What the heck just happened to me?

It feels like yesterday I was sitting in the Athens airport updating my blog, and now it’s been an entire month and I’m sitting in the Tel Aviv airport doing the same. What a month it has been. I haven’t updating this blog in over a week only because I haven’t had a moment of spare time to write. This has been the craziest week to end the most insane month, finishing off the most amazing four months of my life! I don’t say that lightly. My life has dramatically changed on this trip, especially in the past week.

Now I’m on my British Airways flight to London, and this has probably been the most fun flight I’ve ever been on! Ok, back to my time in Israel. Wow. That’s really all I can say about it: wow. These past four weeks have dramatically changed my life. Here’s why…

When I landed in Israel, I had an agenda and a plan. I wanted to find God and to know what God has in store for me. Instead, I got something dramatically different. Last week we went up the the area of Galilee. We stayed at a resort right on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, it was absolutely beautiful! Our time there focused almost only on the New Testament, something I have been wanting for so long! I saw so many places where Christ walked and influenced. On our last night in Galilee we sat on the banks of the sea and read the end of the Gospel of John. Christ has been resurrected and shows himself to his disciples close to where we were standing. He called them to be shepherds to he sheep until his return. Our professor/guide/friend Cyndi gave us some time to sit on the rocks and reflect on the last month. As I sat, “It Is Well With My Soul” was stuck in my head. I sang and prayed, that’s when it hit me. For the first time in my life it truly is well with my soul. I have never been able to let go my back pain and my anger fully until now. At that moment, and all throughout that day, God had been showing me not my future but my past in a completely new light! 

In the past five years, I have been told by doctors, teachers, lawyers and other
“smart people” what I can and more often can’t do. According to them: I should not have been able to do what I have done in the past four months. I should not have been able to make it through my 12 hour flight to Europe. I should not have been able to hike up and down Scotland. I should not have been able to sit on countless hours of bus rides across the entire continent of Europe. I should not have been able to walk the 85 miles we trekked in Israel. But I did. Doctors would not have been able to explain it, but that’s because of something they don’t know: MY GOD. They don’t know how strong my God is, and until recently, I didn’t really understand it either. In Israel, God showed me how strong He really is by how much strength he has graciously given me.  

Because of this, I have finally been able to give everything up: my pain, my anger, my past and my future. Everything given to Christ, He payed the price and took it all. There is a song that goes something like “Christ payed the price on a hill far far away”… here it goes something more like “Christ payed the price on a hill down the block.” The President of JUC (Jerusalem University College) told us this during out last night in Israel, and it could not be more true. 

I'm back in London safely in London now. I continue to realize more and more ways this trip has already changed me, and I'm not even done with it yet! I'm staying here in London for a few more nights with some friends before I finally make my way back to the United States of America next week!