Sitting on the Mount of Beatitudes reminded me of the simplicity of life as the sun began to rise each morning. It was a serene place. You saw the calmness of the sea of Galilee and felt a dry breeze the closer you walked toward the waters. I was reminded of each step I took; this is where it is believed Jesus
gave the sermon on the mount. And I was walking on those stones, and I was overlooking where Jesus overlooked. Who is to say this wasn’t a place where Jesus stepped away when He needed to breathe and take a moment of silence and solitude? And here I was trying to take in every moment, every feeling-everything because I didn’t want to miss the beauty that was staring back atme. I had gotten into a rut of routine and doing instead of being present and active. My soul was weary, weak, and lost when I went to Israel.

Pete Scazzero says, “Solitude is the practice of being absent from people and things to attend to God. Silence is the practice of quieting every inner and outer voice to attend to God”.

Every morning I spent in this beautiful place was early before the sun rose because my 5 am wake-up in the U.S. became more like a 3:30-4 am wake-up in Israel. What does one do when they awake before the sun does? You go out into the darkness, sit, and wait patiently for the sun to rise. Do you know what happens to your soul when you sit in this silence? Do you know how hard a body that has been broken by trauma silences the inaudible voices it hears on repeat? You have to find the place where you sit on the steps of the soul to be present with a Savior who sits with you. The tears may not physically fall yet, but the tears are felt in this deep place buried within me that only Jesus sees. Here on the mount of beatitudes, I found Jesus in a place deep within me that stirred the broken layers of my soul in the darkness and silence of those mornings. And I began to see myself how Jesus sees me.

Every morning all I could hear was “Come” Come to Jesus to lay your weary head. Come to Jesus and fall on Him. Come to Jesus and cry. Come to Jesus and live. Here’s my heart; oh, take and seal it.

Hard times don’t need to understand what God’s doing~ Hard times need to know God’s standing with us, and He’s kneeling in prayer for us at all times~ Ann Voskamp

What a glorious truth! My broken soul doesn’t need to ask or need to understand God’s doing, but my soul needs to know only that God is standing with me- just like He stood in the fiery furnace and in the den with Daniel.

Upon my return from Israel, I made a short but nonetheless impactful trip to Michigan. I was overwhelmed with emotions and feelings, and those that know me know I am not at all good at processing those. At times it was so overwhelming I found myself lacking the space I needed to cut the world out so I could just stuff every thought and feeling. In the middle of it, all this picture below
was snapped, and I was reminded in the midst of my agonizing personal struggle of what a family outside of mine can look like~ and in some strange Jesus way, I am part of this one. My time in Michigan ended not with a snapped picture but with memory. I got to see my adopted grandparents again, and something inside me was overwhelmed, and I didn’t think I just reacted. Miracles can happen when I let go of the processors in my head. I ran and hugged Arden and Thelma like it had been a year since I last saw them, and it had just been- maybe a month. The memory keeps flashing into my brain- I kept wondering why. It was the scene of the beatitudes. “Come” Come to Jesus to lay your weary head. Come to Jesus and fall on Him. Come to Jesus and cry. Come to Jesus and live. Here’s my heart; oh, take and seal it. My run to them is what Jesus invites us all to do if we are willing. And Jesus will receive you just as you are, as did Arden and Thelma. This is why my mind keeps flashing the moment to my mind. Come as you are~
come to Jesus.