Trials and Tribulations (Part 1): Altar of Rememberance

I hope this series doesn’t come across as a rant or a self-pity party.

I hope it will help you see the light in your dark situation. If you are going through a similar situation as me, may my experience be an encouragement and comfort to you. I find comfort in knowing that someone is going through similar ordeals. Nothing is new under the sun. Stop me from wallowing in self-pity too.

I hope it will shed some practical insights, help or solutions in your situation.

I hope it will be a testimony of God’s goodness and love shining through my struggles. That God is my pillar of support and strength as I walk through the valley. I am not sure if I could make it through otherwise.

I hope it will be my altar of remembrance.

Altar of Remembrance

There come moments and seasons of our lives when we walk through wilderness and God brings us through the waters, when both struggle and victory live paradoxically in unison in our lives. These seasons can’t be ignored.

This is why we build altars of remembrance.

Our altars of remembrance are a symbol of God’s faithfulness in the midst of wilderness, change, and transition. It’s important to remember those times of God’s faithfulness for our future self when doubt and difficulty arise in new ways, but they are also… defining seasons of our life story that need to be remembered and shared with our children and grandchildren as a means to point them to God.

Daniel Passini

In Joshua 4:20-24, Joshua built an altar of remembrance – to remember how God brought them out of the wilderness and over Jordan.

So here I am, writing down to remember, lest I forget. To remember what I went through and how God led me through the valley with His enduring faithfulness, His sweet presence, and His unrelenting love.

It’s easy to forget the mire of the dark valley and start complaining about my “improved” situation.

It’s easy to forget what God had done in the past and who He was to me. Forgetfulness slipped people into a complaining mode. Just like how the Israelites forget the past sufferings in Egypt and complain about the manna, which paled in comparison to the times in Egypt.

And when a storm hit again, and I am struggling with faith, I want to be able to look back and be encouraged by my own testimony.

What are your altars of remembrance?

Write them down in your diary, Instagram, blog, or wherever you can read them again. At the end of our life, I guess it would be particularly heartening to look back at these altars to see God’s fingerprints through our life. These writings can also be a spiritual heirloom to leave for our future generations.

Let me know your altars of remembrance in the comments below. Love to hear from you – your words that are written in love and grace! 😉

And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal.

Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’

then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; for the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over,

that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”

Joshua 4:20-24

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