The Original Plan

“I want to stick with the original plan, you know?”

Melita’s mouth was half open, but I kept talking. “The only problem is, no one told me what the original plan was in the first place.”

She laughed. “I wondered what you were going to say. Yeah. That’s true.”

We were 9,000 kilometers from home, 10 miles from the nearest town, trudging through lime-green peach orchards on the fringes of the Judean wilderness. We’d traveled the entire length of the Negev Desert and emerged into a world full of contrasts. Placid herds of sheep grazing the rolling, rock-strewn pastures, verdant fields of green waving gently in the breeze, crimson poppies glistening under a golden sun. College students lounging in the grass 10 feet apart from each-other. Scolding voices asking, “Why aren’t you at home? Don’t you know what is going on in the world?” Red alerts on the bus schedule. Sharp cries of parents as children race out of villages to ask us, “Corona? Corona?”

Darkness had fallen long before we drug our dusty bodies onto a porch on the fringes of a small village. “Come in, come in,” Matthew and his wife invited. “What are you going to do? Fly home, or stay? Here, have a shower.” I shuffled through my drybag of clothes. Dirty, dirty, dirty. I was wearing my cleanest clothes, having expected today to be laundry day. A shower felt nice anyway. Over plates of curry and rice, Matthew’s wife was honest with us. “We had to take time and think through hosting you two. Everyone is so fearful, but that’s not the best way. The reality is so different than what people are afraid of. You’ve been in the desert, for crying out loud. That’s got to be the safest place to be.”

Muted squalls arose from the next room. “You have a baby?” Melita asked. “Yes, he is 7 months old.” The two-and-a-half-year-old ate pie with us and cried when it was time to go to bed.

10 hours later, two disheveled hikers stood on the porch once more, stuffing drybags into dirty packs at a rapid rate of speed. A little boy offered us cookies sadly, having looked forward to a day of playing with these new tall friends. A brave mother and father waved goodbye as we trotted down the drive to catch the only morning bus.

I sat alone on a garden retaining wall by the Ben Gurion train station later that day, trying to hide the 73 mosquito bites on my battered feet from curious eyes as I munched down my three cucumbers in the least barbaric way possible. As I sat, I thought of this brave mother and father.

Power, love and a sound mind. That is what they had lived out. In front of their tiny children. In front of their fear-filled village. In front of two strangers. In front of God.

Heroes don’t always know the earth-picture of their own original plan. But they always know the heaven-attributes of their own original plan.

Power has no space for fear.

Love has no space for discouragement.

A sound mind has no space for second-guessing.

Stick with the original plan, brave heart!! It’s all written out for you, but not in earth language.