Cherokee Ritual

Someone recently sent me this passage via e-mail and it is such a beautiful reminder about walking by faith, especially when we are scared and unsure. It is through the darkness that we learn to trust. Guidance is always at hand and all we need to do is follow our hearts and to have faith that we are always being guided for our highest and greatest good.

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, God and the guides are watching over us,
Sitting on the stump beside us.

When trouble comes, all we have to do is

reach out. 

Moral of the story: 

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

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