Saturday, April 2, 2016

Twelve Memorial Stones from the Jordan When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests' feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’” Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.” (Joshua 4:1-7 ESV)

I am not sure what year these verses were presented to me and would have such a impact on my healing process. I think I was high school age, maybe even the year before my freshman year of college. I was at Camp Hope, but I have no idea who was speaking. I just remember that something was said that night that would cause me to act. I had asked Jesus in my heart at this very camp when I was almost 7 years old. I obviously did not understand all there was to know about being a Christian , but I knew that I needed Jesus and I knew that day that I had changed and that I had decided to follow Him and know Him more. It was during this particular summer that I had made a commitment to Christ to surrender my whole life to Him. I laid all of my plans and dreams before Him and committed to following wherever He was leading. It was during this sermon that the preacher encouraged us as believers to make our own alter to God as a marker that we could always point back to to remember the commitment we made. So that evening I went out by myself and I got some stones and some sticks. I found a spot by a tree and I made an alter reestablishing the commitment I had made to surrender my all to Christ. I knew it would not still be standing for my children to see one day, it probably didn't even make it to morning, but it was an outward action that I did as a symbol in my heart of what I had committed to do.

Years would pass and I would not give another thought to that alter I had made. I was living my life trying my best to be obedient and God was blessing and everything seemed to be going according to a great plan. All of that would change on April 2, 2003. The day I would sit in my doctor's office and the word CANCER would come out of his mouth. I have an older post that gives more details about that day here if you wanted to know more. The truth is I still remember every detail of that day, but that is not want I wanted to focus on in this post. On April 2nd the prognosis was not good. I had cancer, but the cancer cells had changed forms so many times that it looked like it had already turned into a progressive stage of cancer and the likely hood that it had spread to other organs was great. We would somehow trudge through a few days until I would meet with my oncologist. On April 5th I was sitting in an exam room at the Palmetto Cancer Center on Columbia, SC. I was sitting on a cold metal exam table. My husband and sister where in the waiting room and the doctor had gone to the lab to look at the sample that had been sent in by my regular doctor. I sat in that room trying to wrap my head around how did I end up in here? This was not part of the plan? It was in those long moments of waiting that I said to God, "I chose to follow you when I was six years old and I still choose to follow you." It was then that an alter from many years came back to my mind. The alter when I told God to use my life anyway He saw fit. My life was surrendered to His Glory. His plan, not mine. It was in that moment a peace flooded me like I had never experienced. The doctor would come in the room and it was determined that it was indeed cancer but not as progressed as first believed. I would walk out of that hospital with a plan for treatment and a memory of giving God my life. It was not easy and I would have to take my heart and mind back to that alter many times. It was that act of building a memory alter that I would do throughout my journey. The nights I wasn't sure I wanted to live to morning I would wake up feeling better and build an alter in my mind thanking God for being my comfort. The day I was healed, I built an alter thanking God for being my healer. The day I was doing dishes and I started singing a song and I realized that I had not wanted to even sing my heart was so broken and I built that alter thanking God for restoring my joy and my song. The day Samuel was placed in my arms I built an alter thanking God for giving me my heart's desire. I could go on and on about the dark, uncertain times that God stepped in and was our Provider, Strength, Peace, Everything! Maybe 13 years later a true sign of how much healing as come into my life is the fact that I have retraced this broken journey in my heart and mind and with each crushing memory I can walk a little further and see God's hands. Going back over the hurts in our lives is not easy. We all have times in our life that cause so much pain and despair even thinking about thinking about them. There are times on each of our journey's that we were were certain we would never experience joy and beauty ever again. Oh the joy that comes from seeing how God worked and how He delivered me the ashes of my broken dreams! Oh the true healing that comes from remembering how dark the days, but rejoicing that our good Father had a plan all along. My children will never pass by any physical alters, but when questions are asked and hard times come I can point back to those alters I was building and with confidence tell them what God had done!