Don't just look at the Monument; learn the lesson.

By Dean P

At the edge of Aneyoshi, a small village on Japan’s northeastern coast, a 10-foot-tall stone tablet stands, carved with a dire warning to locals.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the rock slab says. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

The stones scattered about the coasts of Japan vary in degrees of repair, with most dating back to around 1896, when two deadly tsunamis killed about 22,000 people.

The tsunami stones are warnings across generations, telling descendants to avoid the same suffering of their ancestors,” said a historian of natural disasters after a 2011 earthquake killed nearly 29,000 people.

Over the decades, the stones’ warnings were disregarded or forgotten by many as coastal towns boomed and people placed their faith in massive seawalls built by the Japanese government.

I think about these markers and look around me for metaphorical ones in my life... When it comes to "Our Problem" I look around and say how many people did I hear about through the years that pornography, or sexual compulsion ruined them. I think about how many people preached to me, mentored me, just flat out told me. "Don't go down this path" yet time after time, tsunami after tsunami came, and wiped my village off the face off the earth.

Here are some of my markers:

• If you idle scroll on your phone in bed, you will have a fight on your hands.

• If you watch sexually charged content, you will have an unwanted fight.

• If you don't pray you are going to struggle.

• Get out of Bed, MAKE YOUR BED!

• Go to meetings! If you don't you will struggle more.

What good is a monument if you don't remember why it is there?