Reflections of a ex porn addict

I'm 32, a father of three and a reasonable husband.

At the age of around 12 I was introduced to the idea of masturbation in the changing rooms at school. In that boys-only world it was discussed and normalised, and then came the porn, a page 3 smuggled in, a magazine, it was the early 90's we hadn't dreamed of the net yet.

The quest of the boys was sexual experience, getting a girl to let you... Or do something to you. Love and romance was kind of involved, but basically it was about experience that made you cool, a man etc.

Also the experience had to be with an attractive girl, it didn't count as much if she was ugly. We hear worries about children being indoctrinated by religion or atheism or politics, but no one seems to care how views on sexuality are indoctrinated.

At 16 I became a disciple of Jesus, I chose to follow him, and whilst I wasn't truly discipled until a fair while later I learnt that sex was a bad thing before marriage, so as a typical Christian teen I drew a line. I put intercourse out of bounds and did everything but. Teen experimentation of alcohol, sex etc. purely harmless..? I was out for what I could get, females were a commodity to be exploited. But also there was an idealism; if I could get that one perfect girl to love me, to want to be with me, then that would make me complete.

So women in two categories, to be used or idolised.

I was growing up, so was the world, but I left the developed world and did a year out in Swaziland and whilst there I managed to find someone who would let me be physical with her, but for the first time it felt abusive, I was convicted that this wasn't good. This was also the first time I ever spent time without being subjected to TV, advertising and media, this may be a coincidence. I stopped masturbating that year.

From Swaziland to bible college, or bridal college, this rarified Christian world, full of judgements and rules (and where I was taught and lead and discipled and dealt with a lot of crap and fell in love with God again). A world where one aim was marriage, and fast, because we needed sex now! After two years I was one of three single guys in my year and the youngest by a decade. I did two things, found Internet porn and grabbed the nearest single girl I could find.

Back into the destructive cycle. I nearly married a girl who I didn't love and didn't respect or treat well, because I had to get married. I was in an accountability group, 3 guys who were like brothers to each other, but who response to masturbation was "don't do it!" Those guys did save me from a horribly bad marriage, and only then did I start a road to freedom.

In that moment of clarity where I ended the relationship and walked away I was given 20:20 vision. I saw the desperation for marriage for what it was, I saw that everyone chasing this was lacking a true sense of self and real relationship with a loving God. I relaxed, I walked away from the porn and the destructive need for a relationship and stopped looking at girls to complete me and answer my questions.

I didn't want sex or a relationship, no longer objectifying women, I thought I was free. But I'd only escaped the symptoms, not diagnosed the cause.

I went 6 months without looking at a girl as anything other than a sister or a friend. And then she walked in, a woman walked in and I couldn't stop my heart beating faster. I was gutted, my celibate, free life was undermined. I was so angry with her, how could she do this to me! I avoided her for 48 hours until I joined a common room conversation and we fell into a deep discussion, at 4am the conversation ended and I was in love. It took a couple of months before she felt the same way, but here I was. Free happy, on my way to marriage and freedom, sorted.

But whilst this was the second best thing that ever happened to me, I was still a mess. Now being stuck at a desk with a PC in a private room, with a sex life opened up and a wonderful wife who couldn't and shouldn't be the answer to all my questions of self I was through the looking glass and scared.

Big questions faced me, what could I achieve? could I provide? would I succeed? Life loomed large as I was ordained as a curate and started work, took on responsibility, had a father diagnosed with cancer and became a dad.

Porn was a constant backdrop, use, repentance, abstinence became a cycle. Telling virtually no one. Once opening up to my wife, being forgiven and then not being able to tell again when I fell back into the cycle.

Then I met a mentor, a great man, who was able to publicly name himself a porn-addict and who lived in a world of accountability. A spiritual father who I opened up to and had some answers. Who pointed me in the direction of answers to my brokenness, in a God who wanted to be my father, a God who was good and a healing that could really work. I applied accountability to my life, if I fell I would be caught.

But the Internet space race meant I found ways round it all. A huge personal disappointment meant I lost the freedom i had found and then plunged back in, I went deeper and worse, nearly lost my marriage.

I moved to become vicar of a new parish, with a baby son and bit off way more than I could chew. I became radical about my faith, lived it rather than talking it. In the course of this we fasted all physical pleasures for a month. I mean everything, we ate the plainest food, watched no screens, read no books, no sex, no games, no nothing. Just God to find pleasure in and verbal intercourse. It was amazing, God was so real, but an exhausting volcano was building towards eruption in my soul, all the inner sickness that lead to me need for and use of porn was on the rack and it needed to be killed or set free.

I arrived at a Christian conference in a different nation. And God undid me, I lay on the floor of a church for hours on end as he healed me. I had been working through issues with my father, walking some very hard yards with a dad who was slowly dying, and then I allowed my heavenly father in, to do heart surgery, to undo the hurts of my adolescence, to free me from the tyranny of the lies that I had been taught:

That women were a commodity,
That I needed to be sexually experienced to have self worth
That the amount my wife made love to me and the variety of it made me a man.
That I needed to succeed for God to like me.
That I God was in a bad mood with me and I needed to hide things from Him.
And many more.

I was free and full of bliss, with accountability and the weaponry to pull apart the bastion of lies that invade a man in our culture, I was free.

My marriage was pure bliss, I was living in heaven.

Then my father died.
This man I loved didn't make it, he let me down, God let me down and suddenly I was the
messed up little boy again, and again The addict went back to his cycle.

I now knew that brain needs an addict to get a bigger hit, so either you need to find a way into harder stuff or to live in a cycle of indulgence and denial. Abstinence makes the brain grow fonder, the serotonin hit more pleasurable, the downer more worth it. The cycle now included openness and repentance, my wife involved. But the cycle was back.

But now two years after my Dad died, I'm free.

One thing didn't do it, a combination did.
1. Women, I embraced female friendship. Sexless brotherly friendships.
2. I read and sought help, went through forgiveness and retrained my eyes not to look at a women in objectification. (Illusions of intimacy by Bodishbaugh)
3. I read an article, Article written by a porn "star", on the horrific abuse that was her daily existence, the tearing of her insides, both physically and emotionally and I couldn't stand to look at abused women as sex objects any more.
4. The lies of the porn industry were exposed by the Holy Spirit, I saw abuse as abuse, rape as rape, objectification as objectification, suddenly this was a justice issue.
5. I got free of guilt, Jesus had taken all my guilt, so I had none. Repentance became about identifying lies and overcoming, there was contrition, but not guilt, the addictscycle was broken.
6. Most importantly I realised I couldn't overcome my addiction, it was Impossible by human effort. I'd just replace one addiction with another. That the gospel of Jesus was not about anything but His work in me. That I could do all things in His strength if I stayed plugged into Him, if I surrendered to His work on my behalf, in Jesus on the cross, in Holy Spirit within and a Dad God who would welcome me to work my crap out on His knee.
7. Also I started to free myself of accountability software, this had helped with the physical addiction, but perpetuated the mental one. Accountability to true friends with no holds barred, who call out the greatness in me and know that Jesus Christ in me is the hope of glory has released me.

How do I know I'm free?
I've walked through, pain, disappointment, tiredness and distance from God and not fallen into my addiction. I've laughed at the idea and been revolted by the exploitation.

And I am free of the weight on my soul.
But I do have a burden, I have two small boys and a tiny daughter and I will fight and die to protect them from having to walk the road their father did.

Dave Hammond is a vicar in Nottingham and can be found on twitter at @DaveSavious

Esther and Jesus

Bellow is my preach on Esther and Jesus (All views my own!). I originally wrote and preached this before deciding that it was really very urgent to write a series of posts on Esther. However it does serve to provide a good introduction to what will follow. 

The relevant passage is: 

Esther 7:1-6

Esther’s Plea

Now the king and Haman came to drink wine with Esther the queen. ² And the king said to Esther on the second day also ^[a]as they drank their wine at the banquet, “^(A)What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? ^(B)Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done.” ³ Then Queen Esther replied, “^(C)If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; ⁴ for ^(D)we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, ^(E)to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the ^[b]trouble would not be commensurate with the ^[c]annoyance to the king.” ⁵ Then King Ahasuerus ^[d]asked Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, ^[e]who would presume to do thus?” ⁶ Esther said, “^(F)A foe and an enemy is this wicked Haman!” Then Haman became terrified before the king and queen.

Here's the audio:

Esther and Jesus

Here's the text:

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time there was a little girl called Anna. Anna was a philosopher, theologian, mathematician, lover of life and of people. Anna decided that everyone was born with bits of glass they got into the habit of slipping over their inner eye - the pieces of glasse said things like good bad nasty etc.

Dear Mr God this is Anna was given to me when I was 14 – it changed my life eternally. Thus is the power of narrative and story. As Merida says in Brave ‘legend’s teach us lessons’ about the world. Story is incredibly powerful for shaping the way we understand and live, it is the way we teach values and customs to children and a good childhood should be full of story.

And as adults we are surrounded by story. Story’s provide frameworks for us to understand the world. Many newspapers read much like fairy tales with the need to cast characters either as heros, victims, gods or monsters. Right now the most powerful god in our collective storytelling seems to be the market – but that’s for another preach!

So I want to talk about three things today, I want to talk about story, about coloured glass and about power.

When I first knew what I was preaching on I spent quite a bit of time thinking about Esther as a type of Jesus, but I didn’t feel I was getting very far and didn’t feel it was where the spirit was leading. We will look at it briefly, but I eventually realised that the topic I had been given was Ester and Jesus so, what I want to ask in this preach is what does it mean to read the book of Esther through Jesus tinted glass, which is actually not tinted at all but perfectly clear the only glasses through which we can see anywhere near clearly?

The danger if we do not read Esther through Jesus tinted glass is that we can get it very very wrong. You see story as well as being told can be miss-told. I love the fact that our holy scriptures come mostly in the form of story and that Jesus himself taught often in story, it gives it enormous power, but it also leaves it open to be horribly miss-told and Esther is definitely a book that has been horribly miss-told.

I was listening to a talk about women in leadership by David Westlake. He was going through the whole bible looking at evidence for women’s ability to lead (also known as right to experience full discipleship and humanity) when he got to Esther he asked the audience which Disney Princess Esther most reminded them of. He was making reference to the way this story is often romanticised. He then stated that Esther was like none of them since it was a story about sexual violence. In my head I thought – so quiet like sleeping beauty then?

You see where I would disagree with Anna, though it pains me, is that people are born with bits of glass, I am much more convinced about children being given them by adults and adults being given them by those in power and whoever is in power therefore gets to set the stories or narratives.

My feeling is that the last thing the world needs is another biblical interpretation from those in the powerful classes – this is why liberation theology is so powerful, we need interpretations of scripture from oppressed people if we are really going to discern its true narrative, the bible after all was not written for the powerful but predominantly by and for the oppressed.

I remember hearing the very great saint Desmund Tutu tell a joke about missionaries. He said when the missionaries came we had the land and they had the bibles, they said let’s pray, so we closed our eyes and when we opened them, they had the land and we had the bibles. But, he said it is a very dangerous thing to put a bible in the hands of those you are trying to oppress.

So even with our Jesus tinted spectacles on there are still a lot of different angles we could approach Esther from.  What I want to look at is power, how is power used and how does Jesus use power? Because the more I read Esther the more I thought this is a book about power.

Philipians 2:6-8

who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death –
        even death on a cross!

How does the world use power? I’ve recently come across a great word which is Kierarchy the term was coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza as an elaboration of patriarchy, derived from the Greek words κύριος or kyrios (lord or master) and ἄρχω or archō (to lead, rule, govern). The term was coined in But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation,

Basically it’s about living in a pyramid with the people at the top dictating everyone else’s experience and everyone fighting to have power over each other. Also in Kierarchy resources are not shared out equally and the people at the top who have control of the story telling, through newspapers, adverts and even children’s stories.

Often we are reminded about the need to understand the culture of a particular biblical text to properly interpret scripture and this is very true. But I’ve been massively struck recently however that sometimes it is the similarities between our experiences rather than the difference, that make biblical interpretation difficult. If you had a picture of a yellow triangle and a purple circle which would be easier to see against a yellow background? It is the kyerarchy around us that prevents us from accurately reading the bibles critique of such empire like attitudes to power.

In my world it also makes no sense to talk about sexual violence as if it were a thing of the past, as many biblical commentators seem to, and not something that is still endemic and epidemic in our society and also still justified and minimised. No I would suggest that in many ways Esther’s world is very very like our own.

Jesus was in very nature God but he never used that power in oppressive, self-promoting ways only ever in a life giving empowering way. His instructions to us are the same “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ ²⁶ But it is not this way with you, ^(C)but the one who is the greatest among you must become like ^(D)the youngest, and the leader like the servant.

So with that preamble lets look at Esther 7 verse 1 to 6.

1 Now the king and Haman came to drink wine with Esther the queen. ² And the king said to Esther on the second day also ^[a]as they drank their wine at the banquet, “^(A)What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? ^(B)Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done.” 

Now there is in the story of Esther clearly a lot of paralleling. But it is important that we accurately read the intended meaning of these parallels and not superimpose our own presumptions upon the text. This point in the story Esther who has been selected as queen because her beauty pleased the king has invited the king to a banquet. Now it would be very hard not to see the parallel’s with Vashti who refused to go to the king’s banquet to display her beauty which displeased the king. 

Now if we read this through our kierarchical lenses we might read all this as a biblical criticism of Vashti, justification for hierarchy in marriage and see Vashti in competition with Esther. I believe the text is structured to encourage us to compare the two women but not in a competitive way. There are many commentators who suggest the text implies Vashti is summoned to come wearing only her crown – but either way she is being objectified and asked to go into a room of drunk and powerful men. The comparison to Esther is not about which is the better wife but about us realising that in patriarchy all women experience objectification and oppression whether they are the queen or an orphaned girl from a despised ethnic minority. Also a comparison between the women’s behaviour as opposed to the situation they are both in is pointless as we do not know what Esther would have done in Vashti’s situation because she never was. The passage does not ask us to decide whether Vashti or Esther is a better wife, nor does Jesus, the commentators do.

So what can we learn when we read this through our Jesus tinted spectacles? Well Jesus treatment of women clearly displayed an attitude that viewed women as people – whole people. Something Xerxe and his advisors fail miserably at. And Jesus is very clear that we are not meant to lord it over people.

Both Vashti and Esther where in positions within the kyerarchy that afforded them very little power and made them very vulnerable to sexual violence. Each within that constraint broke the rules and practiced creative subversive non-violent resistance. Exactly the kind of subversion Jesus taught and practiced. When Jesus taught his disciples to turn the other cheek he was not teaching them to be doormats but to declare their humanity in the midst of oppression. If you hit someone with your right hand on their left cheek, and they would have hit with their right hand because the other was for other things, you would slap them on with the back of your hand as though they were an inferior. By turning your right cheek to them you are saying I am human I am your equal fight me as such. Jesus was not only God he was the most human human there ever was and he never ever took any action that diminished the humanity of another not even when everyone around him was attempting to strip him of his humanity. The temptation when we are experiencing oppression is to despise  our oppressor – often to the point that we become what we hate. But our ^(W)struggle is not against ^[e](X)flesh and blood, but ^(Y)against the rulers, against the powers, against the ^(Z)world forces of this ^(AA)darkness, against the ^(AB)spiritual forces of wickedness in ^(AC)the heavenly places.³ 

Therefore we must not fight as the world fights but like Esther AND Vashti find creative subversive forms of protest that usher in the transformative power of Shalom, of God’s rule.

Esther is often described as a type of Jesus and I believe she is. But again we must view this type through The Jesus. We must also remember not to stretch metaphor. I read a few things on line about Esther as a type of Jesus. Some of them where nervous of casting Esther as a type of Jesus because she was a women, others were happy to but then fished around to ascribe types to the other characters and ended up ascribing God the father to Xerxes – now I don’t know about you but I’m not entirely comfortable with my God being equated with a genocidal megalomaniac who institutionalises sexual violence, and these sort of interpretations often lead people to reject parts of scripture as ‘text’s of Terror.’ It is for the here now.

And does God offer us things on a whim because he’s had some nice food and thinks we look pretty as Xerxes did? I think Jesus’ life displays a much greater eternal offer that is not dependent on anything we do or how we look, nor does he offer us an empire or half to rule but a people to serve. And this is exactly what Esther does

Then Queen Esther replied, “^(C)If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; 

She does not use her little bit of power to gain lordship for herself, because she could have, she could have asked for half the kingdom or even Hamman’s head on a plate, which with our gospel tinted lenses I think we are meant to note. However she, having risked her life to gain this leverage, intercedes for her people. This is what we are meant to note that just as Christ though in very nature God did not consider equality to be grasped became obedient to the point of death. Esther having been offered equality with Xerxes did not grasp it but risked her life for the salvation of her people. Enjoy the beauty of the picture without stretching it out of shape.  

⁴ for ^(D)we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, ^(E)to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the ^[b]trouble would not be commensurate with the ^[c]annoyance to the king.” 

A true theology of suffering is hard to come by. I can’t say I have the answer but I do think there are several identifiable pitfalls. One of them is that it is not Christian for oppressed groups to stand up and make a noise about their suffering. We should chin up grin and bear it. I think one of the reasons this narrative has deeply imbedded itself in our psyche is that for far too long the dominant expositions of scripture we’ve had have been from the point of view of the powerful. Esther seems to be saying here that slavery should not trouble the king, but we know it troubles Jesus – his very purpose was that he came for the liberation of captives. We also know from the story that the king should be fully aware of the coming genocide – he signed it off. Esther’s statement is not saying that slavery doesn’t matter someone with Jewish heritage could never believe that. She is using the example of slavery to press the desperation of the situation and to pander to the kings ego. In a kyierarchy the king quickly becomes forgetful of the position of the least. But in the kingdom of God they will be first.

And slavery and oppression always kills because they are instituted by violence. Violence and the threat of violence is how you keep a group subservient. Again often I hear people talking about this kind of oppression as though it where only something that happens a long way away or a long time ago. Wake up and smell the coffee. People are dying – in this country in there thousands as a direct result of oppression. If you live on the left hand side of Holloway road your life expectancy is ten years greater than on the right. You can argue the details with me but ultimately there is no explanation but injustice.

Jesus came that we might have life and have it in its fullness. Fullness of life is only possible when we live in a world where there is fullness of life for everyone. Our humanity is caught up in one another’s humanity. Apathy towards another’s suffering is one of the most deadening things to the spirit. You cannot feel joy if you do not know how to feel sorrow.

As Mordaci pointed out to Esther her position would not help her escape we cannot be free while our kin suffer.

⁵ Then King Ahasuerus ^[d]asked Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, ^[e]who would presume to do thus?” 

King Ahasuerus can afford to be forgetful, he speaks from a place of privileged. The difficult thing about privilege is its invisible to those that have it. A Jew, even if they didn’t previously know Esther was a Jew would instantly know exactly what she meant and who she was talking about.

For the privileged, with their oppression filtering lenses and their entitlement complexes, fairytales and stories are either pure entertainments or the means of enforcing and maintaining their world view.

For the millions of women not being beaten by their partner 50 Shades of grey is just fiction. For all the theologians who have never experienced oppression and sexual violence Esther is a comment on another culture far removed from ours and we can afford to sanities and romanticise it through our interpretation. I can tell you now there are many young women in this borough for whom sexual violence and hareems are a daily reality, and there are young men struggling for their lives in heirrarchys trying to cling to a sense of humanity. And I can tell you that 50 shades is not fiction – it really happens to real people only without the happy ever after.

⁶ Esther said, “^(F)A foe and an enemy is this wicked Haman!” Then Haman became terrified before the king and queen.

Earlier I said that both Vashti and Esther had practiced non-violent resistance. I spent a while deciding whether this was the case for Esther – because Hamman comes to a pretty violent end. But the violence is the violence he meted out. Just to note that Esther’s latter request that the Jews be allowed to go on a killing spree I don’t think is an example of non-violent resistance. But here all she has done is expose the truth of who Hemman is.

You see the maintenance of kyerarchy is dependent on the maintenance of lies and deception, whereas the kingdom of God, the kingdom Jesus ushered in is established by the search for truth. It’s a dangerous and lonely place at the top – or even near the top. Mugabe would be a modern day example.

Who saw the Paralympic opening ceremony? Who saw what the athleats did with their lanyards? The tape that held there badge? There was a lot of speculation on twitter that they had deliberately hidden it. Atos the main sponsor of the paralympics has the government contract for assessing disability living allowance and many people have been documenting thousands of cases of people who have died with one of the main contributing factors being loss of DLA. Atos like Hamman went to an event for publicity it seriously backfired for Hamman. I’m prepaid to put my neck out and say I hope it seriously back fires for atos and am in full solidarity with the many protests planned over the next few weeks.

It is not only those with disability who are suffering at the moment, there has been a rise in homelessness and resulting death, there will be increasing segregation in access to healthcare, more children suffering and dying as a result of abuse and neglect and it is only going to get worse unless we have a significant radical and serious change in the story being told and lenses through which we see the world. Austerity is a lie there is more than enough money – it’s just in the wrong place. 

The political classes at the moment are telling a dangerous story and we must answer it with a better more powerful story.

I know its not very fashionable to be so critical, especially in such a basic way, but where would we be if people had never preached against slavery. There are some truly oppressive and evil things in our world today and if we read Esther through Jesus tinted lenses we will find a stark account of the evil in the world, realise that no one wins anything of value by playing the kierarchy game, and that just as Jesus did we must join the ranks of those who practice non-violence which puts you in total head on opposition of Kierarchy and empire like use of power because it calls you to be a servant of all. This may seem to make no sense but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.

There are different levels of privilege in this room but whatever privilege or power you do have learn the lessons of the book of Esther, don’t allow it to blind you like Xerxes or callous you like Hamman. Refuse to have power over anyone but use your power for; For the ushering in of God’s Kingom, for the liberation of people, for the intercession on behalf of the oppressed before the powerful, for the bringing about of God’s Shalom. We will never not be living in the clash between kyeriarchy and justice until Jesus returns. Just yesterday the EDL were out in Walthom forest facing collective resistance from united against fascism.

And though you may feel afraid as Esther did of the possible consequences of opposing colossal power, chose like she did to oppose oppression and your life will be all the richer and more human. God’s perfect love drives out all fear. 

Noah and the Ark (not the boat)

I guess you've heard the story of Noah and the Ark? The one with all the animals and the big boat? Well this is not that story. It is a story about someone called Noah and about an Ark and its also a story from the bible.

The Noah in this story was born in a tent in the middle of the desert. She had one older sister and eventually three younger sisters, so it was probably quiet a big tent she lived in. Noah was part of a group of people called the Israelites who all lived in tents. If you've ever been to a camp-site you'll know what a field of tents looks like well this was a desert of tents.

Right in the middle of all the tents was a very special tent, it was the tent of meeting. Noah loved to scrunch up on her daddy's lap and listen to stories of how Yahweh the God of  the Israelites, the one who had made a special promise to Abraham, their great-great-great-great and lots more greats grandfather, had rescued them from Egypt where they had been slaves, stories of how He had made the sea split in half and how he had given Moses their leader the laws for them to live by. 

But Noah's favourite stories were the ones about the special tent. She loved hearing how it had been built about all the special instructions and  most of all she liked to hear about the Ark, a special wooden box where all God's law's were kept and above which God's presents rested, it was here that Moses went to talk to God. 

Above the tent of meeting hovered a cloud at day and a pillar of fire at night. Noah liked to peak out of her tent at night and just stare at it, a constant reminded that God was there living right in the middle of them. Sometimes the cloud or pillar of fire would move and then the whole community would know it was time to get going. It was quiet a thing to see everyone packing up their tents and then all marching off behind the cloud. 

Noah knew that one day all this wandering about would stop, God had promised to give them a home in a land full of good things like milk and honey. Noah wasn't sure what it would be like to live in a house but she reckoned it sounded pretty good.

While they were wondering in the desert Noah's father grew old and died. Noah and her sisters where very sad, they loved him dearly and they had already lost their mother years before. That night Noah stared out of her tent at the pillar of fire above the tent of meeting, it comforted her to think that her and her sisters where not alone.  Soon she thought we will get to the promised land. 

A few months latter Noah had just returned from collecting the manna, the food God provided each day on the ground (I bet you don't get your food from collecting it from the ground), she saw her older sister Mahlah shouting angrily at a man outside their tent. As she came close she heard her sister say 'so what, we don't count?' the man looked a bit nervous as Mahlah stared at him with her fierce expression 'um er no' he muttered and hurried off. 'What's the matter?' asked Tirzah coming out of the tent. 'They are counting all the people over twenty to divide up the promised land' replied Mahlah still looking very angry. 'But you are more than twenty' said Tirzah 'So am I' Noah added. 'But we're not men' sighed Mahlah now in a quiet and saddend voice, 'so we don't count'. 

Noah's two other sisters Hoglah and Milcah had joined them now and the sisters sat down on the ground and wondered what to do. 'If we have no land we will be worse off than in the desert, at least here we can gather manna' said Hoglah. 'One of us will just have to marry someone really rich' said Milcah. Noah could see Mahlah was looking very angry again. 'Yahweh will look after us' She piped up quickly. 'How?' asked Tirzah 'What can he do?' 'He can do anything' replied Noah. 'What we need to do is to go and tell Moses how unfair this is.'

'Are you mad?' Said Hoglah 'Did you not see what happened to the last people who challenged Moses? They got swallowed up by the ground.' 

'They weren't challenging Moses' replied Noah 'they where challenging God who had appointed him and Aaron. We are just asking a question, were just asking why our family name should die out?' 

The sisters looked at each other, they could see resolution in each others eyes, they knew they were all thinking of their mother beaming across at them as they sat to eat, saying 'my girls, my strong girls'. 

They got up without a word and walked off to the tent of meeting. As they approached the entrance Noah started to feel a bit nervous, and her conviction and determination waned. Moses was stood there and Eleazar the priest in all his finery and all the leaders of Israel. These were the most powerful people in the land. She swallowed hard and looked up at the cloud hovering above the tent of meeting, the tent were God's law was kept in the Ark, and above which God's presence sat. Yahweh is good, Noah told herself and his law is good. 

Silence fell among the leaders as the five sisters approached. 'Our father has died' Noah found herself saying, not knowing where the confidence came from 'He didn't rebel along with Korah against the Lord, but died as everyone dies, however he had no sons , so his name will die out. Give us property among our fathers relatives.'

Noah could feel the angry eyes of the leaders glaring at her and heard them gasp as she spoke but Moses was looking kindly at her and said 'I will bring this case before the Lord'. He turned and went into the tent of meeting. 

Everything was very quiet Noah could hear her heart beating, she felt a hand slip into hers and looked down to see her youngest sister Tirzah looking up at her and biting her lip. Noah tried to imagine Moses in front of the Ark asking God and hoping that she was right about the outcome. After a while Moses came back out. Noah tock a deep breath. 'What the daughters of Zelophehad are right'. 

Noah and her sisters didn't hear much else of what Moses said, they were too overjoyed to listen and there was too much murmuring and outcry from all the other leaders for them to hear. They went home that night, excited again about entering the promised land and all five of them went to sleep peeping out their tent at the pillar of fire.

So if anyone ever tells you that God doesn't want you to do things or have things or that you don't count because your a girl or because your small or for any other reason you tell them this story and you tell them that God said that the daughters of Zelophehad were right. And if anyone ever asks if you've heard the story of Noah's Ark you can ask them which one, and remind them that there are lots and lots and lots of stories in the bible and that they are all important.