Through the Shadows, He is with Me

When I think of living afraid, I can’t help but remember a little girl I cared for. For this traumatized toddler, everything was a trigger. So many things, in fact, that we could hardly determine what they all were.

We finally discovered one that had been haunting her and confounding us: shadows. Shadows everywhere, emerging and moving, abstract and unexplained. She would tremble and scream and cling in fear.

I see myself in this little girl. My greatest fears are so often the shadows. The places where I can’t see, where looming intangibles take on a frightening form. Where the threat of what something may end up being is enough to terrify. The what-ifs and could-bes, the questions and worries. The shadows.

But Scripture holds this promise: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me” (Psalm 23:4 KJV).

The shadow of death is scary. Evil is scary. Parenting is scary. Foster care is scary. I don’t fight the fears by ignoring the shadows. I fight them by looking away from them—to God.

To the One who walks with me through the shadows, the One who is Light and drives away every shadow. To the One who has been faithful and proven His trustworthiness, the One whose character is all perfection and never changing, the One whose promises are glorious and always kept.

Through the shadows, He is with me. And because of Him, I can fear not.

Excerpt from “Foster the Family” book