Remember Lot's wife

The command was clear not to look back.
The exit was secure, vast and endless possibilities lie stretched ahead. Sure-footed her family rushes ahead of her. Yet, at that very moment her feet find it all the more difficult to carry her heavy heart into the unchartered, yet promising territory. Behind her she hurriedly left behind more than a piece of her life. She left behind precious possessions that took her entire lifetime to collect. Not only the precious stones and ornamental jewels of gold, but “things” or “baggage” she carried with her for years on end. Her mind rushes back to the day she married the love her youth and to the pains she experienced at the birth of her beautiful young daughters. She remembers the day she and her family parted ways with cousin, Abraham and how they found their own little niche. Slowly but surely they became fully integrated with the new culture.

Now her mind tells her to press ahead, but her heart echoes sounds of murmur and loss. In the meantime her husband and two daughters forge ahead without realizing that her footsteps were not keeping up with theirs. And then in a fleeting moment while her mind and her heart continue their raging war, she motions her head in the direction of her past life. As soon as her head turned degrees to the direction of her past her stained-glass blue eyes turned a dark shade of grey losing its twinkling luster. The crimson blood that rushed through her veins immediately froze and her joints turned stiff and motionless. Not even the gentle breeze of the Ancient Near East could move the modest dress she wore. It looked as starched as the ashen complexion of the pillar of salt she had become. The love that once refrained through the chambers of her merry heart became a hollow sound of nothingness. No one would ever remember her laughter in future or the fact that she had been such a gifted cook. They would only remember her as Lot’s wife, a woman who lost her name, her influence over her family and her position in society. She will only be remembered as the woman who turned into a pillar of salt simply because she looked back.

Often we get trapped in the complexities of life, constantly becoming embroiled in the arguments of yesterday, the voices calling us constantly back into history to recoil on the past, the poison wanting to entrap us and turn the life rushing through our veins into powdered residue of our true potential. As long as we look down, look back we cannot see the waving welcoming hand of opportunity calling us into undiscovered territories. Others pass us daily, their footsteps moving further away from us. In their haste to get ahead in life they smile at us, laugh at their progression, while we become stuck in things. The kind of things that stunt our growth and make of us people who have lost our joy for life. Life without our “things” can be difficult at times, but a meaningless life is far worse. A life where accumulating “things” on the journey of life become more important than the ones we love or the One we ought to adore is nothing more than a monument of salt which aptly displays the lack of the true meaning of life…