Albatross or Ebenezer

Some kids like to sleep with stuffed animals, but for months, my daughter chose to sleep with a large chunk of concrete. Because that makes perfect logical sense. It's soft and fuzzy and feels good if you roll over on it in the night. Occasionally, her twin would borrow it for bedtime (nothing like shared twin insanity), which meant that you never quite knew, when you were stripping sheets, which bed was going to dislodge a projectile capable of breaking your big toe.

Then, this year, the twins lovingly gifted me with this "rock" for my birthday. Knowing how much it meant to them, naturally, I was pretty psyched. Also, I was happy to have it out of their room and relegated to a place on my nightstand where I would no longer accidentally trip over it in the dark.

I see it multiple times a day, and mostly, it makes me smile a little and shake my head at how weird my children are. But lately, I've noticed that it's been a prayer trigger for me. I've been thinking of it as an Ebenezer. No, I'm not talking about Scrooge.

The idea of an Ebenezer, though you may already know this, comes from 1 Samuel 7, where, following an Israelite victory against the Philistines, the prophet Samuel sets up a large stone, calling it a "stone of help" or an "Ebenezer," not because the stone had helped them or because it was a way to force God's hand in the future, but as a sign to the Israelites to remember how God had already helped, that helping the Israelites was a part of who God was. The Philistines would be back. The battle had been won, but Samuel knew this was a short term victory, and he wanted his people to see that huge hunk of rock and remember, "Till now the Lord has helped us."

So these last few weeks, I've been looking at the rock chunk on my nightstand (that just screams "an interior decorator lives here!") and remembering. Maybe it's been a crap day of homeschooling or parenting--but till now the Lord has helped us. So I can trust that he will keep doing so. Maybe my heart is breaking over our broken world so desperately in need of fixing--but till now the Lord has helped us. So I can look forward with hope. Maybe I'm remembering the hundreds of prayers that seem to be left unanswered--but till now the Lord has helped us. So I can wait in faith that this is not forever.

The funny thing is that our RV has at times been an Ebenezer for me. When I looked at it, for the year and a half we lived there, I remembered how good God had been to us that we were together, that we had been able to save anything from our home, that we had such an amazing community around us, that God had provided a living situation that didn't involve cracked windows from a Cat 5 or a forty five minute commute to work for the Man. But somehow, over the last few months of waiting for it to sell, I have allowed it to become not an Ebenezer but an albatross around my neck, weighing me down. Not every day, but more often than I care to admit. But I don't have to keep that mindset.

Instead, I can choose, as I look at the rock on my nightstand...and then look out the window to where our old home sits solidly in the driveway of our new home...I can choose to remember: this far the Lord has helped us. And I can believe that he is a creative God with imaginative solutions for the things I view as problems, a creative God whose character does not change: he is helper, he is provider, he knows my own needs better than I do. In light of that, I can choose to remember the truth: it's not an albatross; it's an Ebenezer. It's not a snake; it's a fish. It's not a rock on which to break my teeth; it's bread to feed my soul.

Except, of course, for when it is a rock, a rock to help me remember. Till now the Lord has helped us.