What's Her Name??

I spent a lot of time with my oldest daughter Carrie this past weekend, and we had some good conversations, especially when my daughter-in-law Amanda joined in our chats. At one point, Carrie was reminiscing about the days when her 7-year-old was a toddler suffering from acid reflux. Nothing seemed to soothe him, and on top of the demands of a crying baby, she had a big dog to take care of. The dog, Sandy, lived inside the house and was forever shedding hair and bumping into things.


At another time during the weekend, Carrie talked about what a breeze it was to pack for only one person for the weekend trip: herself. Anyone who’s ever had a family knows that taking a vacation with them can be stressful, especially when it comes to purchasing the appropriate clothes and making sure everything is laundered and packed. If the vacation involves camping, well then there’s the additional challenge of meal planning and food purchasing.

What has all of this to do with one of Eve’s sisters? Plenty! Although this woman in the Bible goes unnamed, I’ve lately begun to think a lot about her. What was Noah’s wife’s name, and how in the world did she do the planning, packing, and preparation needed for the time on the ark? It rained for 40 days, right? And then they were on the ark an additional 150 days waiting for the water to recede enough for them to leave the ship. In my wildest dreams (or nightmares), I cannot imagine such an ordeal.

For starters, what did Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives eat for 40 days? And how did they prepare it? There were no microwaves! Would cooking over a fire be too dangerous? Did they bathe? Did Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law wash clothes? If so, how? What did the animals eat? Incidentally, I read a guesstimate that suggested as many as 45,000 animals were aboard the ark! Geez Louise! Can you imagine the stench?! When Carrie was talking about her dog Sandy, we both talked about the “dog smell.” Although he was frequently bathed, Sandy smelled like the dog he was, and as mentioned above, he shed all over the place. He didn’t have many “accidents” since he was trained, but what if he’d been living on an ark and unable to go outside for a walk?

To add to the 45,000 animals on the ship with you for months, think about what you’d do all day everyday. It’s not as though they were reading or watching television or playing with a Wii. I suspect that everyone aboard was working to take care of the animals. How did they even know night from day? I think I read that there was a window, but still….but still. For 40 days and 40 nights, it’s raining like crazy, and you can’t really see outside. Plus, it’s probably pretty smelly inside, and all you get to do is work.

Before I get too carried away with this, I’ll just say that my lifestyle is one of incredible ease compared to that of this unnamed woman who probably worked just as hard as he did  to make the whole “Noah’s Ark” experience successful. While there are millions of women who care for animals, live in areas where there are monsoons, and live lives of drudgery, I can think of nowhere in the world where they endured what Noah’s wife and her daughters-in-law did.