Here I Raise My Ebenezer(s)
How God helped us through 2024
At the end of each year, my wife and I reflect on our Ebenezers: ways we’ve seen God help us through the year.1 We have a jar of our Ebenezers going back to 2011, the year we married; it has a stone for each year, with our Ebenezers written on it. We go through the jar with our kids each year when we add a new stone to it.
An Ebenezer isn’t necessarily a “win” or a finished story. Sometimes God’s help look like a miraculous victory; sometimes it just looks like aid carrying a burden or sorrow. But because God sanctifies time as well as eternity, we love giving thanks for his goodness when we can see it.
What follows will be a bit self-indulgent, I fear; so if you don’t want to read about my Ebenezers, you can just stop and consider your own.
Health (and sickness)
As I wrote in my When I Am Weak miniseries (one-year retrospective to come), last year I came down with an autoimmune disease that weakened me drastically. My weight dropped to 107 pounds (I’m now back up to my robust buck-thirty); my throat muscles quit working to the point that I had to take foods blended through a straw to get enough calories; my speech was barely intelligible, which is no small thing because I teach the Bible for a living. This time last year, I couldn’t put my socks on or button a shirt by myself, and couldn’t pick myself up off the ground if I fell.
Thankfully, here in 2024, my disease is fully in remission. I can eat, talk, sing, and holler at the kids when needed. I can carry wood. I went on a pastors’ retreat that involved some fairly strenuous hiking and paddling, and wasn’t any more worn out or mad about it than the other guys.
Like the great theologian the 80s band Cinderella said, you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone. There are so many things, from teaching a class to picking up a kid to washing my hair, I can just do that I couldn’t do a year ago. My treatment plan is pretty involved – two days a month of six-hour infusions, plus daily immunosuppressant pills – but it has basically no side effects. All said, I’m absurdly grateful to be physically whole and able.
And, at the same time, my sickness itself provided an Ebenezer. Allison and I were broken down to “essential functions only,” to use language from the pandemic. We made meals, kept our kids alive, and showed up to work, school, and church, and little else. We prayed a LOT. Most conversations, between us and with others, were deep ones because we were dealing with elemental problems daily.
We were constantly aware of something that’s always true, but that’s easy to forget in the wealthy modern West: we always live in the shadow of death and eternity. We’re always completely dependent on God. We experienced times of prayer that were richer and deeper than we’d had in quite a while; we each had tears, frustrations, and fear, but also experienced God’s goodness and his closeness in unexpected ways. Once in the heaviness of it, we sang “Jesus Paid It All” on Sunday, and as we sang these lines I felt the goodness of God so intensely it made me weep:
I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray
Find in me thine all in all”
Other stones
That was the big’ un, so I won’t wear out my welcome by expounding on the others; but our other Ebenezers are:
Our families – we’re finally in town with both our sets of parents and most of our siblings, and we have so loved being reconnected with them.
Our neighborhood – we have some great friends within a few minutes’ drive or long bike ride of our house, and have been deepening those relationships for us and for our kids.
Our school – we started homeschooling in the pandemic; this fall, we switched to a Christian school called Crestwood Day School, with Allison teaching there and all four kids larnin’. As much as we enjoyed homeschooling and may go back one day, we’ve seen some amazing growth in our kids even just this fall.
My staff team - I have an incredible team working in discipleship at Redeemer with me: a man and two women of great heart and character, who are also pros at what they do.
A bit of rock candy
If those were true stones, a bit of rock candy is my board game Plate It Up entering the world through the excellent work of Blue Wasatch Games. Justin and his team did beautiful work producing the game; and the great reviews we’ve heard from families especially have been delightful.
Readers, I’d love to hear your Ebenezers (or rock candy) for 2024!
