Raegan, Ezra and I headed up to Baltimore on Saturday for the Threadless/Ace of Cakes party. It was loads of fun. Some random passerby snagged this picture of Ezra:

This is the kind of picture I’ve been trying to take for quite a while. Mr snakemanrob, your pictures are very good.

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In Joshua 4, God instructs the Israelites to set up 12 stones to remind future generations that God stopped the waters of the Jordan so the Israelites could pass through. The idea is that the kids would be like, “hey Dad… what are these stones for?” The reply would come, “well, thats’ a great story… let me tell you about how we came into the land…”

I’ve been thinking about this concept of memorial stones, how we are to document what God has done in our life so that we can tell our future generations about it. In our current society, there’s not really a good way to set up stones so that our kids will ask about them. It’s rare that we live on the same land for generations, and the entire concept of memorial stones is such that they aren’t easy to just pick up and move. So how do we do this? How do we set up things to remind us all what great things God has done in our lives?

I’ve asked a number of friends this question, and I’ve gotten many good responses. One idea is to keep a family journal of prayer requests, and then you can go through them and put the date when they’ve been answered. This is good, and I think we should all have prayer journals, but I don’t think this will necessarily make the best memorial stone. You have to actually go through and start reading the book. You aren’t just reminded in your daily life.

Another thought is through scrapbooks and photo albums. My friend said that we were a much more visual/literate society now, contrasted with the primarily oral society of Joshua’s time. Taking pictures to document an event where God moved in your life is an excellent idea. We take pictures on birthdays, why not take pictures when God heals the nodule in your lung, or when God provides a mysterious $500 rebate check so you can make the rent? You can write up a little story with each picture to remind yourself of the particulars of the event. I think this is an excellent idea, but it’s really just the prayer journal above with additional features. This means it’s subject to the same problem - it sits on the bookshelf and doesn’t really stick out.

My idea definitely stems from my bent towards technology. I was thinking you could have a website, let’s call it a “blog”, and you can write little essays telling what God did in your life. These posts can have pictures, of course, and are really just an electronic version of the previous two suggestions. However, this has the added advantage of being highly visible and public. I think this meets more of the spirit of the command to erect memorial stones. However, there’s still an issue that you have to actually go to the website to see it. I guess you could follow a random link somewhere, but it’s still missing something.

Maybe there will never be a substitute for erecting massive stones to commemorate what God has done in your life. If that’s the case, go visit your local stone mason and pick out some stones and get to work! Alternatively, start keeping some kind of journal. Whether it’s a scrapbook, a weblog, or a moleskin notebook, just do something. The most important point is that you remember what God has done, and that you tell it to others!

In that vein, I think I will create a category called Memorial Stones. I’m going to keep track of the things God has done in my life, and in my family. I don’t know how often I’ll post in this category; the Israelites didn’t erect stones every day. I don’t have a list of things that I will go post in there now. It will be in the spirit of communion… “as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me.”

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