I apologize it has taken me another full week to get this out. This one is special, because it is going to be slightly different than others to come. This blog, about Carthage (Roman bath ruins dating back to 157AD or so) is both emotionally and spiritually charged. I have taken a bit of time to reflect on this, and I have been waiting until I could write it when my heart was ready, and when I wouldn't be so apt to being interrupted. This was one of the moments during our trip when God grabbed my spirit with a fist and I left changed. But this change, this "insight", this inflection on my Spirit, began months ago when I began reading these books: The Mark of the Lion Series by Francine Rivers.

This series is amazing. If you have a love for reading and you enjoy Christian Historical Fiction, then I highly recommend these books. At least the first two in the series. They are historical fiction, which means the setting and background it is written in is based on fact, although the actual characters themselves are fictional. The books are set in 70AD, just after the destruction of Jeruselam, when many Jews were killed on site, taken into slavery to serve rich roman households, or sent to the lions. It also speaks of the persecuted early church Christians, whom were "hated even more" than the Jews. These books brought things to life for me, things I had read in the bible many times over the years, but really never took the chance to stop and think about what those events must have really entailed for those suffering through them. It was not a mere series of events for them, it was thier life unfolding, and these were my brothers and sisters in christ. It was meeting in the dark hollows of catacombs to pray and to encourage others shaking in fear everytime they heard a roman soldiers boot clink near. It was a time when the fish symbol meant life silently waiting in security of darkness. It was a time when Jews taken into captivity prayed over thier masters souls knowing if thier masters found out they could be sent to be riped apart by starved lions, or even more degrading, a pack of wild dogs. It was a time when shipment of sand was one of the highest buisnesses in and around Rome...why sand? Because it was used to soak up the spilled blood in the arenas. Not hard to believe when you think about the popularity and growing hunger for the entertainment of "The Games". Anyone whom has ever seen pictures of the remains of the Colleseum can see "The Games" were HUGE...and were no laughing matter for early christians and jews of that time.

So back to Carthage... It was an odd occurance being able to walk past marble pillars laying on thier sides, or seeing cracks and chipped pillars still standing to the sky almost 2000 years later. it left me amazed. it left me in great retrospect. The roman baths were similiar to a modern day spa. They had gymnasiums, many different pools of different temperatures to relax sore muscles or relieve illnesses. Carthage alone was huge. (the panaramic shots we took with our camera will span two complete scrapbook pages, from edge, to edge, just when matched up to eachother. and those shots were taken from a distance) I wish I had really had the time to walk through it all. I was amazed at some of the things still standing and easily recognizable after all this time.

They had a detailed map at the front, written in marble, (in english, arabic, and either latin or greek) detailing the floor plan of this once huge bath.

It was dusty.

It was incredibly hot.

I felt small and insignificant walking under large archways and tower pillars.

I simply was in awe. But my moment of "Awe" was yet to come. the moment when God grabbed my spirit and twisted it happened later in the tour, at a different site, a much less noticeable and less recognizable peice of ground...it happened when the tour bus stopped at a small semi-circular bit of ruins. No tall pillars, no tall archways. The walls surrounding were not that impressive. There seemed to be more evidence of erosion here than before in Carthage. Carthage was dry and barren near the baths, here there were palm trees and evergreens surrounding the sides. I did see a Large barred gate at the end, but only when I came upon it on foot did I notice it....the tour bus had stopped us at a small "colleseum/arena".

Our guide Ralph explained it had been used for games involving Gladiators. I saw just in front of the large gate in the middle, the gate with rod iron fencing, was a large pit, about 6 feet deep, dug in a straight line leading outwards from the gate towards the front entrance. Ralph explained the Pit was where the gladiator would wait, while the lion or whatever beast was held behind the gate, was released. The pit was large enough the animal could not jump out, and then again, neither could the gladiator. It was maybe 3 feet across. I think of the spears the gladiator might have had, had they allowed him one, barely room enough to yield it. What must it have been like, to stand there, the crowd cheering for spilled blood, your blood, seeing the beast anxiously waiting to be let out, eyeing you, hungry for YOU, and you have no place to hide, no place to run. It is you against them...and the crowd cheers when it charges, or boos if the "fight" is taking "too long". 

Standing in the midst my heart was pounding. I loved listening to Ralph, but my spirit was being beckoned. All I had read in those books, in my Bible, snippets that I had learned about biblical history was flooding back, and Ralph's history lesson was drowned out. I stood in the middle, looking at the fallen ruins, feeling the dust and crumble of rocks under my sandals and I was taken back 2 thousand years. I could smell the dust of sand, in the same wind that moved the trees 2 thousand years before. I Imagined the people all gathered around for some slice of entertainment. My mind drifted over the Gladiators emotions, His quick breathes of anxiousness and anticipation, his cries when the animals teeth found thier mark and the jeers or cheers of the people around. 

And then I thought back to the Jewish captives, the early church Christians, the mothers standing there locked in with thier children. I Imagined me being there. Imagined my two little girls holding onto my robe with white knuckled fingers. I could feel myself holding Megan in my arms and the way she wraps her legs around my waist when she is frightened, and her doing the same then. I could hear thier cries as they see the lionesses slinkering around the walls. The children would have seen lions in the fields, they would have known what they do, would have been taught from a young age the dangers that awaits in the beasts of the fields, and now they are confused. Mom has brought them to this place, a place of obvious danger and they don't know why, and they are scared. Couldn't you imagine the childrens frightened pleas to thier parents? They understand enough to know the danger, but not why they are there. Can't you imagine if those were your ears hearing them? A parents natural reaction is to save your children, what tears fall, what cries your own heart makes when you know you can not save them, and it is just a matter of time, a few measured last breaths, before either you, or them is snatched away.

And what would be my last fleeting thoughts in those moments, as the dust rises like the cheers of the crowds...could I anticipate which lioness would charge first, would they take me, or my little girl first? I stood there emotionally drawn in these thoughts...taken back to my sisters in Christ...imagining if I had been born in but a different time, in but a different place...

...it could have been me.

it could have been my little girls...

About this time I walked and felt rocks crumbling over my feet. I was brought back to present day and saw the ruins for what they were

...RUINS.

What joy I felt that such a place now laid covered in dust, packed away behind some bushes and trees, the iron of the gate rusting, long forgotten! And I wondered, how many Jews and Christians had prayed for this very moment?

In the dark of the catacombs,

in whispered hushed tones

or in the silence of thier hearts...

how many prayers had risen to God's ears

for the colleseum's and arena's to be turned to rubble and dust?

long forgotten and ignored?

A mere reflection of history's past...

And yet here I was!!! Standing here witness to the answers of thier prayers!! Standing in the very middle of this arena looking at the "face of death" that USED to lie in wait behind those gates..and the gates now empty and I, I was very much unafraid. A small howl of wind, the sun beating on me, the dust covering my toes as it had theirs...but I am not running for my life or listening to the cries and screams of those having gone before me, or shaking and trembling as I hold my children in my lap trying to tell them all is okay, when I know all is not okay and it is almost time for our turn...what a mix of bitter-sweetness.

Back on the bus, I praised God and thanked Him for such a harsh yet truthful revelation. My heart lept with joy for where I am today. I worship in daylight without fear, I have numerous Bibles within my house. If I need encouragement I pick up a phone or write an email *chuckles*...my how times have changed...at least for us.

Then God reminded me they haven't in some places of the world. Christians are still persecuted, and yet right now it is different for them than the Early Church. They have millions of believers, not suffering, not in fear, not being persecuted that can pray for them. The Early Church did not have this. They were the first! But persecuted beleivers today have a *treasure* in those of us far off from danger and living with freedom...I was ashamed I had not thought of them before, nor had I thought to ever pray for them...of all people, they need the Body of Christ so much more, and again I realized my voice had been silent.

And there was one more realization, after having amended within myself to pray for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in persecuted places...if the time had come, if it had been me...would my faith had been pure enough to withstand that same persecution? I have the freedom they long for, that they pray for, but do I hold faith in Christ Jesus with the same conviction that they do?

again...my Spirit was pricked...

I thought of how lazy I can be about going to church, about reading or praying. How I really do take it for granted. The people of the Early Church, now thier faith had to be pure. Had to be willing to die for. Had to be willing to listen to thier children cry and scream and pleed and beg...was mine to that point? Had I taken my faith for granted for so long that it was no longer pure, no longer strong...if the time pressed would I deny or would I step up and march to the Arena? I had no answer honestly...when I thought of my girls begging me for a protection I could not give them, I'm really not sure I would have had the conviction or courage or faith to not deny and avoid the pain. It was a shock to me, yet again...but in truth, I wondered how many Christians have that Purity in thier faith as the Early Church had? To be a Christian or a Jew, your convictions had to be real, and your focus only on God. I wonder how many of us have THAT kind of faith? Or how many more have been like I have, watered down, have made Christianity to fit us, pick through the Bible and take only what is comfortiable and not the parts that change or mold or convict us. Or how many *think* they fit into the former, but really lie in the latter (Is this why David prayed for God to search the inner most parts of his heart?)

I wonder if out of all the millions of those professing Christianity today, if there is 1 tenth the purity that would be found in the handful proffessing Christ to the death in the arena's of Rome....

my heart has been challenged and changed, most diffinetly humbled. I went to the ship that night and tried to call my girls. Somehow I just had to hear thier tiny voices, safe and sound, happy and carefree.

I spent that evening reflective,

...convicted,

...changed.

 A part of me had been awakened, I only hope as time goes on I don't close my eyes again to what I have been given in this day and age...a life reeping from all the tearful prayers sown in quietness and darkness those thousands of years ago...walking on the rubble of a place prayed to destruction so that I could breathe without fear...

Still, someday I do want to see the Colleseum itself. I don't really know why after the experience I have had here... but, still... it tugs on my Spirit. 

**(For more photographs on Carthage, I have added them to our Flickr Site)**