Bitter to sweet

You pick a shiny plump satsuma from the fruit bowl, carefully peel it, including that fiddly bit taking off the pith, pop a segment in your mouth and UGH, it is disgusting! What you expected to be sweet turns out to be bitter.

Life can be like that. Relationships can turn sour. Jobs disappoint. Someone dies.

When God’s people wandered in the wilderness, they relied on finding streams and wells to drink. No taps and no bottled water for them. After 3 days without water, they were fiercely thirsty. At last, they found a stream, took a gulp and to their horror, it was foul. Instead of sweetness, bitterness. They called the place Marah, which means bitter.

Understandably, they complained to the management. They told Moses and this is the hinge of the story. Moses cried out to God and God gave him a bizarre direction. God told Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water. Moses obeyed and the foul water became fresher than the purest mineral water. The bitter became sweet.

Recently, I wrote about Naomi, who lost her husband and two of her sons. She called herself Marah. Imagine introducing yourself, “Hello, I am Bitter”.  She didn’t end that way. God doesn’t just change water or situations from bitter to sweet, he changes people too.

How does he do this in our lives? We are given not just one but two pieces of wood, nailed together on a cross, to cast into the bitter places in our lives. We are given the utterly committed, undeserved, sacrificial love of God for us. When we absorb that, the bitter becomes sweet.

I spoke on these two stories of Marah the place, and Marah the person, in prison last week and many women responded asking for prayer, asking God to change the bitter to sweet in their lives. I am so thankful for your prayers for that ministry.

Praise God who turns the bitter to sweet.