Years ago when I was an avid blogger and reader of blogs, I read a post by Linny Saunders over at Place Called Simplicity where she described the memorial box her family keeps to remember God's faithfulness. Inspired, I kept a small memorial box of my own, which over time evolved into a tower of memorial stones.
Each stone tells a story of a time when I found myself desperate and without options - and how God made a way where there was no way.
Not every stone testifies of a perfect ending or a magic wand that erased all suffering. I never did birth a child. The mass in my daughter's abdomen was cancer. My marriage still ended. The testimony is in His unwavering faithfulness through all the darkness that presses in. Every stone represents a miracle.
I've told some of these stories to my kids, and some of these stories my kids have lived through with me. I can only hope and pray that they learn earlier than I did that the Lord is the only source of hope and peace.
Because I'm human, I still battle the clutches of fear and anxiety, but my memorial stones interrupt the cycle and ground me to His faithfulness. They beckon me to trust when the way ahead is pitch black and to wait expectantly in the face of the impossible. I can hold each stone in my palm, close my eyes, and remember: He is right here with me, just like He always has been. He makes a way where there is no way.
"And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, "In the future when your descendants ask their parents, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them, 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.' For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God." --Joshua 4:20-24