Here I Raise My Ebenezer...

 

The Israelites lost a brutal battle at Ebenezer...

They had forsaken the God of their people and were embroiled in idol worship. False gods prevailed in their lives and they seemed to forget that God cannot dwell where an idol dwells. They lost a great battle and the Ark of the Covenant was ripped away from them. The very presence of God...lost.

It took Israel 20 years to return to the God of her youth. This revival led them into a victorious battle and returned the Ark of the Covenant to them. A glorious reunion, a reawakening.

In order to remember the victory at the hands of their great God, the prophet Samuel placed a stone at the very place of their victory and he called the stone Ebenezer (Stone of Help), saying "Thus far God has helped us."

Though this story is not my own, I will say that I find myself so often identifying with the struggles and triumphs of the Israelites. 

Come, walk with me through my Ebenezer battlefield...

I would like to show you what I see of my journey thus far...

I spent years trying to conceive a child with my husband. It didn't make sense, to suffer so needlessly, so unfairly. I had done all the right things, hadn't I? I hadn't rebelled in my youth. I had always done what was expected of me. I worked hard. Married my first boyfriend...I had even saved myself for marriage. What more could I have possibly done!? And yet there I sat...infertile for 3 long years. 

And yet, was I sinless? Was I the paragon of virtue that I had become so good at pretending to be? Was the truth and the power of the gospel truly alive in my heart? Or was I actually just a lukewarm Christian who had never faced a brutal battle in life?

God took those years of infertility and challenged every part of who I was...and who I thought I was. He broke and reshaped my lukewarm heart into something that lived and breathed the gospel. He made himself more real to me than ever before.

Here I raise my Ebenezer...

And I place it on the alter of my life. 

A scarred reminder of who I was before God tore me down and rebuilt me on the solid rock of His foundation. Proof that He changes even the darkest and most lost parts of us into something glorious.

We conceived our precious son and our world shone bright for 9 wonderful months. We existed in a golden haze that was a balm to our old battle scars...

And then our son died...

I never knew how excruciating death could truly be until I gave birth to it...and buried my little redheaded boy. 

The very gospel that had changed me years before sustained me then. I was drowning in a sea of grief and suffering and could only grip onto the life raft that was the very goodness of God. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else made it through the pain. Nothing but the gospel. 

Here I raise my Ebenezer...

And I place it on the alter of my life.

A solid reminder of the goodness of God. When the darkest and most broken parts of life threaten to overtake you the gospel is there to remind them that God has claimed you first. They may rage with an almost unbearable weight...but the cross has the final say. Both in my life and in my son's life.

8 years of infertility followed the death of my son. Every single one punctuated by moments of hope and moments of devastation. We were reminded time and time again that our plans were not God's plans and our ways were not His ways. 

Here I raise my Ebenezer...

And I place it on the alter of my life.

A bright, shining reminder of the amazing marriage that God cultivated through years of grief. Of the years that He gave us to spend together, just the two of us. He gave us the most precious gift, a marriage focused on Him. He made us adventurers.

My husband died just a few weeks shy of our 13th wedding anniversary. It was brutal and devastating. My greatest nightmare come to life before my very eyes. Everything I thought I knew of grief and suffering was undermined by the deepest pain of my life. There were days where my mind could not think, where my soul could not hope, where joy seemed like the stuff of fairytales. 

Here I raise my Ebenezer...

And I place it on the alter of my life.

A broken reminder that this life does indeed include suffering...but that this life is not the end. A reminder that there is a hope that anchors the soul. A hope that exists in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel matters not only because it changes how we are...but who we are. We are children of the living God. Co-heirs with Christ. Wholly loved and wholly redeemed. And when the brokenness of the world steals hope and joy from you...let this Ebenezer remind us of the deepest of truths written on your souls. True hope and joy exists because of Christ, regardless of any other circumstance.

7 months after my husband died I was given the opportunity to adopt a 12 year old girl. There was no hesitation in my heart and the Lord removed every obstacle in our paths to each other. He placed us together and called us a family. Broken and beautiful all at once. Trauma existed in both our pasts and has influenced each of our behaviors in the 1.5 years that she's been my daughter. 

Here I raise my Ebenezer...

And I place it on the alter of my life.

A healing reminder of the fulfillment of God's plan for our lives. The knowledge that there is joy in the promise that He who has begun a work in you will be faithful to complete it. Let it be a stone whose weight reminds me that sometimes life looks nothing like we thought it would. A call to cling to the truths of who God is and who He is calling you to be. May I continually be reminded that He did not ask me to be perfect...He just asked me to be her mother.

Thus far God has helped us...