Today my Google photos made a suggestion for a 2021 year in review photo book.  Of course my first thought was that they just want me to spend more money on their products.  

But as I started looking at my 2021 photos, memories of this past year came flooding back to my mind. In fact, I realized just how much had happened in this past year that I had already forgotten. Through these photos, I saw just how MANY things God had brought me through this year alone.

It was refreshing and overwhelming at the same time.  I decided to put it on my to-do list to finish printing a 2021 photo book so that I can not only reflect on the memories that I had made this year, but to really reflect on the goodness of God in my life.

While in the middle of a challenge with my children, or at my work, it can be hard to imagine how the situation could ever be resolved.  But more often than not, God comes through for me in that situation, and I quickly move on to the next challenge in front of me.

But God clearly asks the children of Israel on many occasions to remember what He has done. The most notable is when Joshua is leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land. 

“So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’  tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4:4-7, NIV)

God knew how short our memories can be.  So He instructed his people to make memorials to remember what God had done.  

I know that when it comes to remembering all the things that God has done, I too forget more often than not.  I remember the big things, but often I forget some of the things that are not so big, but felt really significant at the time.

So as I close out 2021, I am working on my photobook to remember all that has happened and all that God has done.  As my family and I reflect on it, I pray that their faith and mine is strengthened and that I never forget all that He has done.

~ Vijoy