Stone of Help

This morning for some reason this great song that has followed me from my childhood through to my adult life came to mind, and I hummed it as I was getting ready for church.  When I checked my facebook, I saw that my niece in Ohio had posted some of the lyrics on her status.  I got to church and glanced through my bulletin….and it was the first song we would sing!  I think I needed to hear this song today!

I never hear it that I don’t think about an important time in the life of my church, and  my life.  When I began going there, my church had just gone through a very painful time and was in the process of being evicted from the building that that church had worshipped in since the 1800s because they had called a woman to pastor. 

In the weeks that led up to our moving out of the building,  I think that the thing that sustained us all and kept us from being bitter was a series of shared stories. Each week a different church member would share with us a story of a time when God had sustained them, and as Samuel did in the Old Testament, each  raised an Ebenezer stone as sign and symbol of God’s faithfulness thus far.  On the day that we marched with joy through the neighborhood to our new building, our basket of Ebenezer stones was carried and held high.  We sang,”Come Thou Fount” as we crowded into our new space, and several years later the stones were embedded into the outside wall so that we can touch them as we walk into the church, ever a reminder of God’s faithfulness. 

Perhaps I needed a reminder of that faithfulness.  Perhaps I needed to ask God to bind my wandering heart to God’s.  Perhaps I just needed to let something dear that binds my child faith to my adult faith roll around a bit in my heart.  But here, on this Sunday night, I raise my Ebenezer.  Thus far, God has helped me.