Church In Nazareth
After
two weeks in Jerusalem, I rented a car and drove Kristin north. In
Nazareth, we attended service at another Baptist church whose elderly pastor and
wife invited us to lunch after the service and then gave us a walking tour of Nazareth's
old town. The pastor's wife had terminal cancer but no fear. Her eyes glowed with the hope
and confidence of heaven. She said Kristin looked like an angel
and held her hand during our conversations. They were a lovely couple who were
kind to us but very old and had no idea about the issues that Kristin was dealing with.
We visited the ruins of Capernaum, walked through the ruins of the synagogue where Jesus taught, and then sat down on the stone seats, where I prayed for Kristin until she told me to stop praying. She said my prayer was making her genitals itch, which left me speechless.
When we were on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the sun was setting, the sea was calm and beautiful, and I was reading to Kristin the words that Jesus spoke from on or near the Sea of Galilee when she began to cry and demand that I marry her. When I reminded her of her promise to not even mention marriage during this trip, she cried louder and begged me to marry her. I pleaded with her to take her eyes off of me and to look around at the sea and the shoreline that Jesus must have looked at when He was here 2,000 years ago and saying what I was reading to her. But she kept her eyes on me and wouldn't stop crying. Even though my brain knew that marriage before she is delivered from all demons and healed from dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder would only make things worse, it was so heartbreaking to see her so broken and sad that I almost gave in.
As we drove back to Jerusalem, I was also angry. Where would Kristin be today if even just one person who claimed to have been gifted for spiritual warfare had really ministered to Kristin early on, before she gave up after being rejected and abused by so many such 'ministers'? If even just one Christian who had an extra room had at least allowed her to have a stable place to sleep, rest and make all the noise she needs to make while the demons are being cast out of her, where would she be today? Where would we be today? Where were the true Christian spiritual warriors? Where was the true church?