The Story part 6 Jericho to Bethlehem
Rocks, dust and the strange up and down walk of the camel was making her feel ill. Holding on as tightly as she could, leaning forward too far, afraid if she leant to the side her bulge would topple her off the camels back, the ground felt so far down. It was steep and rugged, she was so grateful for the camel but Lord, please make it stop.
Musa had come to him that morning and offered Tariq, his smallest camel, for his wife. Musa reasoned the long climb would be a lot easier for her if she got off the donkey. The camels knew the way and all she needed to do was let the camel walk hold on. He knew it would be better but how would she take it? She was tired and irritable and on the verge of tears. Strangely she agreed when she found out the camels name meant morning star.
The morning was cool. The road before them steep and winding. All he could think of was that camels are faster than donkeys and she’d be safer if anything went wrong, provided she didn’t fall off. He turned to see Musa splitting the camels into groups, camels, humans, camels humans, camels. That looked good, more protection and the camels were good followers.
It was working, they all managed to keep up a steady pace an so far hadn’t seen any signs of other groups or bandits. With everyone using face coverings against the dust, he thought it would be difficult to know where to attack them if a raid was to happen. He also though he didn’t have any experience and had no idea what he was talking about, so best to keep his thoughts to himself.
She had settled into the camels rhythm and felt much better. She could see Tikvah in front and the view was spectacular, particularly if she didn’t look down. The part of the journey she secretly feared the most was turning out to be possibly the best. The strangest of things, but it made sense. There was no possibility she could have planned this herself. Up until this morning she detested camels, spitty, grumpy, smelly thing that they were. Who would have guessed that the very things she detested would be the things that made her life better. She’d come to realise that letting things work out, being open to new ways of looking at life was one of the gifts she had been given almost nine months ago when she said yes to YHWH. Now the camels had brought a new revelation of what her life was to become - YHWH would use many different things to show her how to be the woman he had made her and the mother of this child he had given her.
