Thanksgiving

David said, "Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Pastors and preachers throughout the Christian world will remind their congregations to take comfort when walking through the valley as it is only a shadow of death they face, not death itself. Exactly how is that comforting?

To walk through a living version of death. Basically, you are alive and suffering. Your soul is in torment and, because you are still alive, you can feel every single moment of it. YIPPEE SKIPPEE...

Death on the other hand, depending on your spiritual beliefs, results in one of three things:
1. If you believe in and serve a higher being, death results in a state of perpetual happiness - coolio!
2. If you believe in and reject a higher being, death results in a state of perpetual torture - hm, no thanks.
3. If you don't believe in a higher being, death is simply The End.

Death actually seems preferable in cases 1 and 3 to living in a valley of unbearable pain and suffering. It's easy to see why someone walking through the valley might decide to take matters into their own hands and hasten their end...as long as they are reasonably sure they aren't scenario #2 above.

Understandable, truly. I've been in the valley; I've known people who journeyed through that valley. And I feel a deep sense of compassion for those who are in it now. The thing is, it's difficult for people who have never been in that place to understand the temptation to choose death over the shadow of death. But there is a moment in suffering when the pain is so great that all sense of perspective is lost; that makes death, regardless of the conditions of afterlife, seem preferable.

I took the littlest angel on a whale-watching trip one year. The boat left from the harbor with gale-force flags flying. The bow of the boat was rising well out of the water with each huge wave and slapping down again with enough force to lift l'angle off her dainty little feet.

Now, I suffer motion sickness. Doesn't matter if it's a car, a boat or a plane. If it moves and conditions are right, I will turn a truly awesome shade of green. That day, even the strongest stomachs were turning. I was so incredibly sick that I could not raise my head off the bench I was clinging to. Every time the boat heaved, I followed suit.

And I remember thinking, with clarity, that if I could find a gun, I would shoot myself. I remember thinking I must stop this horrible feeling at all costs. Afterwards, it seemed a dream - surely I hadn't actually been serious? Oh, I was. I was deadly serious. I did not want to live another moment under those awful conditions.

Thankfully, no one on the boat was flashing a gun around. The boat eventually returned to shore, my stomach eventually returned to the mid-section of my body, and thoughts of ending it all eventually returned to the furthest reaches of my mind. But I remember that brief moment of thought, and I know I was sincere.

Motion sickness in your soul is infinitely worse. Your mind is already suffering incredible upheaval; your thought processes are already skewed. The thing is all that tossing and turning of your emotional well-being is bound to toss up that one horrible thought residing in the furthest reaches of your mind. The one that says, "I am done with the shadow; give me the real thing."

And what's to stop you? The knowledge that you don't need to fear evil because God has a Rod and Staff? That's very little comfort unless you are in an emotional frame of mind to grasp the understanding of what that means.

The Rod, of course, represents protection; the Staff, guidance. So, there in your valley of suffering, you are suppose to take comfort in the knowledge that God will whack evil and lead you to safety, even if it means grabbing you by the neck with his crook and forcibly dragging your bleating ass back to safe ground. Ok, yeah, that is a little comforting...if you can manage to pull that thought up fast enough to prevent yourself from taking action on the other thought first. Ah, there's the rub!

Thankfully, we don't, in that moment, have to do a thing except allow God to hook us with the Staff while He whacks evil with the Rod. Thus bringing me to the point of this blog - to thank God and the people He chose to help drag me back to safety. To those who repeatedly held back my hair while I emotionally retched; to those who continuously whacked evil thoughts on my behalf -- thank you for being God's Rod and Staff! I am eternally grateful.