I love the Holidays! I don’t know what it is about it. The hustle and bustle…the crazy traffic. The mall Santa. The smell of hot cider or roasting chestnuts on an open fire.(yes I grew up where they actually do roast chestnuts) I love getting ready for family and friends to come to our home. I love to decorate for the fall and then for the Christmas season. All of this represents such a warm time to me. It is part of tradition in our family. It will be a little different this year. Still decorating, just a little toned down! Not out in the crowd as much. Still preparing for Thanksgiving and then Christmas.
I was wondering how you might get ready for your Thanksgiving table? I thought I would share my tradition with you. Let me start by saying that I love to decorate and that my usual table decor is the traditional cornucopia that you would see. I have added to it throughout the years as I have hit the 75% off sales until it almost overtakes the table and probably has become ridiculous! I like it though, and my family indulges me and I always remove it in time for the turkey who is the star of the show! This year will be different because I have not had time to dig through the attic to unearth the traditional centerpiece…I am also quite sure that Sam’s doctors would not be particularly thrilled if there were any dust in the middle of the table, and given the age of some of my decorations….you can only imagine!
This year I will be changing things up…I think we will have candles! Yes this is very exciting …I know you are overwhelmed! Our girls will be the stars, the food is already prepared and in the freezer thanks to our neighbors Cory and Leah! The other center piece that I am excited about are stones. YES STONES! They are very hypo allergenic! I cannot claim the idea for my own, I saw it on the mid day show on channel 4. The host suggested that you take a bowl of smooth stones that your children gathered, or that you bought at a craft store. That you wash them, and that you have them in a bowl with a Sharpie pen. Family members and guests write what they are thankful for on the stones and use them as the center piece on the table. ( of course, they nestled the stones in a beautiful sheet of moss with votive candles all the way down the table…moss is a big NO NO at our house! ) I am really excited about this idea…we have so much to be thankful for this year.
The idea of stones of thanksgiving and remembrance is not a new one to me. It is actually part of one of my favorite sermons that my brother-in-law, Tim preaches. I think that the passage he uses is out of Joshua 4. I like the whole chapter. It is an awesome story of the miracle of the Israelites crossing over the Jordan river. The back drop to the story is that they have been wandering around in the wilderness, probably wondering if they would ever reach what God had promised them. I wonder if I had been in their midst if I would have been aware at all of the many miracles of God’s provision for them. The deliverance from Pharoah, the crossing of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud that lead them by day, and the pillar of fire that led them by night, the manna from heaven, …I am sure as they wandered they became weary from their journey and less thankful for any provision that had come to them. I imagine that they wondered if they would have been better off back in Pharaohs service…. And finally this…after years of wandering, thinking that they had left all they knew, in hopes of a promised land that would never be, they see it, across the river Jordan. Here is the story:
Joshua 4
The People Set Up a Monument
1After Israel had crossed the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua:
2-3Tell [a] one man from each of the twelve tribes to pick up a large rock from where the priests are standing. Then have the men set up those rocks as a monument at the place where you camp tonight. 4Joshua chose twelve men; he called them together, 5and told them:
Go to the middle of the riverbed where the sacred chest is, and pick up a large rock. Carry it on your shoulder to our camp. There are twelve of you, so there will be one rock for each tribe. 6-7Someday your children will ask, ” Why are these rocks here?” Then you can tell them how the water stopped flowing when the chest was being carried across the river. These rocks will always remind our people of what happened here today.
8The men followed the instructions that the LORD had given Joshua. They picked up twelve rocks, one for each tribe, and carried them to the camp, where they put them down.
9Joshua had some other men set up a monument next to the place where the priests were standing. This monument was also made of twelve large rocks, and it is still there in the middle of the river.
The People of Israel Set Up Camp at Gilgal
10-13The army got ready for battle and crossed the Jordan. They marched quickly past the sacred chest [b] and into the desert near Jericho. Forty thousand soldiers from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh [c] led the way, as Moses had ordered. [d] The priests stayed right where they were until the army had followed the orders that the LORD had given Moses and Joshua. Then the army watched as the priests carried the chest the rest of the way across.
14-18” Joshua,” the LORD said, ” have the priests come up from the Jordan and bring the chest with them.” So Joshua went over to the priests and told them what the LORD had said. And as soon as the priests carried the chest past the highest place that the floodwaters of the Jordan had reached, the river flooded its banks again.
That’s how the LORD showed the Israelites that Joshua was their leader. [e] For the rest of Joshua’s life, they respected him as they had respected Moses. 19It was the tenth day of the first month [f] of the year when Israel crossed the Jordan River. They set up camp at Gilgal, which was east of the land controlled by Jericho. 20The men who had carried the twelve rocks from the Jordan brought them to Joshua, and they made them into a monument. 21Then Joshua told the people: Years from now your children will ask you why these rocks are here. 22-23Tell them, ” The LORD our God dried up the Jordan River so we could walk across. He did the same thing here for us that he did for our people at the Red Sea, [g] 24because he wants everyone on earth to know how powerful he is. And he wants us to worship only him.”
Don’t you love this story! You are probably thinking that I am crazy to write on rocks! Let me tell you why! Time flies! When you are going through something bad (through your own wilderness) it feels like it is dragging. However, when it is over, it only feels like it was a moment. The mind just works like that. Sam said the other day when he was released from the hospital after 55 days…”I feel like it was just yesterday that this all started.” This is why I think stones of thanksgiving will be especially important at our house this year (and every year..just worked into the cornucopia in some way
). WHY? Because, when our children, and grandchildren come back to these stones, we will be able to tell them time and again of how God delivered (and continually delivers) our family and that He desires us to worship only Him.
Today I am thankful for our doctors who changed Sams medicines because he is getting fevers with this chemo that are making him feel really bad. I expect that by noon his fever should drop and that he should start to feel some better. He will not be getting his last round of chemo until Tuesday late afternoon and early Wednesday morning. Please continue to pray for no infections. We have been so blessed.
Rejoicing with the good news of remission and Gods faithfulness!
Keli