Lay Your Stones in a Pile

What a time to be alive!

I don’t say that lightly, although there was lovely little exclamation mark at the end, just to lift the tone. When the whole world seems to have gone simultaneously crazed and unified all at the same time, it can be hard knowing where to land on the scale of feeling.

I’ve been so unsettled in myself these past few days, and I don’t think I’m the only one. All the normal things aren’t there to experience. Maybe it’s like coming off crack, maybe distraction is the modern-day good persons crack cocaine. Apart from food and media, every single thing that I’ve ever used to fill my life and time has been stripped away, and I’m being forced to look at myself fully in the mirror.

It can be a very disconcerting time, and I think a lot of people will come out of this thinking differently about the world and their place in it.

In one of our classes this year we’ve been studying the history of the Jewish people and I noted something interesting: whenever their circumstances changed or God did something crazy big for them, they were asked to take a number of stones and lay them in a pile as a remembrance of the thing that had just happened. These would be altars of remembrance that they could look to in the good times and in the bad times to remind them of just what God was capable of.

So let me offer a suggestion for the coming few days.

Take the time to think of the pivotal moments in your life, the good ones. The times when that special someone stuck their neck out and actually messaged, or when a family member did something nice for you. That time when you learnt a new skill or completed that certification. That time when new life entered yours or an old friend came back for a visit.

Take these beautiful moments and write them down. Make a list, a compilation of your good memories.

Lay your stones in a pile.

Put that list somewhere you can see it. Create that altar of remembrance in a time when chaos is king.

Remind yourself that life can be good, and that the best is yet to come.