Barefoot

But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, barefoot and with his head covered. And all the people who were with him covered their heads, and they went up, weeping as they went. - 2 Samuel 15:30

David was on the run because of his son, Absalom. He was broken, humiliated, defeated, disappointed, cheated and deserted by everyone. He was walking up the mountain crying, barefoot and with his head covered. As one that had lost everything. As someone that never had anything.
In Judaism, the only time one takes his shoes off (except in one's home) is when they acknowledge Adonai's presence in that place.
What a weird time to take your shoes off and acknowledge Adonai's presence on a road you take to escape... to acknowledge Adonai in disappointment and tears and uncertainty.
Those walking up the mountain together with David felt almost the same pain as he did. They also walked crying and had their heads covered, but the only one that was barefoot, was David... as if through the tears he was the only one able to see that Adonai was in control, present, Almighty and ready to become a way under his feet.
To acknowledge God in your walk you must also be ready to cover your head in shame and not just to cry your tears but to take your shoes off and hurt your feet on a way you know it's right.
I want to honor Him in my walk. More than I wish to be shielded from pain and tears, more than I wish not to be put to shame, even more than I wish to love and be loved, I wish to acknowledge Him in all my ways no matter how my feet hurt because He is worthy. He hurt more than just His feet to come and find me... I will not cry about how my feet hurt to follow Him because it's not like He's somewhere far away looking at me walking, but He's right in front of me hurting His feet just like me and He does it just so that He can bring me back to The Father. This painful road is not because He had to punish me for running away, but because it's the way I used when I left Him and it's The Way... The only Way back.

Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה

Bat Melech's theory

According to Chaos Theory, even something as insignificant as a butterfly flapping it's wings can cause a typhoon at the other end of the world. This is also known as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

In this context the chaotic system is me. My deterministic nature does not make me predictable and my behavior make me apparently chaotic.
Many times I tend to think that things happen and change and move without any purpose... that there is no purpose in my tears, that I am heading on to nothing, but Baruch HaShem (Blessed be God) my world is not governed by the Chaos Theory, it's not determined by the chaos around me and not even by the law of gravity that I seem to acknowledge every time I hit rock bottom.
The law governing my world says that chaos rules only until the moment Adonai speaks into my darkness and declares 'Let there be light!' and there is light. The law that applies to my world says that although gravity is pulling me towards the ground, Ruach HaKoddesh (The Holy Spirit) lifts me up to the heavenly places together with HaMashiach.
If a natural law can understand the meaning behind every little thing, even something like a butterfly flapping it's wings causing a chain reaction that can cause a typhoon at the other end of the world, then how much more must I understand that according to The Law of The Spirit of Life, even a butterfly flapping it's wings will cause a chain reaction that will work for my well being wherever I am.
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God." - Romans 8:28
I know that Adonai will somehow orchestrate all things to work together for my good, starting with the sunset in Australia that will cause a butterfly to fly apparently chaotic, or the bus that is late in the morning, or the experiences that someone will live through that will change my life forever.
There is no coincidence. There is no chaos. Nothing is without purpose. This is my theory according to The Law of Adonai.

Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה

Within me

With my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me have I sought Thee earnestly... - Isaiah 26:9

Adonai... please forgive me for every time I didn't find You. Only now do I understand that I have been searching for You in things that charmed my eyes even though I always felt You near. I found You only when I began searching for You earnestly within me. I found You in every character trait that You've changed showing me how much I have to change yet.
I found You in every tear that I've cried unable to tell You how I felt... You were there whispering only: "I know".
I found You at the end of my strength, You carried me on Your shoulders and told me that You will never move on without me.
I found you in the gutter that I kept within me for every broken dream that I couldn't believe for anymore... You were there, gathering each one of it as if they were treasures.
I found You smiling when I was rebelling against You and telling You that You overlook my rights ... You knew I was talking in pain and chose to look at me through Yeshua, believing in what I will be and not what I am.
I found You when I felt that there was nothing left of me anymore... You told me: "I AM AND ALWAYS WILL BE".
I found You when I was counting all the words I knew and although they were many I couldn't come up with a way to put them together in order to utter my prayer.... You told me that You are The Word, the only one I need to say and You won't resist me.
I found You within me when I was broken, imperfect and helpless and I can only be amazed by Your love even though I can't understand what kind of love moves You to do all this for me. It's beyond my understanding. What kind of eyes must You have to see even the insignificant good within me and treasure it? What kind of heart makes You never let go of me? What kind of strength do You posses that makes You move past my rebellion and forgive me way too many times? What kind of ears are Yours that hear all the stupid words I tell You and think them worthy to record them in Your books as if they are worth remembering? What kind of hand is Yours that holds me without getting dirty in the process? Who is like You my Lord? You humble Yourself to the extent that You allow me to find You in this messed up world of mine... Even these darkened eyes of mine can see Your greatness... even this incomplete heart of mine can feel Your love... even I can see You are worthy of praise Adonai.
Thank you HaShem for staying within me and letting me find You when I get lost on everything that's in the outside world.

Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה

Can you count the stars?

And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."- Bereishit/ Genesis 15:5

Avram only wished for one son but even one seemed impossible. He didn't dare to wish for two sons or three, only one... if he could have only one son... but it was not possible.
Adonai sees him and knows that Avram understands his own circumstances better than anyone else. He sees him tormented by his unfulfilled desire and sees him as he starts counting, but he stops at one and one seems and infinite and impossible number.

Adonai calls upon him "Fear not, Avram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." Then takes him outside and tells him "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." In other words "Avram, do you think that your impossible is too much for Me? Is that all you got? JUST THE IMPOSSIBLE?" Avram listens and he starts counting: 100, 1000, 1000000.... then stops and suddenly gets it that even if he were a mathematician he couldn't come up with the impossible for Adonai.
Maybe you began wishing for the impossible and I mean the kind of impossible that there is no way on earth to make it possible; the kind that no way, no how and by no means can be accomplished. But you can't help but wishing for that impossible. You can't rest at night because of it and all day long your thought is just at how impossible found it's way in your heart and everything it is represents everything you are. I don't mean having a great car or an airplane landing on your lawn, but the kind of dreams and desires that look beyond your body or soul. The kind of dreams that make you break down at His feet pleading for fulfillment.
And maybe you start counting and you stop at 1 because it feels like even 1 is too big of a number even for Adonai.
I think that if it's within His plan, the pattern is the same as with Avram. If you feel like challenging Him then try a bit harder because I assure you that humanity was not able yet to issue a big enough number that would leave Adonai breathless and say to Himself  'this is too much, seriously!'
Think about the most impossible thing you can come up with and I am sure that He will think 'is that all?'
You can never wish for more than He can give, but He doesn't give you your dream only because you wish for it, but He grants it only when you know, that you know, that you know that you've asked a limited thing to an unlimited God.

Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה

Behold your God!

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" - Yeshayahu / Isaiah 40:9

Rabbonim (the rabbis) say that there is a passuk (Bible verse) in the Kitvey HaKodesh (Holy Scriptures) for every man that ever existed, that exists and will exist. I believe that this verse in Yeshayahu 40 is my verse, because I hope with all my heart to undo the wrong that Pilate did.
Many years ago when I was reading about Yeshua's trial I reached the part that spoke about how Pilate dressed Yeshua with a purple robe and placed a crown of thorns of His head and took Him before The Jews and declared in a loud voice 'behold the man!' (John 19:5). That's the image that was stuck in the Jewish mind ever since. The vulnerable man, pushed and beaten by the Romans, suffering, bleeding and utterly helpless. A goy (non-Jew) took my Lord before His people and yelled 'behold the man!' I think that from where Pilate stood that's all he could see: a simple man, so he declared only what he saw. Pilate brought God down to the same level as his.
You can only declare what you see Him from where you stand. If you look at Him through your humanity then all you can see is what Pilate saw and you declare the same 'behold the man!' But if you are born from Adonai  you can't help but see that Yeshua is Ha Elohim shel Tzion (The God of Zion) and then all you can do is declare with everything you have 'HINEH HA ELOHEICHEM!' (Behold your God!)
In order to see more than His humanity you have to stand on the highest mountain which is Adonai and you must climb that mountain not thinking that you want to be high but in order to have the best acoustic to tell all Tzion the good news!
I do not know where Pilate was standing but I know he wasn't standing on Adonai when he introduced Yeshua to the Jews. You see the Jews are unlike any other nation on earth... you do not convince them with words alone and you do not disguise Yeshua in a beautiful blond man with blue eyes that walks around always smiling and hugging everyone and then go about and declare 'behold you God!' and when they reject him you accuse them of blindness. One goy declaring 'behold the man!' was enough, there is no need for others.
Jews know their God. They will recognize Him when they will see Yeshua, the Jew, their Mashiach, but until then all I can do is declare as loud as I can "Hineh ha Eloheichem!'


Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה

Born again

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. - John 1:12-13

I was not born again because I one day decided that this is the best way to live. Neither did my flesh come up with the brilliant solution that I should be born again. I was not born again because someone out of the blue decided to 'evangelize me' or to increase the number of his congregation. It wasn't even because a Church council decided to approve my request to become member in their Church or decided that I was changed enough and thus deserve to be baptized. Nothing like that!
Adonai carried me within Himself, not for 9 months like a pregnant woman would, but for years and years. It's been hard for Him because I wasn't an easy burden, for my sins have made it hard for Him, but He did not give up on me. He waited... and when I finally was ready to be born, meaning to know His Truth, He gave birth to me and not without pain. There are people that are born again easily, but I was not an easy birth and Kadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, blessed is He) endured a lot of pain to bring me to life and because He knows how He struggled to give birth to me, He does not give up on me, not even when I fail to understand what it is that He is doing.
What I am today does not resemble anything known and more than once I've heard people asking me 'what are you? you don't believe like that denomination or that one!' My answer is that I would resemble a denomination if a denomination would have given birth to me and if a set of principles would have given birth to me then I would resemble a certain school of thought, but that's not the case and because I was given birth by Adonai the only One entitled to expect me to resemble Him, is only Him.
It was not a denomination that carried me when my heart was so heavy that nothing could lift it... only The Holy One of Israel. He didn't send anyone else but He, The King of kings came personally and gave birth to me in a pain that broke His heart. He cleansed me. He cut my umbilical cord. He wrapped me up in a holy cloth. He fed me with milk. He stayed up late with me when I was sick with self disappointment. He stood by my side when I was crying my heart out and He stood by my side when I was laughing. He brought me back to life and only He can expect me to resemble Him. And that is my greatest desire: to resemble Him so much that if someone should look at me they would know I take after my Father.
I know that at this point I resemble Him so little that He always needs to reassure me 'yes, you are My daughter!' but I hope that one day there will be no need for words, because the resemblance will be obvious.

Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה

Lord, liar or lunatic?

“Then comes the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

“One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned; the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

“Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is ‘humble and meek’ and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

(Mere Christianity - C. S. Lewis)

and it has not appeared as yet what we will be...

“God changes caterpillars in butterflies, sand into pearls and coals into diamonds, using only pressure and time, He is working on you too!”

Most of the time I feel sick of myself and my human nature. I seem to have an opinion about every person I meet and I do not need more than five minutes to label anyone (most of the time the wrong label), but the minute someone offers an opinion about me (and God forbids for it not to be “the right one”) I am indignant.

I expect everyone to fulfil the Scriptures to the letter and I seem to know for sure that they have no excuse if they get it wrong. But when it comes to me I always find an explanation as to why I couldn’t or I didn’t…

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for me to love my neighbour as myself, to protect him as I do myself and find him excuses as I find for myself. I am sick of the way I do not know how to love…

I have come to say as the Psalmist “But I am like a worm instead of a man” (Psalm 22:6) and I am not saying this as a form of false humility, I actually feel this way. But Adonai in His goodness always reminds me of the words from Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 41:14 “Don’t be afraid even though you are weak as a worm, I myself will help you”

I am not contesting the fact that I am but a worm for now…nor do I believe that if I start to proclaim that I am a butterfly I will become one. I aspire to become a butterfly, but I am not there yet and I can tell that by the way that I crawl. Do I despair because of it? No! And this is not because I trust in my ability to become a butterfly, but because I trust in the One who did not despise my weak beginning and still does not despise it even if I am about to start again for the thousandth time. I don’t despair not even when I begin to feel but another face in the crowd…a grain in the sand among the other billions of grains, because I know He dressed me in Himself and He won’t let go until I become a pearl in Him. Is it pleasant to be isolated? No. Is it pleasant for you to be the one who’s different than the rest of grains of sand, for you to be the one not allowed to be like the rest, not to have fun like the rest and have the same things they do? No. Is it pleasant to be squeezed from all sides until there is nothing left of you? No! Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY! Because I know that when He will finish His work in me no one will ever call me again “grain of sand” but “pearl”.

I don’t like my state right now, but I understood that it is ok for me not to like it because I was not born to but be a worm, a grain of sand or charcoal even though that is how I look right now. I am in the process of becoming a butterfly, a pearl, a diamond…

By its nature charcoal tarnishes everything it ever comes in contact with. That is how I was for a long time, but I have been touched by The One who instead of getting dirty when He touched me, He cleaned me instead. I don’t know how. I still find it hard to think of myself as a piece of charcoal but I know that by faith when He looks at me He sees a diamond.


Bat Melech בת מלך
 Cristina כריסטינה
translated by Emanuela Robinson

You are more

There's a girl in the corner 

With tear stains on her eyes

 From the places she's wandered 

And the shame she can't hide 

She says, "How did I get here? I'm not who I once was. 

And I'm crippled by the fear 

That I've fallen too far to love

" But don't you know who you are, 

What's been done for you? 

Yeah don't you know who you are?

 You are more than the choices that you've made,

 You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

Well she tries to believe it 

That she's been given new life

 But she can't shake the feeling 

That it's not true tonight 

She knows all the answers

And she's rehearsed all the lines 

And so she'll try to do better

 But then she's too weak to try

 But don't you know who you are? 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

You are more than the choices that you've made,

 You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade.

 'Cause this is not about what you've done, 

But what's been done for you. 

This is not about where you've been, 

But where your brokenness brings you to 

This is not about what you feel, 

But what He felt to forgive you, 

And what He felt to make you loved. 

You are more than the choices that you've made,

 You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

 You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

You are more than the choices that you've made,

 You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

 You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

You've been remade 

You've been remade. 

You've been remade. 

You've been remade.

Complete song

You wouldn’t praise if you didn’t know how to curse,
Only those who cry know how to smile
You wouldn’t love today if it wasn’t for your groaning
If it wasn’t for your crying you would not carry light in your eyes.
If you didn’t bind your own wound.

Your hand would not anoint the wounds of strangers.
You wouldn’t yearn for pieces of heaven
If you would not carry a shard of hell in you.
Because you can’t rise from the dust without falling face down in the bitterness of it.
And if you’re brought to live in today’s song
It is because you were dying in last night’s tear.

 

---- written by Rady Gyr

---------translated by Emanuela Robinson

The other side of the Cross

Pesach message

Bat Melech בת מלך
Cristina כריסטינה

Sick

Hamas, in their own words from memritvvideos on GodTube.

Chag Purim Sameach! חג פורים שמח

We will never be never be:
Anything but true and always straight up, bold and fearless Jews!



Bat Melech בת מלך
Cristina כריסטינה

I am growing

For a while now, I seem to have developed a certain obsession for mountains and the way they can be climbed, so I ended up reading a presentation by Brian Cavanaugh on Edmund Hillary and loved what he wrote:

“Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953 he scaled the highest mountain then known to man-29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts.

The happy ending seemed to have easily obtained. However, until we read his book, High Adventure, we don’t understand that Hillary had to grow into this success.

You see, in 1952 he attempted to climb Mount Everest, but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members.

Hillary walked on stage to a thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Edmund Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform.

He made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, “Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!”

I find strength in the thought that I was not born completely developed into the greatness of what I can be. I find comfort that not even the second time was I born completely developed into what I can be, and what I am to be has not yet been shown. I don’t even know myself what I am capable of. But I know I can grow. And if I come across something higher than me, I am the daughter of The Most High and I can grow high and above my circumstances. My mountains have not yet found out how high I can grow. I don’t fully understand it myself yet, but I am eager to find out.

There is a quote by an unknown author, which says that if you want to see the rainbow you must put up with a little rain first. I truly believe that if we are ready to get wet by the rain we will also have the blessing of seeing the rainbow with our own eyes. I believe that climbing a mountain 29,000 feet high begins with a first step, because you never just find yourself on the top. I believe it takes a lot of stubbornness not to give up even if you would find yourself slipping back to the valley for the hundredth thousand time. I don’t believe the human mind is able to fully perceive what Adonai put inside those who believed in Yeshua’s sacrifice. I believe the same power that raised Him from the dead lives in me and such strength can only grow, not to lift me up or to fulfill my needs, but for His sake.

For His sake to climb my mountains the same way He walked my valleys. Perhaps it sounds crazy and impossible, but it is in now way crazier than Holiness itself scooping down in my dirt to pick me up from there.

I believe with all my heart we were not saved solely to have a chair reserved in a church or another. But we were saved to grow in the likeness of the One who saved us, and with the same strength and trust to build up His Kingdom, not only to follow our personal goals and needs. If we are not growing, we’re not stagnant but we are going down. And it is of no use to us to just believe if we don’t conquer any ground in our lives. A buried gift is of no use to the One who gave it to me. Because He gave me that gift in complete trust that He made me in His likeness, built from something capable of growth and to bring light. No one lights a candle only hide it away, but one puts a candle somewhere where it can light the whole house. Mountains come along on our paths in order to lift our light higher, not to crush us with their immensity.

To the one who will overcome He will give the crown of life. Not to the ones who will overcome sleep during lengthy and boring sermons. Not to the ones who will manage to stand up until the end of a song or a prayer. No! To the ones who will overcome shame and unworthiness and will not give up climbing and getting closer to The Holy One. To the ones who will overcome all the things that tempt them to mediocrity and will stand up for their King, and for His sake will help others to climb also.

Even if you fell down more than you can count, I know that I know that I know that every fall is necessary to teach you where not to put your foot again or what corner or rock to no longer grab in your climb. Adonai has no benefit if you just sit there fallen and feeling guilty! He has no benefit from you feeling sorry and staying away from Him in shame! Stand up, shake the dust off your clothes and try again, because all He wants is to see you grow. We owe Him at least this: to stand up after we fall, not to marinate in tears of guilt. I am not the center of His Kingdom, the "I" who sometimes succeeds sometimes not. He is the center of His Kingdom, and it is Him who can knight you and me for climbing the highest mountains there are.

Bat Melech בת מלך

Cristina כריסטינה

Translated by Emma