Until the day that Honeycomb cereal was on sale. Mom bought 5 boxes. The big boxes. The first week of feasting on Honeycomb was awesome. Somewhere into the second week, my sister and I looked at each other and weakly grinned.
"Mom, can we have a different cereal. Please?"
"No, you girls need to finish the Honeycomb first."
Somewhere into the third week, I considered paying my sister to eat my portion. Even she, the mercenary, wouldn't bite. The money offer that is. She was still chewing on her 22nd bowl of golden hexagonal curses.
We couldn't even celebrate when the first box was finished because four more nagged for our attention. The whining and wailing began on a different note.
"We hate Honeycomb cereal, Mom. Please don't make us eat it anymore."
"You girls nagged me for this cereal, and now you're going to finish it. I will not buy another type of cereal until this stuff is finished."
I don't remember how old we were when the last box was finished, but I clearly remember a child's vow to never eat Honeycomb cereal again. Ever.
Studying the whining and wailing of the Israelites over their cravings of meat reminded me of this childhood trauma. Numbers 11:18-20,
Tell the people: Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, 'If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!' Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month--until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it--because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, 'Why did we ever leave Egypt?"
They craved meat and the Lord answered their craving with the judgment it deserved. Matthew Henry put it this way, "God often grants the desires of sinners in wrath, while He denies the desires of His own people in love."
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