**The Stones of Remembrance**
The morning sun stretched its golden fingers across the Jordan, painting the waters with shimmering light. The river, swollen from the spring rains, rushed with a mighty current, its banks overflowing. Yet before it stood the people of Israel, a vast multitude—men, women, and children—gathered in hushed anticipation. They had waited forty years for this moment. Now, under Joshua’s leadership, they stood at the threshold of the Promised Land.
Joshua, his face weathered by years of wilderness wandering but his spirit unbroken, lifted his voice above the murmur of the crowd. “Consecrate yourselves,” he commanded, “for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” The people obeyed, purifying their hearts and preparing for the miracle they were about to witness.
As dawn broke the next day, the priests of the Lord, clad in their sacred garments, stepped forward bearing the Ark of the Covenant upon their shoulders. The moment their feet touched the edge of the Jordan’s waters, the impossible happened. Upstream, far in the distance, the rushing river piled up in a towering heap, as though an unseen hand had dammed its flow. Downstream, the waters drained away into the Dead Sea, leaving the riverbed dry and exposed.
A gasp rippled through the crowd. Children clutched their parents’ hands, and elders whispered prayers of awe. The path before them was clear—a highway of hardened mud and stone, leading straight into the land God had promised their fathers.
With solemn reverence, the priests carried the Ark into the midst of the Jordan, standing firm upon the dry ground as the entire nation crossed over. Not a single soul was left behind—tribes, families, and flocks all passed through the parted waters, their sandals leaving imprints in the earth where only moments before a river had raged.
Then the Lord spoke to Joshua. “Choose twelve men, one from each tribe,” He instructed. “Command them to take twelve stones from the place where the priests stand in the Jordan’s midst. Carry them over with you, and set them down where you lodge tonight.”
Joshua obeyed without hesitation. He summoned twelve strong men, each representing a tribe of Israel, and sent them back into the riverbed. There, beneath the shadow of the Ark, they pried twelve large stones from the river’s depths—smooth from the water’s touch, yet unyielding in their strength. With great effort, they hoisted them upon their shoulders and carried them to the western bank, where the people made camp at Gilgal.
As the last Israelite stepped onto the shore, Joshua called for another set of twelve stones. These he commanded to be set up in the middle of the Jordan itself, where the priests’ feet had stood. There they would remain, hidden beneath the waters when the river returned to its course, a silent testimony to God’s power for generations unseen.
When all was done, Joshua raised his hands, and the priests bearing the Ark ascended from the riverbed. The moment their feet touched the western bank, the dammed-up waters of the Jordan collapsed with a thunderous roar, surging back into place with unrestrained force. The people watched in stunned silence as the river swallowed the path they had just walked, its currents once again impassable.
That evening, as the campfires flickered in the gathering dusk, Joshua gathered the people. He pointed to the twelve stones now standing upright at Gilgal. “These stones shall be a sign among you,” he declared. “When your children ask in days to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ you shall tell them how the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant. All the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
And so it was. The stones remained, not merely as markers of memory, but as altars of testimony—a reminder that the God who had brought them through the waters would surely bring them into the fullness of His promise. That night, as Israel rested in the land of their inheritance, the stones stood silent yet eloquent, whispering of the faithfulness of Yahweh to all who would listen.
