The Valley of the Shadow of Death

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." --Psalm 23:4

"For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction." --Cynthia Occelli

In just the past few weeks, my wife and I got diagnosed “positive” with Covid-19. Then, four days into my Covid-19 symptoms I found out my co-worker took his own life. In addition, my wife was finishing up her college finals for the summer semester and we had a big argument that made matters much worse. Tensions and emotions were high primarily from (unconscious) repressed and (conscious) suppressed negative emotions that we had not resolved individually or together. We both hadn’t had time to properly surrender the intense surge of negative emotions we were experiencing! We were both exhausted from Covid, cabin fever from quarantining, I am still grieving my co-worker’s death and though we were living under the same roof we had spent very little quality time together. We were feeling a range of negative emotions such as: grief, fear and anger that were difficult in the moment to properly acknowledge and reckon with.

At the same time, I am attempting with God’s help to move through my own personal “Righteous Reckoning” by surrendering my past pain and negative emotions to God. It has been more challenging than I anticipated, and I am finding a lot of internal resistance to moving forward in my journey, especially when my present day circumstances can be so stressful. My natural inclination (though I love to be courageous and persevere) it seems is to take the path of least resistance or the path of comfort. Honestly: “growing sucks” and if I had it my way, I would much rather not go through the growing pains.

Growing sucks, because it means you must take responsibility and ownership of all your pain and baggage. You must face it and must look in the mirror. You can no longer blame anyone, point the finger and play the same childish victim games with their small emotional “kicks”. So many people are hurting, broken and starving for love. The world amplifies negativity and if we are not ultra-careful, we can get caught up in its destructive whirlwind. Blaming, anger or force will never be the answer. Viktor Frankl (Survivor of Four Nazi Concentration Camps) said: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Did we just read that correctly? I mean a Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor was able to surrender his intense pain and recognize that instead the best thing he could ever do was to change himself! This is it! This is how we change the world, not by forcing people to follow our agenda, but by “being the change you wish to see in the world.” as Mahatma Gandhi said. Are you in a situation that you can no longer change? Well, then maybe it’s time change yourself.

It seems like a lot of people (even more than usual) are going through challenging times and are in situations that they cannot control. Everything in our world seems like it is exploding or about to explode from the pandemic, racial tensions, the election, global conflicts and hurricanes. How many of these can you personally control? Probably none, but can you control yourself? 2 Timothy 3:1 says: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.” And Matthew 24:10-14 says: “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Wow! Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. Do you feel it? Do you feel the increase of wickedness? Or even the love of most growing cold? I’m not sure if we’re living in the last days, but one thing is for sure each passing day is day that we get closer to the last day. I have felt discouraged, defeated and would much rather run away many times. The time has come for you and I to look deeply into the mirror of our soul, stop blaming, stop running from ourselves, face the truth of our baggage, own it, surrender our baggage over and over and over again until it’s finally over! Then our heart will no longer be filled with negativity, blame, anger or a victim-mentality. Instead, all that baggage will be gone and all that will remain from our heart is the increased capacity to open our hands to receive love and give love!

The irony of the title of this post “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” is unique for me. The human being that has caused me more pain and hurt than anyone is my dad. Many of you know he physically abused me until I was 13 years old. Yet, one of the very few positive memories I have from my dad is him reading Psalm 23 to me when I was a young child. Having this Bible memory with him, made it so much more difficult to psychologically comprehend how he could justify his physical abuse upon me, but even in that God was watching over me. Amazingly, through it all God had protected a part of my soul’s innocence that was able to see (though not perfectly) past my dad's sin against me and to see that God still loved me. To see that "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." –Psalm 23:4 Jesus had become my rod and my staff comforting me through the wilderness of my childhood abuse.

I am calling on God once again to comfort me through my personal Righteous Reckoning and my “Valley of the Shadow of Death”. I am praying he will do the same for you! I am trusting that he will be with me just as it says in Matthew 28:20, "...And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” I am choosing to believe in Deuteronomy 31:6 that says: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Choose with me to stand firm, trust, believe, be strong and courageous because He will comfort you through your valley!

Here's a little walk down memory lane, a little nostalgia of the one and only Coolio from the song "Gangsta's Paradise". Chances are you have changed since the last time you heard this song! Coolio starts of the song saying: "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left". He says this because of all his struggles, but know that even in your struggles you have power and you have a choice! Realize that THERE IS much left for you! So stay the course, keep fighting for yourself, because you are worth it!