Reflections and memorials.
June tends to mark the end of the year for me, as opposed to December. For most of my life, I have operated on an academic year calendar, first as a student and now as a teacher. Therefore, June tends to be my end-of-the-year reflection time. It has become a time for me to honor memories, reflect on the previous year’s experiences, and create memorials. For years it has been a time that has heralded change, fresh starts, and good-byes.
2012- said good-bye to my first teaching job in Alaska and met my 8-week-old nephew for the first time
2013- celebrated getting hired for my first classroom teaching position
2014- spoke to my grandmother for the last time
2016- weaned off anti-depressants and prepared for a move and new job in another state
2019- ended something good to pursue something new
2020- completed a teaching experience that brought my elementary teaching career full circle (this is a remarkable thing for me)
We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We hold baby showers, wedding showers, housewarming parties, and retirement parties. We share a meal after weddings and often after funerals, celebrating the new union in one case and reflecting on the life of a loved one in the latter. In all of these moments, we mark time, honor life and loved ones, remember and reflect.
Remembering our experiences and being willing to share them with others is something God frequently commanded the Israelites to do. Often the remembering coincided with building a memorial, something that, when seen, would inspire questions from younger generations and reflective moments for those who lived it. One such instance happened in the book of Joshua when the Israelites were finally entering the Promised Land after years of wandering. They would have to first cross the Jordan River, which happened to be at flood stage.
“When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD, the Lord of the whole earth, come to rest in the Jordan’s water, its water will be cut off. The water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass” Joshua 3:13 (CSB).
God did not stop up the water before the priests entered it. They had to fully step into the water with the ark before the water would be backed up. This action on God's part makes me think of the many times He has acted in my life, but I had to take the first step. I think back to 2016, I resigned from my job and moved forward with selling my house, trusting that He would provide a new job and a buyer for my house. He did. In 2019, I had to trust He had something planned for me when I moved without a job; what resulted from this past year was an increase in healing, confidence, and fruitfulness that can only be God-given.
Consider reflecting on some of your own life experiences and how you saw God move as you took steps forward in faith. Often I find that it is only when I reflect on those times that I realize just how active God was in those seasons.
“Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan, their feet touched the water at its edge and the water flowing downstream stood still, rising up in a mass…” Joshua 3:15-16a (CSB).
Did you catch that? “…the Jordan overflows its banks…”. The river was overflowing its banks; it was not a neatly contained river gently flowing through the landscape. The amount of water did not faze God. The task may have seemed insurmountable to the priests tasked with walking into that fast-flowing, filled-over-the-brim river. These men would have only heard of the Red Sea crossing; they had not witnessed it for themselves. God would show them His power and remind them that He was (and still is) "the Lord of the whole earth" (3:13).
What is going on in your life that you need this reminder that God, the Lord of the whole earth, is active and powerfully working in your life? While your situation may seem like a flood that is overwhelming you, consider shifting your perspective. What if, instead of an overwhelming flood, it's an opportunity for God to move powerfully and purposefully in and through your life. Goodness, do I need this reminder regularly.
Joshua told the Israelites, per God’s command, “‘Go across to the ark of the LORD your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, so that this will be a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you should tell them’…Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites” Joshua 4:5-7 (CSB).
What are your memorials? What reminders do you make for yourself so that when you look back on them, you remember God's power and provision? Sometimes for me, it's a song. I love how music can speak to any situation, and there’s a particular song by the Korean pianist Yiruma called “Kiss the Rain” that acts as a memorial for me. Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts is another. The picture I took at my grandparents' ranch of the meadow flooded with spring runoff is a memorial. The photos of former classes act as a memorial for my failures, disappointments, growth, successes, and, most of all, God's daily provision in my teaching career. A dried flower from a wreath at my grandmother's funeral sits in a glass milk bottle on a bookshelf in my room and acts as a memorial of her.
What if we were to stop for just a little while and reflect on life – the joys, sorrows, triumphs, disappointments? And then, take your perspective a little wider, where is God in these experiences? The Israelites did not see God act until they placed their feet in the overflowing river, but He showed up in a big way. Ask yourself, how has God shown up for you, and how can you memorialize it?
