God Comes Near

     It is Monday and I am back in the swing of things! Can I just share something amazing that is happening with our Memorial Box? Last week Ravenna came and took my hand and brought me over to our box. She had me sit down and cuddle up in my lap and wanted to hear story after story of what God had done. It was a sweet tender moment of sharing God's faithfulness with my daughter.
    Well...the other day I was in the kitchen and over heard Ravenna and Parker talking. Guess what they were doing? Ravenna had brought Parker over to the Memorial Box and was re-telling the stories! How amazing is that?

    If you are new here. Linny at A Place Called Simplicitystarted this amazing thing on Mondays called "Memorial Box Mondays." A Memorial Box is a place to put a little physical reminder of a story of God's faithfulness. In the Bible God tells us to remember His fiathfulness, to place 'stones of remembrance' so that we will not forget when times are hard, to tell these stories to our children and grandchildren. We started a Memorial Box a few months ago.

    This story happened high above treeline in the San Juan mountain range in Colorado. I was a backpacking guide for Young Life at the time and we were nearing the end of a hot sunny week with a group of Minnesotan teenagers. During these trips we all took a turn sharing our 'life story'. This was a time where each person shared a little bit about their life, what made them who they were and their dreams. It was a way to help teenagers get to the heart of matter a little bit.

    One girl on this trip seemed a bit more resereved than the rest. She had an edge to her and I noticed a roll of her eyes and shake of her blond head when anyone talked about their faith. She waited until the very end of the week to share. The next day we would leave the land of glorious blue sky and wide green meadows to descend back into the shady forests thick with trees. 

    The week had been a hot and sunny one with only a few cottonball clouds so we set uip a tent for lunchtime to get some shade. As we huddled close together eating peanut butter and jelly, she began to share.
    Near the end of her time sharing, she paused. Tears came to her eyes and she said, "I really want to believe in God, I want to put my faith in Him...but he just feels so far away. He feels like the little puffy clouds that we have seen this week way up high in the sky. I feel like I can se Him but I cannot touch Him. I just wish that He would draw near and wrap himself around me."
    She finished sharing and we all wrapped ourselves around her and we prayed. She was the first one to step out of the tent at the end. We all heard her gasp....
    The tent had been completely enveloped in thick clouds! Somehow, in absolute silence a bank of clouds had rolled in. She fell to her knees and we again gathered around her as she prayed.

      God came near. He knew what she needed. He did the impossible in the middle of a hot, dry Colorado summer...all for one girl's tender heart.

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD..."

Jeremiah 29:13-14

I haven't figured out what to put in my Memorial Box yet...any ideas????

Update!
I sat down and told the kids this story and read Luke 15:3-7 out of their children's Bible. the story goes like this:

The Lost Sheep
Jesus told a story about a shepherd who took good care of his sheep. This shepherd had 100 sheep. One shepherd got lost! So the shepherd looked and looked for the lost sheep. He called the sheep's name! He finally found the sheep and brought it home. The shepherd was so GLAD he had found the sheep. He had a party with his friends. Jesus said that God loves us like a good shepherd. When we become part of God's family, God celebrates!

Ravenna decided that we should draw a picture to put in our Memorial Box

(she made a second copy to hang in her room to remind her)

and Parker decided they should make a tent in the living room to play the story of what God did on the mountain that day...

(those would be his 'alligator hands' apparently one of the campers is now a ferocious alligator!)

You can read more people's Memorial Box Moday stories here:

And you can read more of my Memorial Box stories

Here