Gary and I were walking around an outdoor shopping mall when she came up to us.
She offered me a small sample of a skin care product. “Do you use moisturizer?” she asked in accented English.
We started talking and she asked where we were from. We told her and asked her in turn where she was from.
“My accent may be hard to understand. I am from Israel,” she said with a pained look in her brown eyes. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her light olive skin was unblemished. She was dressed in boots, slacks and a sweater under a white coat.
We expressed our concern about the war in Israel, and she began to share.
“I was born and raised in Israel, near Gaza. Always there is fighting or the chance of fighting and danger. It’s the way we live. I was in the military — you know everyone serves in army there. I was military police.”
“This attack on the innocent people and children is horrible. Many of my friends died. I cannot get flight home to go to the funerals,” she continued.
“You can be there in your heart,” I offered.
“Yes. Yes, I can,” she continued. She started to share some of the history of Israel and we chatted back and forth with questions we had, and what she wondered about. We explained we were Christians and had studied the Old Testament and the Law and Prophets and felt kinship to the Jewish people.
“Like cousins,” we said.
“No,” she said, “like brothers,” taking our hands and she leaning into us as she talked.
“I went to religious school and studied the Torah. I think is good. Is moral way to live and have a society. We studied also Buddhism, Hinduism and Muslim religion. I don’t practice Judaism or keep Shabbat. But I do believe in something! Something good that is powerful. I think we should all live good lives and not hurt anyone. We should help each other.”
She talked about all the times in history enemies had hated and tried to kill all her people. She talked about the current enemies who held such toxic hate for the Israelites.
“I will marry maybe, and raise my children here in the United States. I don’t want them living with that kind of danger in life,” she said.
I felt a nudge to offer to pray for her. I asked if it would insult her or if she would like me to pray, and she looked at me with big eyes at first, then she smiled and nodded her head,
“Sure, yes, I would like that very much.”
How to pray for this young woman with such a tormented history as people oppressed, hunted and surviving through attempts at annihilation as a race?
I prayed for her to be safe, and for her family to be safe, for the war to end and for peace in Jerusalem and her country. I prayed for her to know the truth and the truth to make her free. She held our hands as we prayed on the sidewalk outside the glitzy stores and the passing people. I ended my prayer as I always do, “In Jesus’ name, amen.”
As we opened our eyes after praying, she looked at us and asked, “May I hug you?”
“Of course,” we said together, and we tried to pack love, sympathy, comfort and strength into that hug.
Paul said in Romans 10:1, “Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.”
Pray.
