This Thanksgiving I am Grateful to LEAVE

We are approaching Thanksgiving here in America and I am very grateful to be Leaving. Well, that is not entirely true. First, I will spend the day with family and friends. We will set a table filled with delicacies and delights. We will eat and laugh and talk and TikTok about it all, I am sure. As we gather around for a few hours, I will Leave. I will sneak away to decide what to pack for my long journey just a few days later. In fact, I’ve already started packing for my mission to Israel. I will be going with just a handful of other women who are joining me. Each woman has a similar plan ahead and a similar calling in her heart and in her soul.

A Calling…To Leave.

We will be traveling together to get dirty in the land, this is the language I have been using to describe my trip to others. We will work to help our brothers and sisters return to their homes on a kibbutz in the south. We will be rebuilding the south. We will be positioned with others to paint a preschool and tile the kitchen of a home on a Kibbutz near the Gaza border, so that they can return Home.

They were forced to Leave.

We will work to help these families return to their homes so that they can rebuild the life they once knew. They were forced to Leave.

As we approach Thanksgiving here in America, I am grateful to be Leaving. I can feel the gratitude building up in my soul. I am certain it is gratitude. My enthusiasm is leaping out of my body and I am filled with my anticipation and excitement to just Leave. To get to work, to get dirty in the Land.

This Thanksgiving I am so grateful to be Leaving.

This “Calling to Leave” has become my mission. I am being called from a voice deep within my soul to go, “Go to the Land and Rebuild” I am realizing that a “Calling” comes from many places, many voices. It comes from a deep place of mourning, sadness and grief, yet, it also comes from a place of gratitude and a place of peace. A “Calling” comes from a deep desire to do more. This is how we gain our greatest moments of joy and purpose. This is how we tap into that deepest part of ourselves that Calls out to each of us, “do more, get stronger, dig deeper, work harder…”

So as we approach Thanksgiving in America, I’m grateful for my Calling To Leave. To Go. To Work. To Do More. To Get Dirty in the Land.