By this time my sweet baby girl and I had learned how to sit in the corner pretty well. I was past the part where I was tempted to cry all the time and our family was walking a little more confidently. We were better able to see what God had done in our family and our daughter's life and were very thankful.
The Lord instructed Joshua to have a man from each tribe take up a stone from the middle of the Jordan and place it where they stayed that night. The purpose of the was to serve as a sign. "In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever." (NIV, Joshua 4:5-7)
That evening I was so excited to share with my husband what I had learned. You see I knew that we had to do this. Not the crossing Jordan part, but the making a memorial part. The only problem was all I could see in my tired, overly imaginative time was grave stones. That was scary. So I prayed.
Now if you know me at all I tend to like to make things cute! After all, the cuter the better! For months I kept wondering how I was going to honor God by putting stones so that when out little girls asked what they were for I was going to tell them all the God had done. You can see it, right??
Months later I began to look forward to her first birthday. Was it true? Could she really have lived all the way to a year? WOW! I was scared. I was reliving many of the things we had gone through. One night I figured out just what we needed to do... hopscotch!! That wasn't scary. That could be made from stones and it could represent the vibrant life of our family.
I enlisted the help of a sweet friend that is a wonderful artist. I wanted my idea to look great. I also wanted it to last. I thoughtfully went through all that had happened. I prayed through many of the verses that God had used to teach us, encourage us, and comfort us. I chose 12 verses and assigned one to each number and design. It was perfect!
For her first birthday we had our family and home team join us to celebrate all that God had done. They each signed either the starting line or the finish line.
Outside under the trees this amazing group of 12 stones sits today. It is getting rained on today. Many of the stones are not as bright as they were ten years ago. It does stand as a monument to what God did that year and has continued to do. We have even had a few opportunities to share the story with new friends when they have visited our home and asked, "what do these stones mean?".
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