Yea, Though We Walk Through the Valley...
"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
I’ve been comforted by Psalm 23 a lot the past
few months, and I can’t help thinking that the Lord was using that time of
reflection in advance of the coronavirus and economic uncertainty we are all
facing together as a nation.
In
particular, verse 4 has been on my heart and mind because my family has been
walking the valley of the shadow of death since last fall.
In
fact, we didn’t know that we had already begun walking this path until an
unexpected seizure led to my father’s diagnosis of the most aggressive form of
brain cancer.
After the initial shock of hearing what must
be one of the worst words in the English language—glioblastoma—there were many
rough days knowing we had entered that valley. And I didn’t want to walk.
Walking the valley
Then one evening I found this beautiful essay,
“Reading Psalm 23 on Good Friday.” In
Psalm 23 specifically, “…we can or should read Jesus not only as the Shepherd,
but as the one who speaks in the Psalm.” The essay urges us to “engage in a
genuine Christian reading, not to merely remember Christ as our Shepherd, but
to think of Christ as the one who is praying this Psalm himself.”
In
other words, we usually read this most-famous Psalm as “Jesus is my
shepherd”—and, of course, He is. But knowing that all of the Old Testament
points to Jesus, there is another meaning here, too.
And
that is that we can hear Jesus’ voice in place of King David’s, praying Psalm
23 to His Father as He walked through that valley and suffered a cruel death on
the first Good Friday. That death began the process of restoring all of
creation to God’s original design; provided the way for re-establishing
relationship between the Creator and those who call upon Jesus’ name as the
only means by which they can be saved; and assures us that we will never have
to walk that valley alone—if we belong to Him.
We
do not know exactly how long this valley—my family’s or our nation’s—will be.
Even apart from the coronavirus, of course, we are all walking the valley of
the shadow of death. Our time on this earth is limited, though sometimes we’re
more aware of it than other times.
But
however long my family’s valley is, it won’t ever feel like enough time for
this daughter with her father. While we continually pray for my dad’s complete
healing, we know that may not come in this life, but the next.
And
that is the other source of hope and comfort—to know that we will be raised to
life in perfected bodies as part of the new heavens and new earth. That hope is
only possible because Jesus is the “firstborn from the dead” Colossians 1:18).
Walking with Him and you,
Sonja Swiatkiewicz
Family Policy Alliance