Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer

Last week at a Stake Relief Society Leadership meeting the special musical number was Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing by Robert Robinson, which is one of my favorite songs. Here are the words:

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 mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when 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 constrained 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, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

When you first hear the words in the second verse, Ebenezer Scrooge might be the first thing that pops in your head, but I thought of Henry Ebenezer Bowring, one of my husband’s distant grandfathers, who was the first to join the church in the little town of Dorset , England in the mid 1800’s. Ebenezer being a family name I was naturally curious to find out what exactly raising an Ebenezer meant. So I did a little research.

In Samuel 7:12 it says:
Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying , Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

The word Ebenezer comes from two Hebrew words meaning “ help” and “rock”. Samuel raised this rock or monument to remind the people of God’s help in the great victory of restoring territory from the power of the Philistines and reclaiming the Ark of the Covenant.

I love the visual picture of raising something to the Lord. Recently, I’ve been taking time to reflect on how God has been faithful to me, knowing that He has helped me thus far. I can look back on my life and see that He has rescued me in so many situations.

So I raise my Ebenezer and give thanks. And as I’m trying to be ever faithful...I say, “here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above”.

What Ebenezer would you raise in remembrance of God’s love for you?