This night has just started, and there’s a long way to go til morning.
I can hear the steady rhythm of my husband’s sleep-breathing, and I pray that his rest is restorative. I thank God for him being home now and not 6000 miles away on a ship trying to sleep while jets land on his ceiling. At least his body is here and not there. Maybe his mind is still trying to find its way home from deployment. I pray for his mind, too, wherever it is.
All the ways that I missed the mark today flood my own mind. All the unmet expectations, all the words I tried to say but weren’t received the way I meant them, and all the times my mind chose to set up camp in the thorny bramble of worst-case-scenario threaten my peace.
I need a rescue before these thorns choke the life out of me.
I cry out, “Jesus, I need you!” Silently, because of the warm bed and sleeping husband. My brain is louder than my mouth anyway.
My heart scrambles to feel His presence with me in the darkness, and that’s when the words of Psalm 23 tumble one by one into my heart.
I stumble to verse 4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, For you are with me.”
He is with me in this dark valley made cold and frightening by the shadow of death, the evil that brings fears of the unknowns and what-ifs.
Maybe you are fighting against what-if fears, too.
What if the kids won’t make any close friends here? What if I won’t either?
What if that knock at the door is the CACO officer and a chaplain?
What if everything goes off the rails when he gets home?
What if we can’t find a decent home we can afford in this crazy housing market?
What if this deployment breaks his mind and hardens his heart?
What if our marriage doesn’t survive this?
Oh, friend. I have walked in this fearful darkness, too.
But we do not walk it alone. Not for one moment. He invites you and me to follow him to peaceful pastures of rest and provision. He leads us to calm, cool water, the Living Water, quenching our burning thirst in a dry and parched land.
The thing about nights and valleys is they can’t last forever. The morning comes. The sun peaks over the horizon, and the shadows shrink back into their lairs.
If you are struggling with long nights and shadowy valleys, hold tight to the One who will never make you walk alone, who knows the way through, who pursues you with goodness and mercy all the days of your life.
I invite also to lean on the community of women who have walked this hard path as well. We see you and love you.
Lord, I pray for the beloved woman reading this now. Show her Your presence as she walks through dark shadows that make her feel vulnerable, exposed, and afraid. Give her gifts of rest and peace as You provide for her every need. Restore her precious soul. As she follows you down paths of righteousness, increase her faith and comfort her with your guidance. May your kindness and favor be evident to her family and community, drawing them to You. I ask that she might lift her eyes to You with high expectations for goodness and mercy. You are her shelter forever. Amen.