Read Joshua 4:1–9
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about his power and his mighty wonders.” (Psalm 78:4 NLT)
When I was seventeen years old, I got my first pair of Doc Martens. More than three decades later, as I approach fifty, I still have them. They are worn, of course, but I can still put them on and walk in them.
To anyone else, they are simply an old pair of boots. They have little monetary value, and their scuffs and creases are hardly unusual. Yet when I look at them, I do not merely see worn leather. I see where my feet—and I—have been throughout much of my life.
I wrote poetry in those boots when I was seventeen. The young person wearing them carried hopes, fears, dreams, questions, and wounds I was still learning how to name. Poetry became one of the places where I could put what I was carrying when I did not know where else to place it.
I have continued writing through all the years since. The boots bear the physical marks of where my feet traveled. My poems bear the interior marks of where my spirit traveled.
Each poem and the boots themselves are like stones taken from a particular crossing. Some hold my hopes. Others contain my fears. Some preserve dreams, while others give form to nightmares. They carry moments of insight alongside moments of foolishness. Together, they form an altar of remembrance—one upon which my blood, sweat, tears, and entire unfinished self have been poured.
That does not make every poem equally wise. It does not mean every thought I preserved still represents who I am today. Some stones remind me how far I have come precisely because I would no longer say what I once said or see the world exactly as I once saw it.
Still, they belong to the story.
After Israel crossed the Jordan River, God instructed Joshua to choose twelve people, one from each tribe, and have each person carry a stone from the riverbed. Those stones were arranged as a memorial so that future generations would ask what they meant.
The stones themselves were ordinary. They were not carved with sacred words or transformed into precious jewels. What made them special was the story they carried. They came from a place through which the people could not have passed without God making a way.
The stones quietly proclaimed, “The Holy One met us here.”
They also belonged to the whole community. One stone was taken for each tribe. No single tribe possessed the entire testimony. Each carried part of the memorial, and together they told the story of a people whom God had brought across.
That matters because communities are often tempted to preserve only their preferred stones. We remember the victories while softening the failures. We celebrate those who held visible positions while overlooking those whose faithfulness was quieter. We repeat the stories that make us feel proud while leaving wounds, conflicts, exclusions, and uncomfortable truths buried beneath the river.
But an altar of remembrance built only from polished memories cannot bear honest testimony.
Faithful remembrance does not require us to pretend that every part of our history was good. Israel’s stones did not testify that Israel was flawless. They testified that God was faithful to an unfinished people. Our own memorials can do the same. The moments of joy, grief, wisdom, foolishness, courage, failure, healing, and change can all become part of a truthful witness to the grace that carried us.
The church has its stones too: buildings, traditions, hymns, communion tables, baptismal fonts, old photographs, handwritten records, and stories passed from one generation to another. These things can become sacred reminders of where God has met a community.
But the stones are not God.
A memorial becomes an idol when preserving it becomes more important than following the God to whom it points. The stones were meant to tell future generations how God brought the people across the river. They were never meant to keep the people standing forever on its bank.
My Doc Martens remind me where my feet have been. They do not tell my feet where they are allowed to go next. My poems preserve pieces of who I have been. They do not imprison me within an earlier version of myself.
The same is true for all our stones.
We carry them so that we can tell the truth about where we have been, recognize the grace that met us there, and trust God as we continue becoming. Ordinary stones become special stories when they bear witness—not merely to our past, but to the faithful presence of the One who carried us through it.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The stones we carry should help us remember where God met us, not prevent us from following where God leads next.
PRAYER
Faithful God, help us remember our stories truthfully. Teach us to recognize the grace that has carried us through joy, struggle, wisdom, and failure. May the stones we preserve bear witness to your presence without becoming barriers to where you are leading us next. Amen.
[i] Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).