After three flights and nearly 50 hours of no real sleep, I arrived back home last night. It's wonderful to be back in the United States where I don't have to go out in groups of three, I can wear whatever I want (I just threw away my white V-necks, and it felt great), I can have a cheeseburger without worry about breaking Kosher laws, and I can look people in the eye without them taking it as some message that I'm morally loose; however, I think I forgot a big chunk of my heart in Jerusalem.
Over the course of the past 3 1/2 months, my life has been changed. The things I've learned have been more than just the date that Sennacharib invaded Jerusalem (701 BC, in case you were wondering) or that the manger Jesus was laid in as a baby was actually made of stone (I know, right?), but I've learned about other people, myself, and my God. While the facts I've learned will fade from my memory and the places will become a blur, I hope the principles I've learned, the feelings I had, and the changes I've made will never leave.
I still don't know how I had the privilege of studying in that Holy Land, but I thank the heavens every day that I did. I was afraid I'd wake up this morning to find that it was all a dream and that it wasn't reality after all. The Jerusalem Center experience is completely indescribable. It's incredible, life changing, exhausting, educational, heart-breaking, inspiring, challenging, fun, spiritual, rewarding, humbling, terrifying, hard, easy, and everything in between.
Pictures and words can't come close to portraying it in full, but I only hope that by sharing some here and there, I've been able to at least show you a little bit of what happened there. By the way, just because I'm home doesn't mean I'll stop posting pictures. It just means I have time to do it. I have hundreds I haven't even looked at yet.
O Jerusalem, If I Forget Thee...
Never.
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