Life.

I always pay attention to what choices people make when it comes to clothes and jewelry.
( I don`t look very fancy myself…)
On my first trip to Israel in 1976 most people were wearing silver or gold chains around their necks with pendants on them. I was familiar with the star of David but the other most frequent pattern was completely unknown to me. The shape was not beautiful in particular and some would wear a thick chain with a BIG pendant. It was made of two Hebrew letters, חי , which means life. When I got someone to explain the meaning to me it still didn’t make sense why people would walk around demonstrating the importance of life.
I grew up in beautiful Norway and the only experience I had with war was “snow ball war” during the winter and “water war” in the summer. My life was OK and I took it for granted.

I stayed in Israel for six weeks spending four of them working on a kibutz and the rest of the time travelling. At work I met with holocaust survivors who looked more dead than alive. They were stuck in the horrors of the past. It looked as if the past was more real to them than the present.
I also met with people who had lost husbands, fathers and brothers in the Israeli wars.
Something that was new to me was to see how much time families would spend together. They would make sure to have hours of quality time with one another every day.

I returned to Norway a different person. I had seen and experienced things that gave me a lot to think about for years to come.

To have an eternity aspect on life does not mean that life on earth is unimportant. As least to me it doesn’t. When I read the first chapters of the Bible it makes me understand that this world with everything that it represents is of great importance to God. He knows and cares about details that scientists have yet to discover. My Bible tells me not only that God started it all, but also that He will see through that His intensions for this world once will be fulfilled. There will come a day when people will use their time building each other up instead of tearing each other apart. Very often, unfortunately, it takes reaching “ground zero” for people to realize that a change of direction is necessary for life to grow forth.

Elin Elkouby