Ebenezer

My name is Denise-Nicole Stone, I’m a sophomore studying International Relations, and I’m from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In my room here, I have a handful of pictures hanging on my wall. They depict family and friends in some of my favorite places. Recently, I have spent a lot of time looking at one picture in particular. What makes this picture unique, is that it was pulled from instagram and the caption is still visible “#whereisyourebenezer”.

In 2014, the Zimbabwe Episcopal Area of the United Methodist Church hosted the Ebenezer Conference. I was one of fifteen youth from the Western Pennsylvania Conference to travel to Zimbabwe for this event. Our group discussions and devotions surrounded the passage from which the conference drew its name, 1Samuel 7:12. “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’” We asked ourselves where our Ebenezer moments had been; those moments in our lives where we knew God had been present and working that brought us to this place.

In the time that has passed since that trip, but especially within the past month, I have repeatedly come back to those questions. I regularly feel as though my life has been a series of Ebenezer moments. Those moments that pushed me, changed me, and made me who I am. My first time at MissionU. Experiences at Annual and General Conferences. The Zimbabwe trip. The Mission of Peace trip to India. The completion of my first year of college in a new city. A summer that brought substantial change and growth. As I look back on my life, a pile of stones marks each moment. There have been times, I can now identify as Ebenezer moments, that terrified me and I approached them unwillingly. But to me the most significant point in the passage is “Thus far the Lord has helped us”. At the time Samuel said this, the Israelites were emerging from war with the Philistines. Ebenezers often come from challenging, reconfiguring moments and their significance lies in understanding that God walked with you through each and every moment.

So here we sit, classes have really only just begun. The year is full of promise. There will be really great days, and some really hard days. And I suspect there will be some Ebenezer moments. There will be times this year when we are challenged, when our ways of thinking, and comfort zones will be stretched or completely obliterated. Those are the moments that will make us who we are. And when we complete our journey through this year, those are the moments we will identify and say “Thus far the Lord has helped us”. So throughout this year, I’m going to keep looking at that picture, and asking myself those questions. And I hope to keep stacking stones.

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