God told me my Dad was going to die.

While my Abba was sick with colon cancer, I lived at home and helped take care of him. Covid was still running amok, and as his immune system was weak, for the most part, I avoided meeting up with people. I was lonely; a 'climb the wall,' stir-crazy, losing my mind, lonely that left my body aching under a double-folded weighted blanket.

Taking care of my Abba was a privilege; simultaneously, a fear arose in my heart that if my Abba were sick for many more years, I would end up spending my thirties as a homebound spinster with a rotting womb and 'by then, it would be too late.' This wasn't just a little delay, a hiccup in the road, but a death sentence during such critical mating and childbearing years.

So I took my fear to God: "Are you telling me I'm not going to get married?" I concluded as my heart sunk in self-inflicted grief, preparing for my timeline to be pushed back indefinitely.

But God, in His wisdom, had other things in mind:

I dreamt it was my wedding day and I was dressed in a white wedding gown. Some people and I were standing outside the doors of a church in the lobby, waiting for someone to walk me down the aisle, but there was no one. I looked down and saw I was wearing my Abba's big and bulky brown shoes. They were way too big, and I said: "I can't wear these". I took them off and went to find my own shoes and the dream ended.

God spoke, which was the last thing I expected since He is usually tight-lipped when giving me even a hint about marriage or its timing. I stared in the mirror at my panicked eyes, my ashen face raw with unyielding pain. There, I dared to voice out my absolute worst fear:

"Are you telling me my Abba is going to die?"

Silence. I was terrified.

Dissecting every part of the dream, I analyzed it from every angle until I consulted a trusted friend to help me interpret it. With all of my heart, I wanted it to mean that I just needed to find my own identity before I walked down the aisle, but I couldn't shrug off the fact that in the dream, my Abba wasn't there to hand me off. My friend was kind and wise with her choice of words; although I don't remember what she said, it was enough to lift me out of my spiral.

I concluded that if I ever wanted to get married, taking care of my Abba couldn't 'fall only on me' but be divided amongst the siblings so that I could have a social life. After all, I had the most to lose by being away from society, and we were all full of faith he would recover and heal.

He passed a few months later, and the dream came true - my Abba would never walk me down the aisle.

Was that necessary?

If God told you that one day, your obedience would lead to the suffering of your ancestors for 400 years, would you still be obedient?

Not me. I would throw away the key to a locked chastity belt or double up on some ancient form of contraception because no children of mine are going to be 'strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years." (Genesis 15:13).

But Abraham, thank God, is nothing like me. He was told in advance that 'something is gonna hurt like hell, without a shadow of a doubt and for a long time,' and embraced it. But that's not that impressive, right? By the time that happens, he'll be long gone. But unlike Abraham, God didn't promise Ezekiel a happy ending when he said (24:15,18):

"Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears...So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded."

You read that right: God told him his wife would die.

The rest of the chapter explains that he was to be a sign to the people so that they would know God is sovereign. I'm sorry (not sorry), but if that were me, I would tell God to be sovereign somewhere else and not at my expense. After all, I had already suffered so much in life and refused to believe that my pain was purely so that I could have some kind of victorious testimony.

I remember taking this picture; he looked at me with the purest eyes, full of his trademark kindness and joy.

The best Abba who ever lived.

Trust is earned, not given

I was left confused by this out-of-character reverse pep talk because I was taught that if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Besides, this wasn't in sync with my theology because I heard that God doesn't do things like that to 'teach someone a lesson,' but apparently, He does, even if it's not in a fist-shaking 'I'll show you!' type of way. The only man in my life left, and I spent the next year and some with the added burden of feeling extremely exposed, without protection in a harsh world. This unexpected vulnerability triggered my primordial instincts and left me scrambling to find a husband.

Although two years have passed and I've not had a single pursuer or gone on a single date, unknowingly and with every challenge I faced amidst unbearable grief, I was fulfilling the dream.

Choosing to learn what 'walking in my own shoes' meant without the man who was my closest confidant developed an unspoken understanding between God and me, one of trust—a quiet trust between friends whose relationship proved it could weather the greatest tests and the most foreboding revelations.

Waiting for your Abba to die. The worst torture.

I lived for a bit in my sister’s apartment in Jerusalem to see if we wanted to swap - she would move back home, and I would move there. My friend, Sivan, took me out to hang. We found this little oasis behind the Waldorf Astoria, but my heart found no relief.

Oriel, my friend

In His infinite wisdom, God does so that our steadfastness and belief in His goodness amid earthly pain becomes our greatest heavenly honor (personal opinion). Perhaps this is fantasy, but I'd like to think that when He introduces me, He says with pride, 'This one - this one is special. She's that one that trusted me', and all the redeemed and angels 'ooh and aah" that God deemed me worthy of such a title.

I know what you're thinking - eternity is a long way away, and that doesn't help my pain right now; I get it.

But the proof is in the pudding that God never does anything without reason; oddly enough, one of the only things that ended up comforting me was that dreadful dream. While experiencing debilitating grief, it became undeniable proof that God, who is sovereign, was with me.

I don't know all the reasons why God took my Abba or why he chose to tell me; I'm sure they are endless. But what I can say is that although I wouldn't trade my Abba's life for the world, somewhat reluctantly but not ungratefully, I am turning into the type of woman I've always wanted to be—closer to God, more noble of character, with a more mature faith.

Although I'm still looking for a husband, my restless search has subsided, and I no longer feel exposed.

I wear my own shoes now.

Love you because,

Oriel

Yeshua whispered in my ear...

I moved back home with my parents. The content of my life was in boxes; Covid threw the world into a frenzy, and I had a one-way ticket to England before heading to the big state of Texas. This was not what I had planned.

By then, at age 29, I thought that if I ever stayed a night in my childhood bedroom again, it would be as a married woman - not a recently single one.

As I lay on my mattress on the floor, my chest physically ached. The guy I loved took my vulnerable heart and crushed it before leaving me with complex PTSD, a healthy dose of 'How can I ever trust a man again?' and shattered dreams. Now, I had to unlearn being a doormat after fighting a destined-to-lose battle for someone who couldn't care less. My body was depleted of serotonin, and I was constantly nauseous, throwing up, and rapidly losing weight and hair.

“If you’re gonna be sad, at least do it with a view”

Exhaustion overtook me as I fell asleep and dreamt I was in the same spot, lying on the mattress on the floor. A small hole, like a portal, appeared in the room. In it, I saw images of beauty and green hills with light, and it was full of love and peace; suddenly, it turned black, chaos ensued, hell broke loose, and I was loveless. This perfectly depicted the timeline of my relationship and the disillusionment of thinking I found my perfect match only to discover it was my worst nightmare come true.

Then I heard Yeshua and the Holy Spirit conversing with each other about me. I couldn't understand what they were saying; I was too distraught to comprehend either way, and then something happened that I couldn't explain theologically, and perhaps to some, it might even sound blasphemous.

I felt Yeshua lay behind me, hold my weak frame, and place His hand on my side; He was so close I could feel his palm and fingers pressed into my rib cage.

Then He put his head next to my ear and whispered:

"I love you because..."

"What?" I replied as I moved my ear closer to Him, thinking perhaps I missed half of his sentence.

"I love you because." He whispered again as I woke up.

You'd be perfectly right to assume I felt 'calm in the storm', the peace of heaven, or a healing touch, but I awoke into the same nightmare, the furrow between my brow growing wrinkle-deep and warm tears streaming down my face. Of all the 171,476 English words in common use, why did Yeshua choose those four words? It didn't bring me comfort; it wasn't telling me the future would be okay, and If anything, I felt like He was teasing me:

"Don't say things like that if I can't feel it..." I pleaded with Him.

After all, I was just promised that kind of savior-like love before I discovered it could be taken away as a form of punishment and deprivation. This was just another 'hope deferred' waiting to happen, and I didn't believe there existed a love so unconditional, and this brutal, betrayal-infused breakup was proof. Over the next few days, as I packed my suitcase, I begged God for comfort as I prepared to start my life over. He offered nothing new, but that soft whisper repeated in my mind. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but I sure was desperate to find out.

What is love? Baby, don't hurt me.

Hello, Texas, and welcome panic attacks, anti-anxiety pills, insomnia, and extreme loneliness. Apart from the great people at the ministry I interned at and a tiny group of friends I knew from Israel, I was pretty much alone all the time.

What's a woman to distract herself with? Hobby Lobby.

Oh yes, the land of the free got one thing right: recreational therapy, shelves upon shelves of creativity, art, and home decor. I washed my eyes with the beauty of aesthetically pleasing stuff I couldn't afford when it caught my eye - a little blackboard-style decoration block that said 'I love you because' with a blank space underneath it.

There it was, taunting me, tempting me to do what I always do: fill in the blank with all the reasons why you should love me, or worse, all the reasons you shouldn't. Damn you, little block. I'll show you!

So I bought it and placed it atop my kitchen counter, fully committed to NOT filling in the blank.

The view from my Tx. apartment

The jokes were on me because it didn't take long before I was tempted to ditch my plan and buy a permanent white marker so my non-existing guests could validate me and I could display irrefutable proof that someone out there thought I was worth loving. Good grief, did I not learn my lessons? There I was, once again, entrusting my value to human judgment.

No, this time, I will break the cycle. If I let it be and resisted the urge for external validation long enough, perhaps at the very least, I could extend a willing and yet guarded handshake to this foreign concept of self-acceptance. 

It gets worse before it gets better

After moving back from the States, life was unkind again.

I watched my Abba suffer a bitter end to 3.5 years of colon cancer, opened a business while struggling with massive brain fog and grief, and went into debt. Along the way, I lost some friends, gained some friends (and some weight), my country was dragged into war, and I moved three times only to find myself back where I started - at my parent's house, sleeping on a mattress on the floor (with the blessed addition of my cat, Buttercup).

IYKYK

Buttercup has been the only man in my life for the last two years. Don’t laugh at me, okay?

Don't be mistaken; these hardships have made me stronger, more mature, self-confident, and loving, alongside the stagnant and unchanging parts of life. Healthy boundaries have been implemented, I’ve worked on my self esteem, and I’m not the person I used to be. Although my Hobby Lobby block has journeyed with me, I'll admit, as a long-time addict of validation, my mind still falls off the bandwagon.

Although Yeshua made it clear that 'I love you because' ended with a period, He never said I couldn't explore its meaning and why the two most important commandments are:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Deuteronomy 6:5

'...but love your neighbor as yourself." Leviticus 19:18

To say I've become borderline obsessed with understanding what love looks like in a topsy-turvy world would be an understatement. I am searching for truth and nothing but the truth, and so help me, God, I'm going to find it.

If you, like me, want to figure out what God thinks, feels, and means when He blurts out mysteries galore, this blog might be for you. My commitment to you is that I will be as honest as possible - no subject off limits, no thought judged, and in return, I would love for you to join me, quite selfishly, because, on this journey of reclaiming our identities, it's best not to walk alone.

Love you because (or something like that),

Oriel