Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
I have heard these words for the past 38 years of my life, but never have I understood with such gravity the depth and width and height of God’s comfort in times of trial.
For the past two weeks, our family has walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and in that journey God never left us or forsook us. In fact, for the first five days of Mighty Joe’s stay in the PICU, I was not fully aware of the severity of his illness, nor had I really grasped what the outcome might be. The first day we spent in the PICU,
Heather and Lisa came to the hospital as a support to me, and Heather looked me straight in the eye and said, “You need to take every thought captive. There are no “what ifs” in God’s sovereign economy.” God was speaking through Heather, and from that point on, my mind could only do the next thing. I rode every tiny and every massive wave firmly in the grip of God’s hand, or as I have been saying, in an insulated bubble. This was His Grace.
On day six in the PICU, God allowed me to see what was going on, what He had been doing, and what He had ahead, at least in the short term. I began to fully realize that our lives had changed from the very moment I found Mighty Joe (who at that time was simply “Joe”) white, cold, clammy, and unresponsive in the little Moses basket where he lay sleeping in our closet. Suddenly, everything that was so important that morning became the most foolish things in the world. Flip flops left on the back porch had annoyed me, a dish left to soak in the sink had made me audibly sigh, and impatient chatter between sisters was getting on my nerves... again.
On day six, I realized where I had placed value all these years, and as I gazed at my smallest child still fighting for his life, hooked up to leads monitoring his pulse, heartbeats, and breathing, supporting two intravenous lines carrying medication that would help to heal him, gaining nourishment through a tiny tube threaded through his nose and into his stomach, I knew that so much of his suffering was about God’s work in my life, the life of my family, and the lives of thousands who were touched this month by Mighty Joe’s story.
But Mighty Joe’s story is God’s story. Were I to walk away unchanged from all that has transpired, I would be exhibiting blasphemy. I would be rejecting the gift that God has given us through Mighty Joe. I would be the old Kendra, the one who idolizes the outward, frets over the opinions of man, and values what is but dust, blown away by a simple little snuff of God’s prevalent breath. The new Kendra, changed by God’s faithfulness and abundant grace, fears only God, trusts implicitly in His care, and knows He holds the future in His hand. When in the past week I have experienced discouragement or fear, I realize that I am no better than the fickle Israelites, and my need for God’s righteousness and unwavering faithfulness is made evident once again, each day. Praise God!
The words of Psalm 23 are no longer a passage I memorized for a gold star in Sunday School 35 years ago. They are what I heard whispered by the still, small voice while in my insulated bubble:
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
