnolia and back and we treasured the opportunity we had to see family we don’t often see. The long drive in the wilderness—and a few grumbles and tears—were just the cost of admission.
In the Bible, the wilderness is the setting not just of Jesus’ temptation, but where the Israelites wandered for 40 years, and where God spoke to Abraham, Moses, and Elijah.
You may define the wilderness as our son Henry (age 9) does as a peaceful place “closed off from the rest of the world” or as our daughter Clara (age 7) sees it as a place of nature and green and forests or as we so often experience it as the place between where we were comfortable and where we want to be. The wilderness is a powerful and sometimes painful place, but it is not a Godless place. May we draw near to God during our times of wandering in the wilderness.
A Joke from Henry: Why did the Israelites wander in the desert for so long?
Because Moses wouldn’t stop and ask for directions.
– Mindy LaBranche
Prayer: God, help us to embrace the wilderness and find solace in Jesus’ experience and God’s provision to the Israelites when we feel lost and alone. Amen.
