When Bob first talked about wanting to go to the Holy Land, I only saw it as a "tourist" trip, and this held no interest for me. But as the time draws closer, it has taken on a whole different meaning. It is as though God is drawing me there to meet me there and I can hardly wait to get there. Yesterday I had the privilege of praying with a woman on the phone who was dealing with some tough issues in her past. When God reached down and touched her soul with truth about His love for her in places where there had been, just moments before, darkness and lies about who she was, she experienced great peace and joy. So too, if God is truly drawing me to Jerusalem, Galilee,...to the land of Israel... I am so expectant of what blessings he also has in store for me and for those I love and serve when I return.
As I learn to juggle the beginning of a very busy 2nd year in Real Estate and Bob and I prepare for our Pilgrimage to Israel to celebrate our anniversary, I'm also thinking about my children and grandchildren and each of their lives. When you go so far away, you always wonder if you will come back safely and your thoughts go to the special ones in your lives.
When we first begin our journey as mothers we are dealing with the immediacy of the moment...the 9 months of pregnancy, the labor, the delivery, diapers, nursing. There is very little time to contemplate that these precious children, and their children, will be a part of the rest of our lives. Just this past week in our family, Elena still struggled with her pneumonia and Maria with her concussion, Ena celebrated her 6th birthday, Maeve and Michael prepare for their First Holy Communion, our Anne moves toward some changes in her life, Katie gets her hair all fixed up for her prom, Robert works hard in his new job position, Christine and Bobby prepare to move, and Father Jonathan came home for a visit.
And when I think about my children and those I love, and leaving them for a short time, I think about those that lost their lives in the Boston Bombing. They were somebody's children, somebody's friend, someone's loved one. I will start our Pilgrimage of Thanksgiving to the Holy Land, offering my dread of flying over the ocean for so many hours, for these families, thinking of them, imagining their losses and reaching out to them in prayer from my heart.
We will only be gone for 12 days..just a little bit more than a week and a half...you will hardly notice that I am gone...life will keep moving on as normal...but for me, and for Bob, and for the other Pilgrims, something meaningful and profound is about to happen. I still have to pack my bags...and oh so many things left to do. But, like my friend on the phone, we don't really even have to pack our bags and travel so many hours across the ocean for that meaningful and profound to reach our doorsteps, our hearts. God is outside of time and place and will find us wherever we are.
On Monday morning I'll be walking on the ground where the History of our Faith is rooted...wow...the privilege of a lifetime. I want God to take root in my heart in a new and deeper way while I'm away. I want to experience walking with Jesus on his road to Calvary, being in the area where he was born in Bethlehem, seeing with my eyes the sky he walked under, the heat he felt and reliving the Gospels. I want to see first hand, the promised land, the Jewish Homeland.
Israel...Here we come! God, I'm planning on meeting you in Jerusalem!
