Memorial Stones
The Old Testament tells many stories of "called characters" (I'm not sure saints is the proper word for some of these folks) who set up stones as memorials. It's a wonderful concept. Our assistant pastor challenged us with this idea Wednesday night. The existence of a physical time and place with memories of how God touched us, shook us, got our attention, hugged us, or woke us up. Of course, being humans, we tend to either miss the point or get the point and miss the LORD. We start to worship the experience, or the stone, or our feelings about it, instead of the God who made the stones possible.
1993 was a horrible year for me. My hours and pay were cut dramatically, my husband was unemployed, we had no health insurance, my son "came down" with seizure disorder, we were living in a bad neighborhood, and my brother-in-law got out of rehab and came to live with us. After it was over, I started having post-traumatic stress and had some health problems. But we got through it, and now all of those "problems" are gone, in a sense. Immediately after my response was, "Wow, I'm a strong person." Wrong. It took me a while to get the real lesson--we only got through all that through grace. 1993 is my memorial stone, even though it's a time rather than a place.
1993 was a horrible year for me. My hours and pay were cut dramatically, my husband was unemployed, we had no health insurance, my son "came down" with seizure disorder, we were living in a bad neighborhood, and my brother-in-law got out of rehab and came to live with us. After it was over, I started having post-traumatic stress and had some health problems. But we got through it, and now all of those "problems" are gone, in a sense. Immediately after my response was, "Wow, I'm a strong person." Wrong. It took me a while to get the real lesson--we only got through all that through grace. 1993 is my memorial stone, even though it's a time rather than a place.
Comments