Here I Raise My Ebenezer
If you've ever had one of those weeks where your whole paradigm starts to shift and shift again, you'll understand where I am, where my family is.
Life had been so steady and peaceful. I was reveling in the rest, the milk & honey that had begun to fill our little home. And then a wrecking ball of injustice flew through it. The honey pot broke, getting sticky sweetness everywhere and glass mixed. The milk jug poured out and seeped into the dirt.
Don't cry over spilled milk, they say. But what about intentionally dumped out milk? What about broken livelihood? Yeah, I was (and still am, some days) angry. Injustice makes me angry to a fault but I do not know how to handle it when it is in my lap - emotions rise: Anger, Anxiety, Fury, Sadness, Hopelessness, Confusion, Fear, Weariness, Peace, Joy, Rest, Exhaustion, Excitement and more Anger.
How do I exist here? In a new year, without a job and loads of time to fret and fear. Anxiety rises and falls. Fury drains me. Depression claws at my heart. Joy elusively slips in and out. It is a weird place. But not one I've not known before. But it's not just me. Draining my husband's solid support reserves is disconcerting. All this alone time gave me time to grapple with all of this. A blank slate at the start of this year gave me pause. What am I doing here with the life God gave me? What will I hold onto this year?
Each year, God gives me a year to focus on, pray over and transform my life. Last year it was Peace, which became Sabbath. This year, strongly "Remember" became the word. Because, like Israel, I forget God's blessings. But in the midst of the trauma of the last three weeks, I have found myself being given gift after gift that were blessings to sustain us. They helped our money stretch beyond the rent that is coming due. I found myself not wanting to forget. And I determined to not forget. Every time God reigned victorious for the Israelites, he asked the people to build altars so they would not forget. And I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I knew. To remember, I needed to build some altars - some way to not forget.
Then, I remembered this phrase :
Here I raise my Ebenezer
Here there by Thy great help I've come
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Words from an old favorite hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." One of those phrases that stuck in me from years of sitting in a tiny church while the piano shouted chords emphasizing every syllable. I knew this word, this place "Ebenezer" was from a story in the Old Testament and had to do with altars.
So I found it. In 1 Samuel 5-7, the Samuel had just become a faithful priest of God, servant to Eli the high priest with unfaithful priest sons. The story is pretty simple. Israel was being tormented, persecuted by the Philistines, a perennial enemy that represented the opposite of everything Israel believed. They were pagan, worshiped false gods, violence and bloodshed. They conflated their nation with their gods, they conflated violence with honor. In I Samuel 5 & 6, at the location of Ebenezer, Israel fights battles with the Philistines and loses an innumerable amount of people to death at their enemy's hands. They come up with a great plan to bring the Ark of the Covenant to battle, and with the unfaithful priests, go to war. They are once again defeated and lose the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines. God, in His God-ness strikes down the Philistines for not honoring his presence by putting him with their god, Dagon. The Philistines experience plague, death, sickness, etc. And the idol of Dagon is destroyed by God. It's really poetic - check out the story in I Samuel 6 for yourself.
The conclusion is that the Philistines realize that the God they are dealing with is serious. So they send the Ark of Covenant back to Israel - and it takes awhile to get back to the holy temple. It takes years to get back and by now, Samuel is high priest. He prescribes that the Israelites destroy all false gods. So they do, and the Philistines show up again (they don't learn very well) and Israel asks Samuel to ask God to save them because they remember what happened last time. So he prays. God arrives in a roar of thunder and the Israelites win the battle. And when it's over, Samuel takes a large stone and names it Ebenezer because it means "rock of help" and said "Thus far YHWH has helped us."
So, this is why I chose to raise my own Ebenezer. God has been and will continue to be our Rock of Help. We will continue to meet together and pray and ask God to bless us, to remember us, to provide for us while I am without a job because of injustice. We will know He knows our need before we ask and will make a way. We are three weeks away from the next round of rent and bills and God knows that need, so I'm going to focus on the manna - the daily provision he gives us - and not look to save any for tomorrow, and let him send manna on his own timetable.
He will not leave us forgotten. He's shown us that already and I don't want to forget this season of his miracles. So on scraps of paper, and stored in a Death Star Cookie Jar (why not?) - we will raise our Ebenezer because "this far, YHWH has helped us," and I will hold that He will help us further.
Life had been so steady and peaceful. I was reveling in the rest, the milk & honey that had begun to fill our little home. And then a wrecking ball of injustice flew through it. The honey pot broke, getting sticky sweetness everywhere and glass mixed. The milk jug poured out and seeped into the dirt.
Don't cry over spilled milk, they say. But what about intentionally dumped out milk? What about broken livelihood? Yeah, I was (and still am, some days) angry. Injustice makes me angry to a fault but I do not know how to handle it when it is in my lap - emotions rise: Anger, Anxiety, Fury, Sadness, Hopelessness, Confusion, Fear, Weariness, Peace, Joy, Rest, Exhaustion, Excitement and more Anger.
How do I exist here? In a new year, without a job and loads of time to fret and fear. Anxiety rises and falls. Fury drains me. Depression claws at my heart. Joy elusively slips in and out. It is a weird place. But not one I've not known before. But it's not just me. Draining my husband's solid support reserves is disconcerting. All this alone time gave me time to grapple with all of this. A blank slate at the start of this year gave me pause. What am I doing here with the life God gave me? What will I hold onto this year?
Each year, God gives me a year to focus on, pray over and transform my life. Last year it was Peace, which became Sabbath. This year, strongly "Remember" became the word. Because, like Israel, I forget God's blessings. But in the midst of the trauma of the last three weeks, I have found myself being given gift after gift that were blessings to sustain us. They helped our money stretch beyond the rent that is coming due. I found myself not wanting to forget. And I determined to not forget. Every time God reigned victorious for the Israelites, he asked the people to build altars so they would not forget. And I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I knew. To remember, I needed to build some altars - some way to not forget.
Then, I remembered this phrase :
Here I raise my Ebenezer
Here there by Thy great help I've come
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Words from an old favorite hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." One of those phrases that stuck in me from years of sitting in a tiny church while the piano shouted chords emphasizing every syllable. I knew this word, this place "Ebenezer" was from a story in the Old Testament and had to do with altars.
So I found it. In 1 Samuel 5-7, the Samuel had just become a faithful priest of God, servant to Eli the high priest with unfaithful priest sons. The story is pretty simple. Israel was being tormented, persecuted by the Philistines, a perennial enemy that represented the opposite of everything Israel believed. They were pagan, worshiped false gods, violence and bloodshed. They conflated their nation with their gods, they conflated violence with honor. In I Samuel 5 & 6, at the location of Ebenezer, Israel fights battles with the Philistines and loses an innumerable amount of people to death at their enemy's hands. They come up with a great plan to bring the Ark of the Covenant to battle, and with the unfaithful priests, go to war. They are once again defeated and lose the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines. God, in His God-ness strikes down the Philistines for not honoring his presence by putting him with their god, Dagon. The Philistines experience plague, death, sickness, etc. And the idol of Dagon is destroyed by God. It's really poetic - check out the story in I Samuel 6 for yourself.
The conclusion is that the Philistines realize that the God they are dealing with is serious. So they send the Ark of Covenant back to Israel - and it takes awhile to get back to the holy temple. It takes years to get back and by now, Samuel is high priest. He prescribes that the Israelites destroy all false gods. So they do, and the Philistines show up again (they don't learn very well) and Israel asks Samuel to ask God to save them because they remember what happened last time. So he prays. God arrives in a roar of thunder and the Israelites win the battle. And when it's over, Samuel takes a large stone and names it Ebenezer because it means "rock of help" and said "Thus far YHWH has helped us."
So, this is why I chose to raise my own Ebenezer. God has been and will continue to be our Rock of Help. We will continue to meet together and pray and ask God to bless us, to remember us, to provide for us while I am without a job because of injustice. We will know He knows our need before we ask and will make a way. We are three weeks away from the next round of rent and bills and God knows that need, so I'm going to focus on the manna - the daily provision he gives us - and not look to save any for tomorrow, and let him send manna on his own timetable.
He will not leave us forgotten. He's shown us that already and I don't want to forget this season of his miracles. So on scraps of paper, and stored in a Death Star Cookie Jar (why not?) - we will raise our Ebenezer because "this far, YHWH has helped us," and I will hold that He will help us further.
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