Stones of Remembrance

I have worked with youth FOREVER.  Often God breaks my heart for a child/teen and although they grow up, move on, marry and have children, they will always, always, always be my kid.  Always.

Because of my preference these kids enter my life as teens, rarely, its been a child who enters my life and melts my heart.

I remember it like it was last week.  She was up at the front of the church.  Her mom was leading worship on a Sunday night.  She was maybe all of 6 years old.  She had a cough that sounded rough.  She was a doll.  Blonde and beautiful.  Sweet as can be.

She became mine.  Even having sleep overs at our house.

She became my kids favorite babysitter and truly the first one I trusted with my babies.

She graduated high school and lit out of the Okanagan Valley for the United States and ministry opportunities in music.  She found a wonderful man, married and has 2 beautiful little boys.

She wrote a book that has recently been published -- and you have an opportunity to win either an e-book or a paperback, right here.

Her book is called Stones of Remembrance.  I ATE her book up.  It took me 2 days to read it--I couldn't put it down.  I am not a fast reader, and I have to say I don't like Christian Romance novels, but I LOVED her characters.

This, by the way is not your mother's Christian Romance.  There is alcohol.  There is nudity.  It is a REAL romance, it deals with REAL hurt.  It made me laugh out loud (at the character named Kent), it made me get goosebumps, it made me cry.  All of that -- very difficult to get me to do.

It is a great romance like "pride and prejudice" and a great book of healing like "the shack".

Joshua 4:20-22---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’

--Joshua erected stones for people to remember what God had done.  We have "stones of remembrance" in our lives, baby pictures, wedding photos, head stones at a cemetery.  I wear a wedding ring on my left hand to remind me of a promise I made to Kent.

I have thought of erecting something to remember this past 14 months--it has been the toughest of my life.  I have thought of a tattoo, or a piercing, I have thought of a cross for in our home.  I haven't settled on what my "stones of remembrance" will look like.

What would your "stones of remembrance" look like?  What is your favourite "stone of remembrance"? Julie will choose from the comments below who she will send her book to who she feels has the best comment!