Rite of Passage

Being of Cherokee ancestry, I loved this story:

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 blows the grass and earth, and shakes his stump, but he sits stoically, never removing the blindfold. It will be the only way he can become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appears and he removes his blindfold. It is then that he discovers 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, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us. When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him.

If you can see the truth in this story, tell others.

If not, you took off your blindfold before dawn.

Just because you can't see God, it doesn't mean He is not there.

'For we walk by faith, not by sight.'