My Ebeneezer

Wow! May was a whopper of a month. I don't even want to revisit it to tell you all of the good and crazy things that happened. Suffice it to say that what didn't kill us has made us stronger and we're movin' on.
Something has been on mind a lot lately and I have to admit it's a little on the freaky side. For the last 6 months a song has been stalking me. Before you think I've lost my last two marbles let me explain. In November our choir sang the song Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I had heard this song somewhere before and liked it and I was anxious to learn it. These are the lyrics:

Come thou Fount of every blessing
tune my heart to sing thy grace
streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebeneezer,
here by thy good help I've come.
And I hope by thy good pleasure
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me as a stranger
wandering from the fold of God,
He to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm consigned to be.
Let thy goodness, like a fetter
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, oh take and seal it!
Seal it for thy courts above.

Aren't those words neat! What was even better is that one of the choir members explained what "here I raise my Ebeneezer" means. He told us that in the Old Testament (1samuel 7:10-12) the prophet Samuel set up a stone for all of Israel to see and he named the stone "Ebeneezer" - meaning stone of help. The stone was set at the site of a battle that the Israelites won against the Phillistines. What Samuel wanted them to remember was not so much that they had won, but that twice before, at the very same spot, they had lost before to the armies of the Phillistines, and in preparation for the third battle, they covenanted with the Lord and prayed for his help. What they were supposed to remember was that where they had lost twice before, with the Lord's help, they finally had victory.

That thought intrigued me, what would my Ebeneezer be? I felt a prompting to write down my feelings and rededicate myself to the Lord and begin winning some of my losing battles. This lofty thougt stayed with me during all the choir practices and stayed there until 15 minutes after the choir performance was over, when my life began again. And I forgot. That is when the song began stalking me. K-BYU began playing it right after "little house on the prairie" and I never miss an episode of that (It is comforting to see how spoiled Nellie Olsen is - she makes my kids look so good). I went to Women's Conference because I felt I just had to hear Elder Holland speak (his talk was fantastic), my song was the special musical number. My nephew spoke at his seminary graduation and Joe and I made the trip to attend. A violin quartet made up of graduating seniors was on the program "selection to be announced" and the selection was Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I sat and cried thru the number as I remembered what the Spirit had whispered for me to do the first time I heard that song, and I felt heaven reaching for me again. I was amazed the Lord hadn't given up on me(prone to wander Lord I fear it!) and then I went home and did absolutely nothing about it. Well, today, our ward had a special musical number. It was different than what was listed on the program. During the week, the musician had changed his mind and instead of playing for us what he had intended, he announced he would be playing (do you want to guess?) yes it was my old friend Ebeneezer.
So, I give in - I am doing something about it. I don't know just what I'll do, but it couldn't hurt to start where Samuel told the Israelites to begin "If ye do turn unto the Lord with all your hearts,...and serve Him only, then he will deliver you...(1Sam 7:3) I will start by giving him my whole heart, even the part I've reserved for judging myself (Judge Judy has nothin' on me!).

Now that I've finally acted on the promptings, I still hope this song will pop up in unexpected places in my life. It's been kinda fun to see where Ebeneezer would turn up next!

Kj