Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
Each step in the valley has brought a new pain- a raw pain that goes into a place of my heart I never new existed before.
Several hours after my baby died an agonizing reality hit me mentally then physically. In just a few hours my milk would be full. My breasts would be full of life-giving milk to feed my baby. But he was gone.
Morning came. With no baby to nurse at my breasts they throbbed. Every time someone embraced me to offer comfort, instead pain coursed through my body. The most nauseating step in this valley was binding my breast to stop their flow. I wept. My mother wept as she tightened the bandage around my chest.
What was designed by God to give nourishment, comfort, and love was now a painful reminder of what I lost. More than my baby, I lost my purpose.
I didn’t undress or shower for the next two days because I couldn’t bear to see myself. Finally, when I gained the courage to take off my clothes, I still could not look in the mirror. I bore desolation in my flesh.
O Lord, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth and breasts that give no milk. Hosea 9: 14
For those days I bore pain of desolation step by step. I felt the cries of God’s forgotten people:
O death, bring on your terrors! O grave, bring on your plagues! Hosea 13:14
Death tormented me with its terror. Death strickened me with its plagues.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me. In the most intense moment of my suffering, God spoke a truth more powerful than my suffering.
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? 1 Cor. 15:55
God took me to my scariest place and said, “You are OK! You are not OK because I gave you a son, and not because I let you nurse him at your breast for these 9 weeks. You are OK because I AM!” The great I AM spoke truth to my suffering. The truth is that HE swallowed the terrors and plagues of death that assaulted me, but I have the choice whether or not to walk in that truth.
Today, what is your scariest place? Is it failure? Is it losing a relationship? Is it losing your livelihood, your marriage or your child? Let my life be a testimony, not to my great strength or my triumph, but let my life speak the truth to you, that in your valley of shadows- HE is there. And wherever HE is, you will be just fine.
Hear the word of the Lord…
“Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her. For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance.”
For this is what the Lord says:
“I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” Isaiah 66: 10-13
