The octogenarian dancer

When she was only a little girl, she had been part of laying the foundation for the amazing victory that they now experienced. As a tiny child, she had tiptoed along the river bank, pushing the reeds aside and splashing through the water as she kept her eyes on the floating basket that held her baby brother. That little girl who watched the Egyptian princess lifting Moses out of the River Nile, and who shared a word of wisdom that led to Moses spending his earliest years being nursed by how own mother, has now lived long enough to see her brother fulfil his destiny and be instrumental in leading the people of Israel away from their oppression in Egypt. After a lifetime of slavery, now in her eighties, Moses' sister Miriam is finally on the other side of the Red Sea and has just witnessed the destruction of the enemy that pursued them. No wonder this octogenarian bursts into a song of praise and begins to lead the other women in a victory dance.

Exodus 15 verse 20 calls her, "Miriam the prophet" - the first time since childhood that we read anything about where Miriam was at spiritually. She's in her eighties, she hasn't had an easy life, and her prayers for deliverance have seemingly gone unanswered for decades. But none of that has stopped this woman from holding on to the Lord and growing into a "prophet" - someone who knows how to hear the voice of God.

There's an old axiom that says the hard things in our lives either make us bitter or they make us better. After a whole lifetime of slavery and oppression, Miriam could easily have turned into a bitter old woman who was angry at God and resentful about the circumstances of her life. Instead, she has turned into an octogenarian who knows the Lord and who worships Him wholeheartedly with song and dance.

In the video clip that I attached to yesterday's post, they may not have made Miriam look like a woman in her eighties. (Exodus 7:7 tells us that Moses was eighty and Aaron was eighty three when all this happened.) But the words of her song tell us something of the faith that sustained her through eight long decades in captivity: "Many nights we prayed, with no proof anyone could hear…"
With no proof initially… and yet Miriam chose to keep on praying. It's in the absence of objective proof, that faith kicks in…. and faith that endures prepares the way for miracles in answer to our prayers.