Thanks For the Reminder Kelly!

Drinking my coffee, enjoying the quiet (it is early and still dark here) and visiting one of my favorite blogs....Charming Chatter.  Kelly always has such wonderful and sweet entries.  I would so love to meet her in person.  Her blog today was about the wisdom of Chief Seattle and it reminded of something I read several years ago.  I printed it out to put on a scrapbook page for someone at my church and I thought I would share it with you this morning.

                     Cherokee Indian Youth's Rite of Passage

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of passage? His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone.

He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN. He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man.

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, our Heavenly Father is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us. When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him.

 

I don't know about you but this always reminds me that no matter how bad it gets all I have to do is reach out and ask My Father for help.