A Rock in Your Path Can Make Life Better

In the midst of your storm, whether it be the challenges of having a child with addiction or mental illness or something else entirely, it can be easy to fall into the trap of forgetfulness. We see the needs in front of us – needs for healing, needs for peace, needs for rescue – and forget to see the good behind us. We can fixate on how difficult life is and lose sight of the fact that we are blessed with life.

I do this often when I get anxious about choices my child is making. My husband often reminds me that at least our child is still living and breathing to make those choices. For some, that thought might be more abstract; for others it has substance.

It is easy to become focused on the struggles of life in the present or even the catastrophic life we might imagine for the future. I am not going to tell you not to worry. Let’s face it, you have heard that message and may even feel the guilt of your own anxiety, too. Instead, I want to ask you to put a great big rock in the middle of your path. Literally, if it will help!

Put a rock on your coffee table, next to the coffeemaker, on your nightstand, at your desk – someplace you will see it regularly. Everyone’s doing it! Or at least they did in the Old Testament times.

There are numerous accounts of God’s people setting up rocks of remembrance. After crossing the Jordan River into the promised land, the tribes set up rocks. After Jacob wrestled with the Lord, he set up a rock. There are many more stories of this practice.

One of those examples is in 1Samuel 7:12. “Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”

We sing about this in the song “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

Here I raise my Ebenezer

Hither by thy help I’ve come

And I hope by thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home.

Ebenezer means “stone of help.” A stone of help, but also a stone of remembrance. The Israelites placed piles of stones so that later generations would ask the reason the pile existed and would be reminded of the story. That story was a retelling of the good work that God had accomplished for their people in that place. A reminder of God’s faithfulness and work in their lives.

Do you need that? I know I do! I need to be reminded that God has brought me “this far.” And if He has brought me this far, surely He will continue to work in my life.

This is a spiritually important practice. Over and over again, when the Israelites left their devotion to God and turned to other idols, the Bible states they “forgot” the Lord who had brought them out of Egypt or had done other works for them. They just forgot Him!

We can forget in good times or in bad. We just get distracted by the world around us and forget. In the midst of a storm, though, remembrance becomes even more important.

My last post talked about lament. A big part of lament is the reflection on who God is and what He has done for us. If we don’t have that “Ebenezer” in our lives, it is easy to only see the present trouble and to become stuck in the blame phase of lament.

If you are struggling to feel like God is with you in your storm, try placing an Ebenezer. Make a list of the many ways God has blessed you in your life. How has he brought you through other dark places? How has He worked in your child’s life? Sometimes we don’t even stop to realize how He has acted in a situation because it has been a slow, long process.

Those stones of remembrance give hope and endurance. If God has brought you “this far” surely, as the hymn says, He will bring you the rest of the way home.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash