What’s your spot?
If you didn’t have a favorite before this season stuck you at home, you probably do now.
Mine is a rug. In our bathroom.
It seems silly and, sticking with the theme of this season, maybe not the most sanitized. But it brings me peace.
I sit on the rug in front of my bathroom sink, turn on a little space heater we keep (because I’m always cold), and I read or write or pray.
Or, I just sit.
The noise from the heater drowns out distractions. The actual heat makes me cozy.
My spot.
It’s a familiar feeling.
Pneumonia invaded my lungs twice during my third-grade year. My pediatrician ordered allergy tests. The list was long of grasses and trees (proof that God made me for the indoors) I was allergic to. Cats and cigarette smoke were severe triggers. I also tested allergic to dust.
My housekeeping would indicate I have outgrown that allergy.
The doctor suspected dust mites may have accumulated in my 1970s-era blue-green shag carpet, and recommended mom and daddy remove it.
Also, yuk.
We stripped my Strawberry Shortcake scheme and replaced it with décor covered in primary-colored hearts.
I loved my room.
Mom chose a white linoleum floor. She bought throw rugs to cozy it up.
Mom laundered the rugs each Saturday and returned them to my room before bedtime. I would sit on the floor and soak up the fresh-from-the-dryer warmth of my rug.
That memory returned one night as I sat on the rug in my bathroom floor. My spot.
A significant spot in 1 Samuel has a new hold on my heart.
It’s called Ebenezer.
Ebenezer translates “stone of help.” It is a stone laid by Samuel to remind the Israelites of how God helped them. An altar. (Full story in 1 Samuel chapters 4-7)
Until recent years, I knew Ebenezer only from the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” (And also as Scrooge from Disney’s “A Christmas Carol.” But I digress.)
The second stanza of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” begins:
“Here I raise mine Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I’ve come…”
The author, Robert Robinson, wrote those words in reference to 1 Samuel to remember where his blessings came. His “stone of help.”
Hymns are special to me because they return me to a sacred spot- the church where I grew up.
I visited Bayview Baptist Church, alone, at the beginning of our Coronavirus quarantine. Filled with uncertainty, I felt a tug towards my faith roots.
I sat for a long time in our old family pew. I knelt at the altar. I walked to the pulpit and saw a hymnal on top. It was opened to the song “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”
The version placed on the pulpit does not use the word “Ebenezer.” It didn’t matter because I knew the words. I knew them in my heart.
I cried.
God speaks to me in my spots. Sure, He can speak to me anywhere. But I believe connection is clear and deep when I “raise mine Ebenezer” and return (if only in my mind) to the places where He’s helped me before:
Bayview Baptist Church
The Baptist Campus Ministry at Troy State
Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center
A mountain stream in Lake Placid, New York
An office at Creekside Elementary School
And my bathroom rug.
I sacrificed my spot while Jeff was deployed. I couldn’t drown out distractions even if I tried. I also needed to hear my kids in case they needed me.
Now that he’s returned home, I can return to my spot.
My silly, semi-sanitized spot. It brings me peace.
What’s your spot?
“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.”
(1 Samuel 7:12)