Jerusalem Journal # 210
Dawn’s paintbrush splashes its glorious watercolors across the western ridge of Jerusalem’s Old City, kissing rust-ridden wrought iron railings and decorative grillwork with a glint, then illuminating the patchwork of ancient stones with a golden honey glow as I write. Sunrise is a holy time in this sacred city for all faiths represented here. Jews are awakening to pray. Churches will soon clang their cacophony of bells for a new day. Over an hour earlier, Muslim calls to prayer reverberated through the dark and narrow cobblestone alleyways and across flat rooftops strewn with rusty air conditioner units, solar panels, corroded satellite saucers, and hot water tanks; the skeletal framework supporting life lived below the surface.
Balconies offer a place of feeling suspended between heaven and earth
My tea kettle rumbles with the sound of eruption, then quiets to a cloud of steam rising in the kitchen. Settling into my living room window perch, I face a panoramic view of the surface layer survivors over two thousand years of destruction. Punctuating the horizon are significant religious structures such as the Dome of the Rock, the Afghan Sufi Mosque, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Western Wall Plaza, directly ahead of me. Scanning right, rises the entire western hill, bedrock support for the jumbled layers of both the Jewish and Christian Quarters in Jerusalem’s Old City. The view! The history! Significance wraps around me as a garment, and as often happens, my eyes fill with tears. Not only the tea kettle erupts.
I never tire of this view
It is the middle of summer in the Middle East, and temperatures outside will rise to the mid-90s F. The air conditioning unit on the wall above my head is pumping out a torrent of cold air that rushes down upon my shoulders, causing a chill which sends me to my armoire (we don’t have built-in closets) for a robe. Reaching my hand into the armoire, a long-forgotten memory was hanging in the farthest hinterland of the clothing rack. Supplanted more than perhaps twenty-five years ago was a silky satin full-length striped lounging robe. Multiple newer and more colorful styles were hanging beside it, but this day, “The Robe” caught both my eyes and my heart with stabbing passion.
Flashback to October 1996, within this very building in Jerusalem’s Old City
Bill, my husband of twenty-two years fled that September of 1996 to Israel after my discovery six months earlier that adultery was my new battlefield. My marriage had turned upside down, and I was determined to do all I could to rescue it. He had said he was leaving to get himself straightened out. I thought it was a great idea. He would be a million miles away from his girlfriend, and it would give our daughters and me time to heal. We spoke over the phone about my coming to Israel for a two-week visit to discuss our future. I booked my flight and went shopping.
That silky-satin lounging robe, along with some “less matronly-looking” items, filled my suitcase. The goal was to win back my husband. Just days before flying to Israel, I penned in my journal the words, “Lord, You care for me. You offer to carry my burdens. You will never leave me or forsake me. I feel like a widow, a castaway.” I copied down my reading that day from the classic daily devotional by Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost For His Highest,” where I highlighted his quote, “We are not built for the mountains…we are built for the valley…where we are to prove our mettle.”
That night, as I tried to fall asleep, my imagination was having a field day with what might happen during my trip to visit my husband in Israel. I turned on the light and wrote in my journal, “Will you hold me during the night, Lord?” Opening Psalm 139 for some encouragement, I read the words King David wrote to God, “You are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me.” I continued, “Thank You for holding, even embracing me, with Your Word. You have your hand upon me now. Have your way in all of this. Good night, my love.”
This morning, twenty-nine years after writing those words in my spiral-bound 1996 journal, “The Robe” takes the chill off my shoulders and embraces me, “behind and before,” with memories of how the Lover of my soul has settled me in the very same location where He forged my destiny in the valley. I could have missed it!
Enjoying the walk home,
Cindy
U.S. tour ahead in August. Gathering a group, so text/email me for details.
Florida (Aug. 4-13) Tampa/St. Pete, Sarasota, Brandon (?), Lakeland
Atlanta, GA (Aug. 15-17)
California (Aug. 18-21) Burbank (Toluca Lake), Pasadena, Newport Beach, San Diego
Texas (Aug. 22-29) Ft. Worth 23rd, Dallas 25th, Austin 26th, San Antonio 27th, Houston 28/29
