Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
Today the prayer notes left at the Western Wall in Jerusalem are being collected. They do this twice a year. Each little note, including those left by people on our yearly tours to Israel, had been lovingly written and placed in the many crevices, nooks and crannies of the base of the Temple Mount that once held God’s Temple.
Dwight Widaman, Metro Voice Editor
The notes, from around the world, are prayers for dying relatives, a struggling marriage, estranged relationships, healing and peace.
Twice a year the prayers are collected and buried on the Mount of Olives by Rabbis who pray for all those who left them.
We love to take our tour guests there and will do so again next April. It can be a very emotional moment. Tears are shed and prayers are spoken as we move forward to place our hands on the mighty sun-warmed blocks of stone.
Some say, “Oh, that’s silly! We don’t need a note to pray.” And they would be correct. But leaving a note at the Western Wall is leaving it at the doorstep of God’s home. You see, Psalm 132:14 tells us God STILL dwells there: “This is my house FOREVER; Here I will dwell for I have desired it.”
God desires it and did not abandon His home because the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. Forever is, well, forever.
I’m encouraged today that the note I left at the Wall in March is now resting on the Mount of Olives where Jesus prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for me.
As God has not abandoned his home in Jerusalem, neither will He abandon me.
We will be back again next spring, and yes, I’ll leave another note.
–Dwight Widaman is editor of metrovoicenews.com and, with his wife Anita, lead tours to Israel each year.
