There I raised my Ebenezer

I just got back from spending a week as a counselor for the Burrito Brothers Flying Youth Camp in West Virginia with my home church's youth group. It was kind of like a reunion since several of the people who were counselors and campers five or six years ago when I used to go were still involved. It was an amazing week, full of rest and beautiful mountains, laughter and yes, tears.

The last night of camp, instead of the normal campfire time we had every night (a fun time with games and skits) we made a pile of rocks.
After a brief chapel service all 200ish of us walked up the mountain road in silence and sat around the campfire circle. Earlier, we counselors had spread rocks all around on the dusty ground. Now, as we walked in we were handed a bookmark with scripture references and phrases about our identity in Christ.
One of the Burrito Brothers/directors told us the story of Jacob, and how God renamed him. But that it wasn't until the second time that God told him, "your name isn't Jacob anymore; it's Israel" that it seemed to really sink in. At that time he went back to "bethel" (the house of God -- a rock in the wilderness) where he had propped up a rock years before and made it into a monument to the Lord.

I had asked God to name me. I think it has been almost a year ago now that I started asking that, but recently I had put it out of my mind a bit, assuming that He had already named me and I was just missing the obvious. But reading through that list of identity statements, I gasped when I whispered "I am a saint" just loud enough for me to hear.
As the campers started sifting down to the ground to pick up rocks and write their God-spoken identities in marker and pile them together on the far side of the firepit, I kept reading. When the kids were done, counselors were invited down as well.
I immediately went, chose a hefty stone, added it to our Ebenezer, and returned to my seat.
Where I stayed for probably 45 minutes more, just staring at that pile of rocks, at Beth-El, the house of God. Who knew? There in Cowen, WV in the middle of an ashy campfire circle.

From "striving" I have been renamed "Saint: bought with a price, annointed and sealed."
I am freed from anything but just to love!