November 21st, 2022 – 9:52am – Haifa Hostel, Haifa, Israel:

I want to go home. But I have no home to go home to.

This morning my world collapsed… I woke at 6am to go up to the university. I was feeling weak, not tired, but physically weak. I’ve had a medical condition for almost a week now and due to this condition I’ve been bleeding internally pretty heavily for about 2 days now. Each day I feel more and more exhausted. This morning I was light headed as I rode the bus up to the campus.

I got coffee and sat while I waited for class… then everything just collapsed around me.

God asked me to come to Israel and take a Hebrew class to learn the language. And he asked me to give everything away and only come with what fit under the seat in front of me. So I obeyed and then He asked me to give away my laptop… that was my world… but I obeyed. Then I came to Haifa, Israel and went to the class. Week after week went by living by faith and God providing for all my needs daily. But wave after wave of culture shock, loneliness, no sleep due to staying in a room with 7 other always changing people. Over and over again I’ve been crushed, exhausted, and worn out.

Then I was sitting in the library one day a couple of weeks ago and I was reading a random book called “The Fundamentals of Hebrew” hard to explain but what I finally understood is that I need to write my books in English, the language by which I can best express myself and express my relationship with God. Even if I spent years and years learning Hebrew I would never be able to express what I need to express in this language that is not my native tongue. So my motivation to learn Hebrew died in me and that heavy burden I had driving me to learn it was gone as well.

And as I’ve been here, day by day my realization that I don’t want to be here or need to be here has been growing. I don’t belong here in this country. The weirdest thing ever is to have such a strong desire to come and that to drive you to give up everything to come and then to arrive and have that burden lift. I guess without that heavy burden I would never have come in the first place. I would not have left Redding, CA. I would not have left the Farm in Texas. But that desire to be here was overwhelming and all encompassing. But now it’s gone.

So I have lost all my drive to learn Hebrew and all my drive to be in Israel.

So I’ve been struggling to continue with my class and to do my homework knowing that I will just return to the USA in a couple months.

Then last week I developed this medical condition, which isn’t suppose to be serious… but I continue to bleed heavily. And it’s beginning to take its toll on my overall strength and ability to function.

So this morning… everything collapsed around me. I told my teacher I would be returning to the USA and thanked her for being such an amazing teacher and I walked out of the class. I walked slowly to the cable car… I needed to be alone and I knew that would give me at least 25 minutes of solitude. As I was leaving campus I walked passed a blind kid struggling along with his blind stick. And fury at my own cowardice further suffocated me. Here I am, a child of God, and I am too weak to stop and pray for this kid to receive his sight. And that pushed me over the edge. I boarded the cable car and finally alone just burst into tears. Bitter tears. Lonely tears. Tears of despair and shame.

I walked and walked. All the pressure and the expectations and everything it’s all just too much to carry anymore. People giving money to support my journey and for what? I had failed. Again. Failed everyone. But what’s so much worse is that I’ve failed God.

But I don’t really know what He wants from me. How can I succeed when I have no idea what I’m suppose to be doing? So now I’m just laying in my hostel bed… not alone because there are so many people around. I miss being alone so much.

Well here I am. In Israel. With nothing. Bleeding. Maybe this is how it ends…

God wanted me to always express the truth of my journey… so here it is. Loneliness. Check. Despair. Check. Bleeding. Check. Failure. Check.

I’m gonna try to sleep now and hope that somehow God takes me before I wake.