New Jerusalem

On the top left is the memorial garden for those Gentiles who helped the Jews during WWII.  On the top right is the Dead Sea scrolls museum.  The scrolls are under this structure, which is supposed to look like the end of a scroll.  The rest of the pictures are a large-scale model of Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Romans.  I also went to the Holocaust museum there but pictures were not allowed.  It is a solemn, quiet place, full of pictures and objects about the horrors that the Jew suffered during WWII.  I never cease to learn something new of the terrors that happened then.  It never seems to end.  I don't get the whole anti-Semite thinking.  Even now, they continue to be targeted, like that synagogue shooting last week in CA.  It's like there are people that think the Jews have no right to live.  That is crazy thinking.

I took lots of pictures of the model, even though I didn't know what I was looking at, except for the last one, that is a picture of the Temple.  Now only the Western wall remains.  Again, it is anti-Semite thinking, it seems, to cause the Romans to destroy this town.  When will it ever end for them?  

Bethlehem

The top pictures are of the Shepherd's Fields and the church that was built there.  Again, I don't know if these are the actual fields that the shepherds heard the angels proclaim the birth of Jesus.  The church had wonderful acoustics as we sang a song, I think Amazing Grace.  

This church in Bethlehem is the supposed spot of Jesus' birth.  You can touch the stone upon which he laid, which is surrounded by a star, as in the picture on the top left.  Constantine's mother, Helena, found this spot, along with the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.  I was reminded of this when I watched last week's episode of Destination Unknown, on the Travel Channel.  I was also reminded that Bethlehem is in the West Bank, which is Palestinian territory, so we had to go through a check point.  It was unremarkable, we just cruised on through.  There are so many young Jewish soldiers carrying big guns in Israel that you get used to it.  All Jews have to join the military for a few years, except the extreme orthodox ones, they have an exemption.  

A friend told me that all people who visit Israel are blessed there.  I did feel blessed there.  I was happy all the time.  Granted, I was worried throughout the trip as well about various things, but I survived them all and felt a part of something bigger, as I was on a tour.  But I was also among the many who visited Israel.  I have yet to meet anyone who hated their trip there.  And I have met people who hated their trips to various places.  So many Israel is a blessed place.  

Old Jerusalem

Church of All Nations

We spent a half day in Old Jerusalem, but it was quite a trek.  Up and down hills and stairs, all around winding streets like a maze.  This top picture is supposedly where Jesus agonized over his impending death in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This church was put over that spot.  I am not sure who determined that was the spot.  But it various churches throughout the centuries have decided what happened where and have built a church throughout the landscape of Israel, especially in Old Jerusalem.  Which is whee the Via Dolorosa is located as well.  The Via Dolorosa is the way of the cross, where Jesus was condemned to his tomb.  There are 14 stations of the cross, and I have only a few pictures here as it was so busy and crowded that it was difficult to stop and take a good picture.  

#2-Chapel of the Flagellation

#4-Jesus Meets His Mother

#5-Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

#7-Jesus Falls for the Second Time

#10-14-Church of the Holy Sepulcher

I had taken pictures inside the Holy Sepulcher, but they were blurry.  Before we got there I stopped and bought a delicious and nutritious pomegranate juice, and even though I had finished it by the time we got to this last stop, there were no garbage cans around.  So I dutifully carried it inside and attempted to take pictures with one hand.  Thus,. there are no good pictures of inside due to want of a rubbish bin.  I later realized that there were no garbage cans anywhere, yet it was relatively clean.  They must clean the areas often, for I saw people leave their rubbish here and there.  Even so, you can go into this church and touch the rock where Jesus was crucified and the rock where He was buried.   

Western Wall

This is what is left of the Great Temple.  Jews come here to pray and stick little bits of paper inside with their prayers on them.  I did that too.  It looks bigger than the picture, it is also behind that structure.  Men and women are separated here, I don't know why.  This was the most meaningful part of my day.  I'm not sure why, I guess the other sites I don't know what archaeological evidence there is that that is the spot.  I do believe the Bible, but I don't know enough about the evidence. I guess the point is not that that matters, but whether it is meaningful to people, and to know that Jesus was here, and we are walking where Jesus walked.  I liked the Western Wall because I can see and feel the evidence that the Temple was there 2000 years ago.  

Israel

A few weeks ago I went to Israel.  I had wanted to go for a long time, and I finally got up the gumption to get up and go during our Polar Vortex we had in late January.  This was a trip of how God took care of me.

I was worried about so many things.  I feared a snowstorm on the way there, and since I had a layover in Canada, I feared a snowstorm there as well.  There were no storms.  I worried about being on the plane, I always do.  The most nerve wracking parts for me are the takeoff and landing.  But all was smooth.  I worried about the flight (12 hours!), but even though I didn't sleep, I kept myself busy watching movies with closed captioning (yay!) and reading my book.  A special bonus: in Canada: while I  was enjoying my Starbucks, I met 2 couples who were also going to Israel, and they were from the Moorhead area, where I went to college!  Small world.

I worried about the first day, since there was nothing planned on the tour.  But I met some nice, friendly people on the tour and had lunch with them at the hotel.  I worried about my sleeping pills, if they would actually help.  But they did.  I worried about the wrist brace I bought for my sore wrist to use when I was in bed.  But it helped too.  It helped so much I kept using it since I've been home.  

The first day we went to the Dead Sea.  It was the weirdest experience I ever had.  I felt like a cork, I literally could not sink.  But it was not relaxing.  I can't float normally, so it was scary.  But I met some more nice, friendly people on my tour.  And God took care of me.  

We also went to Masada, which was the last place the Jews were overtaken by the Roman Empire at 70 A.D.  We took a cable car to the top of the mountain, where Herod had built a fortress 2,000 years ago.  Here the Jews committed mass suicide instead of being enslaved by the Romans.  We had a great tour guide who taught us so much I wish I could remember.  Nevertheless, it was a lot of climbing up and down and all around the fortress.  But God still took care of me.  

The Struggle is Real

I finished watching my "The Struggle is Real" videos by Nicole Unice.  She talked about trust, which I addressed last week.  I said I have a hard time trusting in God's love for me.  I have no doubts about His existence, but I don't feel His love.  Now that I think of it, I feel as if I am deranged.  How can I doubt Him when He has proven His love for me time and time again?  How much more does He have to do for me to get it?  

Nicole also said, "our past impacts our future but it doesn't have to direct our future."  That is so true.  Just because something happened in the past, it doesn't mean it will happen again.  And if it does, so what?  I survived it then and I will survive it now.  

Word have such power, and even the tone of such words.   What I say to myself in my heart comes out in my words to the world.  So even though I think no one can read my thoughts, maybe they can in a way.  I wonder about that, if people can read my thoughts.  Not in a clairvoyant way, or a paranoid way.  But I know I do not have a poker face.  I have been thinking about that, and thinking I need to clean up my thoughts, and have a more loving attitude towards my fellow man.  As I always say, it is so much easier to be judgmental but it is so hard to be loving.

Sometimes I think I doubt God's love because things don't always go my way, or bad things happen.  But that's life.  And God can use those things, if nothing else, to teach us what really matters in life.  And that is people.  

On a personal note, I think I have ulnar impaction syndrome, where my ulnar, the bone on the side of the pinky, is longer than the radius, the bone on the side of the thumb, and it rubs against the wrist bones.  We've tried everything else so I think surgery is next.  I have to wait until the end of this month to find out what!  But the good news is I'm going to Israel next month!  I've always wanted to go, but never got around to it.  The polar vortex last week sent me over the edge and got me off my butt.  

Struggle

I like this picture.  The dog is cute, and it looks as confused as I do about life in general.

I am reading a book called "The Struggle is Real" by Nicole Unice.  It talks about how we struggle daily in our lives between the ideal and reality.  I know I do.  I want things to be ideal but I live in the real.  We struggle because we don't have wisdom, which the Bible says comes from believing in God; believing that He is all-powerful.  I have to make a choice of whether I am going to believe God is omnipotent or not.  This choice is a choice between life and death.  There is no hope if I am not going to believe in God.  All the things in this world can't give me what I really want, what I really need.  And that is life. 

I have a hard time accepting and feeling God's love for me. I know He loves me intellectually, but most of the time I don't feel it.  But I know it is me that stands in the way of His love.  I have a wall of mistrust that stands between Him and most people on earth.  And if I want to have life, I have to let those walls fall down.  I know the truth of the Bible, but has it transformed me?  In some ways it has.  Although I still struggle with mistrust, I no longer hate the world or feel like the word owes me. 

I have a hard time forgiving myself.  I have forgiven some people in my life; it helps to try to understand things from their perspective. Finally, God has set me free from condemnation,  for as it says in the Bible, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  

This is what I have reflected on so far from this book.  On another note, I hate this feeling of being in limbo, of living in pain and having to wait for the cortisone shots to kick in, and of having to wait for another job to add to my existing one.  I know I need to be thankful, but sometimes it is hard to be patient!  I guess that's why I am so hard on myself, why I press myself so much.  I can't relax, and if I see a problem I want to fix it.  But there are some things I can't fix, many things actually.  And I will have to choose to trust the One who made me.  

Love

As you can see I finished my painting and got it framed.  In case you forgot, beloved is what my name, Amy, means.  I used to hate my name until I found out what it meant. I think I thought it was too boring.  

I have been thinking about love lately.  I have been thinking about how spiritual gifts, ones that are listed in  the Bible, are bestowed on us through the Holy Spirit.  I used to think that my gifts were for me.  But later I learned that the gifts are for others.  They are a way for us to love God and others.  It reminds me of those verses in the Bible, in I Cor. 13, of how these gifts are great to have and use, but if love isn't in the center of them, then they are useless.  

I also thought about encouragement.  It is so easy to be negative sometimes, I know it is for me.  I often think negative thoughts, and sometimes speak negative words.  And I regret them now.  I know that a negative word is as intense as surgery without anesthesia.  But a positive word is like a sunny day or a hot bath.  It has been said that it takes so many positive words to counteract one negative one.  That is so true.  Negative words sting and take away your hope.

Finally,  I thought about the 5 love languages, popularized by Gary Chapman.  We respond to different avenues of love.  Some people respond to loving words, while others respond to loving actions, and so forth.  I always say talk is cheap.  But then I am contradicting myself when I just got done writing about how a negative word can steal hope!  Nevertheless, love can be demonstrated in various ways, not just words and actions, but also time, gifts, and serving.  It is helpful to know how people respond so we can show love in a way that is meaningful for them.  

I know this is a weird combination about love, but I think that there could always be more love in the world.  No matter how great we may have it, it is too easy to judge others.  I know I do, and I regret that as well. I think it's because it is hard for me to receive love and compliments.  I've always been so hard on myself.  But I am trying to feel good about myself.  Like I am quite pleased about my painting above.  It's not perfect, but I like it and I have it hanging in my bedroom.