Once a black sheep, always a black sheep

Quote from my mom this thanksgiving when recalling a accidental fire "David, I didn't say you burned down that house, unless you lied."

Piles of Stone

1 Samuel 7:12 -Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.”

To pile up stone has been in the history of the people of God, an outward symbol to reflect an inward reality, that God is the helper and deliverer of his people. If you study the history of Israel through the Old Testament what you would find is the story of of life on a journey, marked by piles of stone, standing as symbols littering the landscape of a peoples relationship with God. One could imagine others who would come past on a later journey, seeing these piles of stone marking the landscape and wondering what could they mean, why were they here, what was the story behind each of them?

Ebenezer is the given name of a stone by Samuel, the prophet of the Lord. It means in the original hebrew "stone of help." It served as a marker of the redemptive commitment of the Lord to his people. They were piled up, so as to say, this day will not be forgotten nor will the Lord whom they represent.

The hand in this photo is of my dear friend. As we shared stories and tears the other day, the Lord decided to display His love and commitment to me yet again through my dear sister. With her help, I found a pile of stone in my past, a picture of God's faithfulness, one that had been forgotten, and that only through hearing my sisters life and story, could be uncovered. It was an ebenezer. A pile of stones drenched in a 24 year olds tears. A season of life marked by deep pain and yet an ever growing abiding experience of the Lord's presence and love for me. I remembered, I went back into the story, I wept, I was comforted now, as I was then. Sometimes you can never cry enough the first time life happens. You just can't. So you go back. I am grateful to not go back alone.

So she piled up some stones for me, some small pebbles under a bus bench in the heart of 12 south, to serve as a reminder that the Lord himself is our "stone of help." We laughed knowing that they would probably be swept aside soon by a passer by, but for that ( molment :), excuse me, moment, it was as though a son and daughter of the true Israel, fellow pilgrims on a sacred journey, stopped and stooped, to pile the stones as their forefathers, joining in the great ongoing narrative of redemptive history, of those who's lives are marked by piles of stone, marked by the Lord, his relentless help, his unchanging love.