An Ebenezer

I seem to remember that at this time of year, we kids would often find ourselves sat quietly in the front room watching “A Christmas Carol”, a film based on the book by Charles Dickens, which extols the virtues of gratitude and generosity. In brief, three successive spirits take a miserly old man, Ebenezer Scrooge, on a dream-journey to see his Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future. It’s a rocking good yarn that we used to love. And still do…

The name “Scrooge” is now synonymous with the unpleasant characteristics of greed, selfishness and unkindness, but have you ever wondered what the name “Ebenezer” means?

Well, this being the point of this blog, I’m very pleased to enlighten you… The word “ebenezer” is Hebrew for “stone of help”, and notably appears in the first book of Samuel in the Bible.

God’s chosen people, the Israelites, were having big problems with the enemy Philistines. In final desperation they remembered God, and realised that they had been ignoring Him and putting other things before Him. They confessed their wrongdoing to God, started putting God first, and also cried out to God for help against the Philistines. To cut a long story short, God intervened miraculously and saved them from their enemy. At which point Samuel (leader guy) did this: “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying “This far has the Lord helped us”. (1Samuel 7:12)

This is a rocking good yarn an’ all, although this one’s true, and you can read it in the Bible. Book of 1 Samuel, chapter 7. You can do this, and look up the word “ebenezer” , right there.

An “ebenezer” has come to mean a physical symbol which marks and reminds of God’s special help in a certain time. Samuel’s was a big big stone (“eben” means “stone”); mine is an entry on a weblog. Same God; different method of praise!

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I lay awake one night recently, thinking about my 2005. I cannot believe how much has happened, and how amazingly good God has been to me. God is always good to me (every meal; every friend; every prayer), but sometimes it’s just more… noticeable, miraculous. Like my 2005.

Here and now, I’d like to mark God’s special help to me this year, and remind us both of God’s goodness, faithfulness and loving provision. This is going to be long, so avail yourself of a drink and a few nutrigrain bars before you decide to continue...

This time last year I had just completed my first term in Worcester College of Technology. After my first year out in West Africa, I was taking a second one in Worcester (my home town is Rugby) to re-sit my A levels. In its entirety that is a long and difficult story that I’m not going to tell now.

But this time last year I was preparing for important January exams, and for a January move into the house of a family in the church. I couldn’t afford conventional student accommodation, and the pastor of the local church and his wife and family had kindly offered me lodgings in their spare room for the first term. As the first term was ending they helped me to find suitable accommodation elsewhere. Having prayed to God for Him to provide, a couple in the church offered me lodgings in their back room. Their names were Tim and Becky, and they had two kids. I spent an evening with them, accepted their kind offer, and was now preparing, slightly apprehensively, for another move.

There followed a fabulous seven months. Here follows a loving rave about the family K (probably shouldn’t put their name on the net without their consent!). Ben was a sociable and loving 5 year old, who didn’t much like colouring, but would sit happily for hours in front of cartoons - Scooby Doo, ideally. He loved fruit, and sweets, and was coming to enjoy swimming, computer gaming and strutting round the house in a mini Darth Vader suit. Emily was a 2 year old bundle of fun, independent and decisive, who loved anything pretty and pink, and didn’t much like sitting down. She loved mashed potato, gravy, frankfurters, custard, rice pudding, chocolate… and was getting quite good at painting, singing, chatting and peeing in the right place.

And their parents truly made me feel part of their family. I like to think that I became good friends with Tim and Becky, who were lovely, very down to earth and endlessly welcoming. Even when I melted their slow cooker, I was only thrown out for a week. I’m kidding. Tim came back minutes into my airing the house out (it ssstank, in a word), and at my explanation and apology he only said “Don’t worry about it, the lid was cracked anyway. And we’ve both accidentally melted sandwich bags”. I didn’t then bring to his attention the obvious difference between a 0.5p sandwich bag, and a £30 slow cooker with wires and a mains plug, which I narrowly avoided exploding.

Anyway I spent a lot of time with them all. I was happy to empty their dishwasher and do other domestically helpful things, to pick Ben up from school from time to time, babysit and cook for the kids when needed – it all made me feel part of the family. Becky gave me endless support, advice and encouragement, and brought me on leaps and bounds in self-esteem; Tim helped me with my laptop and introduced me to such home-cinematic wonders as Band of Brothers, The Rock, The Core, The Day After Tomorrow, and super-duper scary-Mary surround sound. It was with Becky that I discovered Sweet Home Alabama and Love Actually. And as for the kids – they used to come into my room, dance around to my music, play with the wooden ladybirds I had stuck around randomly (well, they used to be sticky), ask endless cool questions about my world maps, and play in/on/through/under my bed.

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As for life outside of the house, I loved the church there, Woodgreen - the people, the ministry, the music, the prayerfulness, the openness, the obvious love there, and I loved being involved in Contraflow, the church youth group for 11-14 year olds, both of which I will rave about lovingly in a future blog, I’m sure. But I must say I learnt to mountain-board (eventually), to calm twelve 13 year old girls in a leaky tent in the middle of a Devonshire mudflat - I mean field!, and to relax again.

The college was good and supportive of me, and the staff were behind me all the way in my mission to get into Medicine. And as for Worcester itself, it’s still my favourite city. The main high street has all the big name stores, and is so well kept that there are always people meeting up on one of the many benches that line it both sides. A parallel street has lots of old black and white houses which whisper and creak of heritage, now home to many different boutique-y type shops and restaurants. And parallel to these streets is the River Severn, which runs about 30foot below the stunning red cathedral and adjacent royal schoolhouses and gardens. Some towns are ugly no matter how blue the sky; Worcester is pretty on a dark wet night.

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Nevertheless, life had difficulties. Given my strange set of circumstances, academic life was stressful and precarious, social life could be lonely, and financial life was tight – I budgeted a healthy £10 a week to cover all stationery, toiletries and activities. But I knew God. I spent so much time with Him in prayer. An amazingly strengthening and constructive way to spend time, and He was so close to me.

Sometimes it seemed as if parts of life, and my entire future, hung on a long strand of gossamer. It’s surprising how strong God made gossamer.

After my exams and a youth group holiday, mid July saw me leave Worcester, richer (not financially!), blessed, and very sad to leave. That summer was very tough. Dad had been made redundant from MG Rover back in April, so life was uncertain. Another strange set of circumstances meant that the church I attended that summer was new to me, and through it all I was waiting for my exam results. AAA meant I could take up my offer to go study Medicine in Liverpool, as I’d been wanting to do the first time around. Medicine was the only thing I wanted to do, the only thing I wanted a career life in – it meant to me security and future. Liverpool had a selection of good churches and a good CU, so I’d heard. And I wanted the uni life. I knew the results would be very close to the wire, whatever happened, and I couldn’t bear the thought of all that work and energy and emotion coming, in effect, to nothing. I can’t explain it to you here, or maybe anywhere, but I had a black few weeks of it that summer.

Thursday August 18th arrived. I travelled with my parents back to the beautiful small city. It was a warm and sunny day, and Worcester looked amazing. I collected my results, walked down to the river where my parents were waiting on a bench, and prayed for what must have been the millionth time so far that year. I tore open the envelope, bracing myself for the news of my entire future, one way which I wanted so much, the other which I feared and didn’t know how I would handle. Often in times like this, I’ve found that God gives me the scariest road to walk. And so far I’ve walked it, with God by my side, and He has blessed me.

But this was not one of those times. I had done well in the modules I’d retaken, but because of my previous results, it was indeed close to the wire, but with God, and with Woodgreen, and with Tim & Becky, Ben & Emily, and with my parents, and with my family, and with a whole lot of heart-wrenching, sinew-stretching, gut-busting effort, I had done it. The paper read AAA.

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There followed a madness in which I presume I prepared for another move, to the bigger and louder city of Liverpool - my last move now for a few years, hopefully. Needless to say, I was very thankful to God, for everything He had given me and done for me that year – and crucially, for everything He’d been to me. This blog has really not done justice to the pain and trial, the blessing and the joy; the impossible prayers answered impossibly, the detail of God’s provision and plan, and His sovereignty, wisdom, love and faithfulness.

But here I raise my own blog ebenezer, saying “This far has the Lord helped me”. Thank you Lord. You have been my everything. You have fulfilled all your promises, even the ones I forgot, better than I could ever have dared imagine. I can never praise you enough; I can never thank you enough; I will never even realise the intricacy of your plans, or the purpose of your ways. Words are not enough. Actions will not suffice. I cannot do justice to your goodness or pay you back in any way. And you knew that before you blessed me. So, just thank you. Father God, I thank you; I love you.

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As all good stories must, “A Christmas Carol” ends with resolved happiness. A repentant Scrooge finds endless opportunities to give of his wealth to those around him, and the immortal line “God bless us, every one!” is asserted by the crippled Tiny Tim.

I must add this disclaimer: Not being a Dickens fan, I can’t vouch for my knowledge of the original story because I haven’t read it, so the only version I know is the Disney remake we used to watch (sorry, did you think we were high-cultured kids?!) where Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim are Mickey Mouse and Morty Fieldmouse respectively, and Ebenezer Scrooge is a duck whose name escapes me.

But, as Ebenezer Scrooge had to realise, blessing has to be followed by gratitude, and gratitude simply must give way to generosity. I want my generosity to be fuelled by my gratitude for God’s goodness. And we’ll build on that in my next post… lol.

Happy New Year, one and all.

PS: Sorry but you can’t have a decent new year’s celebration without at least a little bit of cheese.