Don’t forget these women

Who were these women?

• What was the first thing they thought about when they awoke each morning?
• Where did they eat their meals and wash their clothes?
• Who did they love at the end of the day and who loved them back?

We started our walk of remembrance at Skye Lake on a brilliant Sunday morning.

We’d spent five months with these women, one Sunday at a time. We’d learned many things about them. Things we didn’t want to forget.

Although they each were different, the single most important similarity they all shared was this: a remarkable encounter of grace with Jesus.

It’s often the only thing recorded about them, and usually without even mentioning their name.

Yet we know them, these women. They left a trail of their own. A legacy not to be forgotten, found in our Bibles.

As we women—teenaged and otherwise—walked the hiking trail on Green Mountain, we followed the footsteps of these women who lived two thousands years before us.

We stopped at each rock to remember the lesson they left behind for us.

Lessons like these:

• God can use anybody in his plans
• I’m blessed when I believe his promises
• Remember to be amazed
• Come to the edge 
• To love more, understand grace more
• Run to the tomb
• Take advantage of your giving style 
• Drop the rock

At the end of the trail, we were given our final rock, the one specifically for us—women who may sometimes feel forgotten, but who never are. It was the rock of Mercy. (It carried with it a story of its own.)

The common denominator of all our rocks, all our stories, is Mercy. Grace. Love.

We know him better by his common name: Jesus.

To understand him, we look at the stories about him.

And to understand him even more, we look at the stories with him.

Our stories. Collectively and individually.

The trail ended for us at the chapel, where a feast awaited. A feast not only of food, but also song, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer.

We left the trail more full than we came. In every way.

Because we had remembered. The women’s stories from the Bible. And the women’s stories by our side. We filled up on memories. Reliving the old. Making the new. 

Encounters of grace with Jesus.
Theirs.
And ours.

May we never forget.

* * *

Although our teen girls’ class ended on Sunday, the stories will continue on.

Which woman of the Bible do you most relate to?

RELATED:

• Give Him the old
• The Story Guide: Jesus and Women
• Who’s this adventure for?