From Edie: Eva Marie Everson shares how a visit to Rachel's Tomb in Israel inspired her to pray Scripture and seek God's guidance and blessings in her writing life.
Dipping the Quill Deeper: Praying the Scriptures Over Your Life, Your Family, and Your Work , Part 1
by Eva Marie Everson @EversonAuthor
Jerusalem 2007
My co-author and I sat at a table for two in a bustling bus station in Jerusalem. We nibbled on salads and sipped strong coffee, grateful for the few minutes we had to relax before we set out on our next adventure. For over a week, Miriam Feinberg Vamosh and I had walked, climbed, and driven the Holy Land. We were a Jewish woman and a Christian woman, both bestselling authors within our respective countries, living out what we had been contracted by Thomas Nelson to write about.
The land. Her stories. Her people. Her history. Most importantly, how ha’hartez speaks to those who live or visit there.
Earlier that day, Miriam casually commented about Rachel’s Tomb located just outside Bethlehem. Going there, she’d told me, would require taking a bus and a modicum of bravery. “Are you up for it?” she asked.
I said I was.
We boarded the bus, the two of us sitting in the front row opposite the driver’s side. The windows were cloudy with dust but clear enough that my camera was able to capture the stop in Meah Shearim, an ultra-old, ultra-Orthodox neighborhood within Jerusalem’s city limits. When we stopped again to allow an IDF soldier to board so as to keep us safe, I managed to get a few shots of another with his young son—a moment I have kept in my heart since. Moments later, after the first soldier sent an SMS message, he stepped out of the bus and unlocked a high gate for the driver to go through, carrying us closer to our destination.
Rachel, often called the “Mother of Israel.” Rachel, who died by the road outside of Bethlehem after giving birth to Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob, whose descendants became the nation of Israel. Rachel, whom Jacob loved. And I was about to enter her tomb alongside an entire busload of Israeli Jews who put their lives on the line just to be near her as they prayed to God, often for the blessing of children.
We hurried out of the bus between two lines of soldiers and into the quiet holiness of a building where prayers have been spoken and whispered and cried for centuries. After the washing of hands, the men filed off to the right as the women moved to the left, Miriam and I along with them.
We passed through walls of cool stone until we reached an anteroom where prayer books lined shelves. The women reached for them and then went on into the room where thick velvet covered the grave. The women sat. They stood. They opened the books and recited the prayers I immediately recognized as coming largely from the Book of Psalms.
For the first time in my life, as I stood back almost too filled with awe to breathe, my heart fully connected the power in praying Scripture. When we do this—over ourselves, our families and other loved ones, and our work—we cannot go wrong. Why? Because God’s Word proves itself to be faithful to God’s heart.
Praying God’s Word is not to replace our natural conversations with our Heavenly Father but rather (at least for me) to put us in a place of right standing with Him. If God cannot contradict Himself (and He cannot), then His Word spoken to Him sets my heart toward His plan for my life.
This includes the work I do daily as I sit at my desk, my fingers upon the keyboard of my laptop, typing out words to form articles, blog posts (such as this one), business emails, and books. Any of us who say we don’t want God’s blessings upon our work would be, well, fibbing. Or, at the very least, kidding ourselves.
But I must admit to you, I did not begin daily praying the Scriptures at that time.
The following year, Reflections of God’s Holy Land released in time for Israel’s 60th anniversary of reestablished statehood. Two years after that, my own mother passed from this life and into the arms of her waiting Savior. The day of the funeral, I woke in my childhood home, went into the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, then shuffled into the den to sit in her “Bible reading” chair. When I opened her most-prized book, a piece of paper fell out and onto my lap.
I picked it up and read it.
That day, with this one glimpse into my mother’s prayer life, praying the Scriptures began for me . . .
(Part II follows next month. To see a few of the photos taken while on this journey, you can go to: The Story Behind the Photograph)
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