Israel

TO amble the ancient streets of Jerusalem where Jesus walked

TO walk along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which waves the Son of God once rode.

TO cruise on a boat the sea where Jesus calmed a storm.

TO breath in the perfumed air of the Junes of Jerusalem and think that the Son of God breathed in the same scents, enjoyed seeing the same amalgamation of colors and textures, and perhaps marveled too, as I did, at the deep purple pompoms of the Globe Thistle that grow amidst the yellow-dryness of the semi-steppe shrub-lands. 

TO roam the old streets crammed with the ghost of the small fishing village of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee and enter the site where Jesus' synagogue had once stood.

TO see with the eye of your heart the woman who had an issue of blood, see the desperation in her eyes, the hope, and see how she pushes out the multitude trying to reach up to her only hope, and then touch Jesus' garments. For she had said, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

TO stand outside Peter's home and see where his mother in law had laid ill on a long ago hot summer's day. 

TO see her serving her Master who only a few minutes before had restored her to perfect health.  TO see her by her daughter preparing bread for Jesus and his disciples over her saj.  The rounded metal disk placed over an open fire.  She flours and flattens the dough on a breadboard, then throws it from side to side until the dough is thinned into a flap of dough, which she then places onto the saj and let brown on each side.  They are preparing the blintzes, or Jewish crepes, and she insists in making some knish too—a sort of flour dumplings stuffed with mashed potato and onion, kasha and cheese, because very well she knows they're Peter's favorites, and she has seen how much Jesus enjoy them. 

TO go down the rocky steps just a few feet from the house to the Sea of Galilee, the path that peter and Jesus may had taken many a time, and to the fisherman's boat being rocked away by the lapping of gentle waves somewhere down there. 

TO see Jesus approached Matthew while he was collecting taxes at a certain spot in Capernaum, and hear him say “Follow me.” 

TO stroll the Garden of Gethsemane and yearn with all my heart I was the Shepard of Jesus' garden, where ancient olive tree roots date 1,000 to 2,000 years and where Jesus agony settled humanity's fate.  It was in Gethsemane that “the Lord... laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  There [God’s Son] bore all my guilt, this through grace can be believed; but the horrors which He felt are too vast to be conceived. None can penetrate through thee, doleful, dark Gethsemane! None can penetrate through thee, doleful, dark Gethsemane! 

Then I'm Mary Magdalene at the tomb of her Lord.  Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept.  I too wept, but it was a different kind of tears.  “Woman, why are you crying?” , The two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been asked her.  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” I cried not out of the sense of losing Jesus, but on his victory over death.  His tomb is empty.  He is not here! What miracle, what sign is this that tells of death and terror past?  Look up my soul, and faith take root and grow: My Lord and Savior lives! I know . . . I know. 

TO find Jesus in the faces of the natives and believe I had found Him.

TO see and walk ancient places where the skeletons of biblical cities still stands today for whomever wants to see, and believe.

TO meet people you never knew they existed and strengthen bonds between old friends. 

TO listen to your husband speak on the Beatitudes before our group on that same mountain overlooking the Galilee Sea, just as Jesus did long ago before him and imagining the multitudes climbing up the slopes in masses as they were looking for the Christ under the same heat we endured and the same blue skies.

TO stand in front of what was the courtyard of the high priest Caiaphas where Peter denied Jesus and hear a rooster from a neighboring house craw right at that precise moment.  And I'm transported to that terrible night as I sat in front of the fire by Peter and the servant girl who saw him seated there in the firelight and upon looking closely at him had said, "This man was with him." But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said.

TO see the steps that Jesus trod on the evening of his arrest—the stepped street which in ancient times would have descended from Mount Zion to the Kidron.

TO eat wonderful Middle East and Mediterranean food, wear beautiful lacey veils and dazzle in long sequin skirts in streets where the unusual is the norm. 

To listen to the Shofar calling for the beginning of another Sabbath, to sing and dance with the woman of Israel by the Wailing Wall and rest assured that the Messiah had already come, gone and is soon to come again. 

So many wonderful, inspiring, precious memories were made these past few weeks.  I am forever grateful for another dream come true.  My heart is overflowing with thanksgiving and praises.  Visiting Christ's land while on earth and trotting the places where he once lived and performed his miracles is yet another miracle in the live of those who can experience it.   

I am now back to my little world and our quiet country everyday life.  There are things happening in my life right now concerning my ageing parents that are pressing on my heart with force, but I have brought with me a renewed faith, and I'm placing my trust and cares on the hands of that very Jesus who once lived on earth and was raised from his tomb to remind us that all is well.  It is well... it is well with my soul...