I am leading a small group on Tuesdays and we are getting our socks blessed off by watching the 5 session DVD series by Ann Voskamp based on her 'one thousand gifts' book. I highly recommend both the book and the DVDs! For our 'in between' homework this week, Ann writes about the tradition that the Israeli people have of stacking stones as a memorial. These memorials help to remind them of the great things that God has done! It is a physical reminder that opens opportunity to share of God's goodness with your children, your friends, your neighbors.
Of course - as a Scrapbooker and Photographer (both personally, and professionally!) it is my honor to capture and commemorate memories and history and stories that are then passed down to the generations to come. I am all about this! I LOVE love love to look back through old scrapbooks and relive family vacations, seasons of old, and remember what life was like... what God was doing... what we were feeling - in those moments! I also love to create these keepsakes for clients in both portraits and books.
Ann goes on to challenge us to take time to identify a few ways that we could stack stones; that we could remember... "This can happen in many shapes and forms: scrapbooks, a collective family journal left out on a side table to doodle in and record memories, a slide show of a family vacation on a computer screen... pictures on a wall, a blog post, one photo a day, and so on." (Study Guide, one thousand gifts, pp37 )
As I read this portion of 'in between'... I immediately remembered a photograph I took on Thanksgiving Day! We have a tradition of going for a hike or a walk as a family - before all the glorious madness of cooking and setting tables and guests arriving making the house full... and on our journey, we came across this:
A Stack of Rocks...
Stones, stacked high... balancing just so... and oh, how I want this to be said of my life. That I stretched tall - against odds sometimes - to give Glory to God!
So this week, my plan is to stack stones by making a new slide show for my computer... as well as inviting the family to each write in my journal a story from our life that reminds them of the goodness of God! After all - I journal for ME... but my intent is to leave them for my daughter so that she can drink in my Stacking Stones... the stories and conversations and prayers that I have had with the Lord through all of her growing years.
What about you? Did anything on that list stand out to you or did you think of something different you could add that sounds fun... that will encourage you to stack stones too?
I'd love to hear!
~Karrilee~
P.S. I am linking up with Jennifer over at Studio JRU today for her "it's a small world" blog hop!
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