Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Mark It”, 10/21/2011, Joshua 4:15-24

First I have a confession…I’d forgotten that Joshua was a book in the Bible! Horrible of me! Raised in this faith and when I saw the verse for the day I did a double take and asked myself–“This is a book in the Bible?…DOH!”. Bible literacy fail. Yes, I know the story of the fall of Jericho is in this book but for some reason I had it in my head that this story was in Deuteronomy–don’t ask why, I don’t know. So, in all fairness when was the last time I heard of this book? Eighth grade Bible history class at Bellevue Christian School where I attended one semester, does that excuse it? Probably not, but its what I’m going with.

The book of Joshua is about the Israelites journey into the promised land. When the crossed the Jordan, the Lord dried up the Jordan momentarily so they could pass. God then asked Joshua (who was leading them, he was the right hand of Moses by the way), anyway he asked Joshua to pick 12 men to take 1 stone each from the riverbed of the Jordan = 12 stones. When they’d stopped at Gilgal the western border of Jericho God told him to set up the stones as a reminder for generations to come that the Lord had pushed the waters back for their forefathers to walk on dry land into the promised land.

Pam, the author talking about ‘marking’ things that matter in our lives to solidify a memory in a solid shape of sorts, like making a stepping stone and putting into a garden then adding stepping stones. Thinking back I can remember all my ‘mementos’, my ‘mark it moments’ and when I got them, how I got them and where they are today and why they mattered. Compared to other families we had a more mobile life growing up so some of these ‘moments’ are no longer with me so I carry them in my heart instead…in no particular order…just as they come to me.

So I’ve gotten a lot of requests to know how my Saturday, August 21st went…

We’d decided to go zip lining with my Thai friend Fon and another friend from frisbee AnnaRae. It was actually a pretty perfect day to head out, cloudy but not raining which was amazing considering it’s been raining pretty constantly here. It was fairly cool even…well as cool as Bangkok, Thailand can get (86 degrees and 88% humidity). We headed north-east to ChonBuri to a tour called Fly with the Gibbons and after a brief introduction and getting geared up we were off on a 24 platform romp through the jungle…

Our guide couldn’t say my name, Mel, so I became Miaw (Cat in Thai) and everytime I came to the platform prior to sailing off it, he felt the need to meow several times. Around platform 19 we asked if I was married, I said no, he asked it I had a boyfriend…I said you see the 6’5 man that you just sent off to the next platform? Him. He called Tyghe Yak (but don’t pronounce the ‘k’ really and say it with emphasis on the ‘a’ sound), it means giant apparently.  He then proceeded to ‘marry’ AnnaRae on the next platform where you could go two at a time. AnnaRae said she’d fly over there with him and he surmised that now it would mean they were married.