Monday Memorial Stones

Happy Monday!  I'd like to start a little series here with you all, to help us start the week out right and bring glory to God as we remember and reflect on all the wonderful miracles He has wrought in each of our lives.  I'd love to 
hear your stories of God's faithfulness, and in just about a month, I'll be celebrating my first 'memorial stone' with many of you!  Today I remember and reflect on God's goodness in bringing Paul & I together.  I can't say how many times I resigned myself to thinking and feeling that God had forgotten me, that there really couldn't be another man left out there that I would truly enjoy, respect, and admire.  But there he is, and the days are nearing when we will begin the process of becoming one in Christ.  He is also celebrating a birthday this week, so there are lots of reasons to be thankful for his life!  It is incredible how God can bring two people together who are so different, who are going different directions (except for following Christ), and have no way of finding each other, aside from the Eternal Grace of God.  I hope we will all find joy as we reflect not only on what God has done for each of us, but what that tells us about Who He is....and that is something great to start off every week!  Celebrating love! ~RP 
(see below for Scripture on 'memorial stones' and how the Israelites were commanded to do this...)

Joshua 4

 ¹ When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, ²“Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, ³ and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

 ⁴ So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, ⁵ and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, ⁶ to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ⁷ 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.”

²¹ He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ²² tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ ²³ For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea^[b] when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. ²⁴He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.”