The Sea of Galilee

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee as seen from our hotel balcony

After settling into our hotel, we stepped out onto the little balcony and were amazed!  Mark couldn't keep the tears from running down his cheeks.  We were really here - really in the land where Jesus walked and taught and lived!  I felt it too.

I had always made fun of those who wanted to go to the Holy Land.  Why?  It's just a place!  From the pictures I had seen, I had decided that it was not that pretty, kind of desolate and hot - I just wasn't interested AT ALL!  I could think of a thousand places I'd rather go than to Israel.

It was at this very moment, standing on the balcony overlooking the Sea of Galilee, that I began to realize how VERY wrong I had been.  It is indeed "just a place", but I will never be the same for having visited here.  The things I learned, the sites I saw, the sounds I heard - they are all life changing.  I just can't explain it.

Now the words of the Bible have come alive in a new way.  I used to kind of "skip" over those hard to pronounce cities and geographical details - but now I am hungry to know every detail of Scripture.  I used to have the old Sunday School pictures in my mind when I read about the Sermon on the Mount, or the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, I used to see Charlton Heston and a hollywood desert when I pictured the Israelites in the Sinai desert - but now my mind has real pictures, (and much more accurate pictures, I might add) that flood my memory when I read or hear about these Biblical accounts.  If you EVER have the chance to come here - please make every effort to come to the land of the Bible.  It truly is amazing, and life changing.

I know my pictures and accounts of our travels are rather personal.  If you view my pictures, lovely though they may be, they are just pictures to you of places that are unrecognizable.  You really have to just come here for yourself and see this with your own eyes.  No photo journal, no book, no video can substitute for the real thing.  Sorry.