Welcome to Circling Jericho, my new project and child of my Family Blog and Peace Study Blog. In this blog I hope to put into words my spiritual journey as it relates to mothering my children and being a wife and family member – living my vocation, in other words.
I chose the name Circling Jericho in reference to the Bible story. In meditating on it one day, I thought about the Israelite army, being told to do this seemingly useless, nonsensical thing – walk in circles around their adversary and trust that God had a plan for them. In following His instructions, they won a tremendous victory over the city. But in that week leading up to that, I have to imagine that many of those people had their doubts. This was tedious, mindless work. Nothing that would take an army, and certainly nothing that would win a victory. There had to be a few thoughts in the crowd that maybe Joshua had just gone crazy.
As mothers we have a similar task. We walk around Jericho every single day. Doing the same things over and over. Tedious, menial tasks that seem to take us in a circle, but are in reality bringing us closer to God. We have little victories as the days go by. I think God knows that we need them since we have to circle this city for much longer than a week. But our final victory is far ahead and so we keep washing dishes and doing laundry, changing diapers and kissing owies, cooking dinner and driving carpools, and trusting that all of this running in circles is really leading us (and our families) in a straight line closer to Holiness.
So keep walking around this giant walled city, it is what He has asked us to do. There will be a time when the walls fall down.