400 Stairs

Climbing

A few years back, when we were still in Canada, I became very ill.  As a result, I was unable to walk stairs; in fact, I was not able to walk more than a block.  

We had a B&B at the time and in it were 14 stairs.  Unable to continue doing the work and serving our guests, we sold the place and moved to a small two bedroom apartment on the level ground. I was glad to be able to walk out on my own and exchange books at the library across the lane.  For the next five years I worked at recovering with God's help and healing.

Then we moved to Israel.  Each place we tried to buy had stairs.  Even the ground floor flats had stairs.  So we had to rent in buildings with elevators, a very expensive endeavor in this Land.

God continued the healing.

We learned that returning to Israel is a blessing; we read that the land of Israel has healing in it, we were reminded that our feet bring peace and the land we step on is given to us as a gift, and so we continually claimed these promises.  We walked slowly, praying for recovery and believing that my body will be restored. We prayed for renewal youth for both of us. 

For five more years we walked around town getting stronger.

A year and a half ago God helped us to secure an apartment of our own. The flat is on the 4th floor, without an elevator.  As we went through the buying process, I climbed the 64 stairs to the flat and continued to do so daily since the move. We also continued the daily walks around town.

This week God surprised us.  My healing must have been completed - we went for a week trip around the Golan - Galilee. Each day we walked through forests and hills, rivers and archeological sites; and we walked stairs. There is not one site that we visited which did not have stone stairs and rocks to climb of various sizes. On the second day we were at the Banias.  The walk to Hermon Stream has stairs of stones.  Larger and wider than the stones on my staircase, I thought that having Norwegian long legs would have been helpful.  The fresh fauna smell and the great water falls were worth the efforts.  On the larger nature walk to the Palace of Agrippa II and the Crusader fortress, there were more stairs.  According to the Officer on site, we had climbed about 400 stairs in all directions, on that site alone, in one day!  

"Graduation Day!"  Laughed my Husband, "you just made a world record!"

139th Day of Praise -

I thank you God for healing my body gradually and allowing me to enjoy the process with interesting experiences, great sights and sounds, and lots of love from my man and from You.

I thank you God for all the prayer worriers who lifted us up all these years and supported us with their love and deep friendship.

Thanking God for 400 stairs as evidence of healing,

Orith