Looking back on a Year of Jubilee

A few days ago I turned 51. Thank you all to so many sweet birthday wishes and prayers! I had a beautiful day. This also means, that I have ended my 50th year. Biblically speaking the 50th year is a year of jubilee. In this year lost heritage was being returned and slaves would be set free (see Lev 25). I can see how in this past year parts of my lost heritage were being returned to me. And I would like to share some of that with you.

I think the first very clear one happened in Israel just after the Pesach hike with Streams in the Desert. I wrote about this in my blog Going up the Mountain. This hike was for me extremely demanding and extremely enriching. Already just being able to do this hike, to discover places in the Negev desert where I would never get to on my own was restoration for me. Restoration as described in Joel 2:25

And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten…

In my life I have had many amazing opportunities, probably much mire than many other people. At the same time there has also been the feeling of impossibilities. And here one of those impossibilities had been made possible. And then after the hike God gave me this image of life being like this hike up the mountain, both extremely demanding and extremely enriching. And how I am invited by Him to just go on this adventure to go up the mountain of life with God. This new perspective has given me much more energy to do things (I was often paralyzed just by the thought of all I had to do, because it seemed too much, too demanding). And a joy to just go on the way and start discovering, enjoying the hike itself, seeing beauty on the way and taking the times of rest when needed.

Another restoration is, that I discovered that I am adventurous. I think many of you will smile while reading this and think: “Yeah, of course, we knew that already!”. Well, for me it wasn’t entirely new neither. But the realization that this is something that God has deposited in me and that I can fully enjoy it, that is another level. I love to discover new things, new tastes, new colors, new languages, new people and their cultures.

And then God gave me a word, a word that comes into His mind when He sees me: Whimsical. Whimsical is a word, that in its beautiful meaning doesn’t exist in other languages, as far as I have been able to discover. It exist in its broken meaning: capricious, impulsive, temperament, unstable, wavering. But the beautiful side: playful, quaint, unusual, curious, quirky, offbeat, unconventional, doesn’t exist as a word. Thinking of this word for myself makes me smile, it brings me joy. And I believe this is the joy that God feels over me when He sees me! Two other words that are used to describe whimsical are kaleidoscopic and outlandish. I think Kaleidoscopic really fits me because of all the different colors that I love to wear. And when I read outlandish I though of the heading of this blog, where there is always the flag of the country where I am at that moment. I am really outlandish, because I am very little in my own land 😉. And a last way that I love to describe whimsical: attractively unusual!

With these newly received views and understanding I will continue to walk on the road of life, go up the mountain and discover, enjoy and continue to learn and grow!

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