Raising Ebeneezers

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within my breast;

Psalm 22:14

Have you ever gone through a season in your life that downright sucks? I have and I'm going through it now. I have definitely been struggling with some spiritual warfare. This has played itself out internally and also externally into my relationship with my husband. I must admit that during this time, I have not always looked to God for comfort and strength when I should have, in fact I have been pointedly having short conversations with no depth with Him because I honestly have no idea what to say. I have been spending most of my time trying to find my own way out of this hole I dug for myself feeling spiritually dry and abandoned.

Yet, while I have been ignoring God, he has been speaking to me so loudly that I can no longer ignore what He is trying to tell me. In my women's bible study, we have been going through 1 Samuel. A few weeks ago we were in chapter 7 where Samuel places a stone of help or Ebeneezer as a monument to what God has done for His people. Similarly, last week at church, we discussed the life of Joshua, particularly chapter 4 of the Book of Joshua in which the Lord commanded him to have the men take and make a tribute of the 12 stones in the middle of the Jordan river where it had been cut off so that they could flee.

And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” Joshua 4:21-24

Over the past few days, the idea of monuments to God's faithfulness have stuck in my head. I am so forgetful that in the valleys of my life, I forget to revisit the gifts that have been given to me by God when in fact I should not only be revisiting them, but sharing them with others to declare God's love and faithfulness. So the past few days I have been coming up with a few memorials of my own and here they are:

I met my husband when we both were not Christians,  when he left for Ranger School, we were still not Christians, God used the next 6 months of separation to place people who spoke Truth into our lives and lead us both to Christ separately, yet simultaneously. One of my sweetest memories is the first time we prayed together, I had tears streaming down my face.

When I was at my lowest and extremely critical and cynical, God placed a community of Christians who loved me despite my unbelief and who spoke and continue to speak boldly to me about my need for Jesus

A week before our wedding celebration, Brendan and I made the decision to get baptized. He was baptized first and then as the leader of our Christ-centered family, baptized me.

After moving to Fayetteville and leaving out church family in Georgia behind, we wondered if we would ever find a church as special as Crosspointe. It just so happened that the first church we visited in North Carolina has become our home and family. It's filled with other followers of Christ who encourage us and spur on our pursuit of the Gospel.

I need to point out that all of these amazing testaments to God's love for me have happened within the past year, yet somehow along the way I forgot about them. I am going to make it a point to continue to place memorials of God's faithfulness in places that I can go when I am feeling empty, and encourage you to do the same!