Walking Through Shadows

Jun 6 2023 - Amy Raby

Can I be real with you for a minute? I have spent most of my life battling fear. From a young age, I’ve been afraid of the normal things like the dark and spiders, but I’ve also been afraid of being abducted, murdered, and dying in general. I don’t enjoy the fact that still, at the age of 38, I’m afraid of the dark and of someone peering in my window at night or waiting in the backseat of my car to kidnap me. I know I’m no anomaly. I’ve talked to enough adults to know that many of us struggle with seemingly irrational fears on a daily basis and many of us experience them more intensely at night, when the sun is on the other side. 

When I was young, the curtains draped on a metal bar across the top of my window would play tricks on me. I’d see monsters and scary images lurking in the night. Shadows prey on our imaginations. 

“Yea, though I walk through the valley  

of the shadow of death…” Psalm 23:4a 

Death threatens with shadows. Fears that sing the siren’s song of the unknown, of the ultimate. Shadows of darkness looming before the last breath. But the shadows have no substance. Yes, death is real, but not until it is! How many hours I’ve spent in the shadows of death like they’re the door to death. Shadows are just a projection of the thing between me and the Light. In this case, fear. 

I realize these fears are strong and persistent rhythms in my life—from childhood to now. Their regular appearance causes me to forget what they really are—a stronghold of evil supplying anxiety, insecurity, worry and terror to me on a daily basis like grain from a silo. In this realization, it dawns on me—Amy, you’ve never asked God to take away your fear of the dark. You’ve never asked God to destroy the stronghold of fear in your life. You’ve sat in the dark shadows of fear…for too long. 

“Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, 

Bound in affliction and irons—” Psalm 107:10 

At some point, I accepted these fears as a normal part of my day to day. Even though I despise them and try to focus on Jesus when they come, I haven’t been walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I’ve sat in it. I didn’t realize that there can be an “other side” of the fear, a destination through it, a looking back past it. I don’t have to sit in the shadow of death like it owns me. I can fight back with prayer and truth. 

I don’t feel ashamed of this—you idiot, why haven’t you done this already…38 years, really?—I feel saved! 

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:17 

I’m overwhelmed with hope and gratitude. The thought that I could live without fear of what’s lurking around the corner when it’s dark rises up within me like a flower reaching toward the sun. Hope in the power of Jesus to transform decade-old habits and to demolish lifelong strongholds births courage in me. It doesn’t have to always be the way it has been. I pray and ask the Lord to take away my fear of the dark. I ask Him to help me stop acting like the shadows are real and to completely destroy this stronghold. For the first time, I feel a freedom from prevailing fears. I see and accept His invitation to… 

“...walk through the valley of the shadow of death…  

[AND] 

…fear no evil; for you are with me…” Psalm 23:4