When our boys were growing up, twice a year we would pack up the car to see family in North Carolina. As the song goes, “Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go.” It never failed when we arrived at Laurie’s mom’s house she would say, “Oh my goodness, look how tall you guys have gotten.” Then, as we walked into the house, she would have each boy stand in the doorframe to measure their height. She would mark their height with a pencil and then write their name and the date on the doorframe. Each year we visited, the boys were excited to see how much they had grown from the previous year. To this day, those pencil marks are still there in the doorframe, but they now serve as milestones of childhood memories.
Milestones are actions or events marking a significant change or stage in development. According to this definition, I recently had a milestone in my life. But my milestone didn’t have to do anything with height, but age. Yes, I turned 50 this month. Even as I type the number 5-0, my mind is telling me, “Say it ain’t so!” 50 hit me a little different because I remember my parents turning 50! Heck, I even remember when 50 was old :-) The milestone of 50 for me made me nostalgic, thinking about the people, places, and things of the past. The phrase, which reoccurred in my mind, was “Remember when…” I thought about how many times God gives us instructions to remember. Through a brief survey of scripture, you will quickly discover how prominently the word “remember” is used. But the question that kept running through my mind is, what does God want me to remember?
Then I remembered the story in Joshua and the stones of remembrance. When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River on their way to the promised land, God instructed Joshua to have one of the men from each of the twelve tribes pick up a stone from the middle of the Jordan River and set up a memorial/milestone at their camp.
“This shall be a sign among you; when your children ask later, saying, “What do these stones mean to you?” then you shall say to them, “That the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.” So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever” (Joshua 4:6-7).
God seems to be instructing Israel to remember that God has been good. It doesn’t matter how much time passes after the parting of the Jordan River; God has been good. He is always good! If God needs to remind Israel of His goodness by having them set up 12 stones, maybe the milestones in our lives show us God’s goodness. Growing older is both a gift and a blessing from God. But age is complex to process. The danger seems to be that the older we become, the more we can succumb to the cynicism of life. This is an understandable struggle, given nobody is exempt from disappointment and discouragement. But on the flip side, age reminds us to “remember when” God showed His goodness to us. Remembering God’s goodness helps us to fight the drift to cynicism.
My boys are all grown up, and when we make the occasional trip to Grandmother’s house, the pencil-marked doorframe means a little more. Those markers cause us to pause and say to each other, “Remember when…” We laugh and smile, thinking of the good days each milestone in height brought to our family. I believe it is the same with age. The passing years, as we grow older, give us the opportunity to “remember when.” So… on my 50th birthday, surrounded by those I loved, I paused and took a moment to thank God for being good to me. The old hymn writer was onto something when he wrote, “Here I raise my Ebenezer (a stone acknowledging God’s goodness).” Retelling the story of God’s goodness to us never gets old. It only gets sweeter with time!