The Stroll of a Lifetime

"So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them."

-John 19:13-18

I'm so grateful the story doesn't end there.

Today (our last full day here) the story that had been written down, sung about, and acted out took on an entirely different meaning to me. I saw things with my own eyes, like "the stone pavement" that Pilate took Jesus down to hand Him over. The place that quite possibly was where the brutal beating of Jesus began as He was whipped. I heard the crowd around me as we walked down the "Via Delarosa" where He carried His cross. A street that is anything but flat. The streets are all hilly and you climb and descend over and over. I felt the raindrops on my face as we entered the Garden tomb below Golgotha where He hung on a cross to die for me. And finally, I knelt in the tomb where my Savior defeated death and where only angels greeted Mary. Easter, my favorite "Holliday", will forever be enhanced because of the walk I took today.

I thank God so much for this opportunity to travel the 6,000 miles from home to experience Israel. To look upon the same region where my biblical heroes looked. To travel from the most northern to the most southern tips of this country. To just be here has affected me, touched me and most of all...

...inspired me.

I'm coming home "Penguina", can't wait to kiss your face. I love you!