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Beyond the Shadows
Something jolted me awake. I lay there, heart pounding, trying to figure out why I felt alarmed. My maternal instinct seemed to say, “Go check your baby.” I rose from the bed, careful not to wake Leon.
We had gone to bed early that evening because my husband, Leon, felt sick. I had tucked our infant daughter in her crib with a kiss and a prayer. We were all asleep within minutes. A quiet peace settled over our home.
At that time, we lived in the officer's housing on a gated military base in central California. An enclosed outdoor courtyard joined the two ends of our L-shaped home, with our bedroom located at one end of the house and our daughter's room on the opposite.
As I walked past the draped window outside our bedroom door, I paused. Did I see a shadow? I opened the drapes and peered out. A man stared back. Only inches and a glass pane separated us. Terror gripped me.
He had already removed the window screen. He now attempted to lift the window. Like in a nightmare, my feet froze. I cried out, “Leon, there is a man breaking into our home!”
The assailant panicked. I watched him turn and flee. He hurtled the six-foot privacy fence.
After calling 911, I rushed back to check our baby. She slept peacefully, oblivious to danger. Relieved, I knelt beside her crib and cried, “Thank-you, Jesus.”
However, that traumatic experience triggered an intense battle with fear that I struggled for years to overcome. Every time my husband went out of town, my mother had to come and stay with me, even after we moved to another state.
That event also highlighted two of my major struggles: an unrestrained imagination and an unwillingness to completely trust God. For starters, God demonstrated that He had protected me. But I chose to focus on what could have happened, instead of what did happen. I erected a stronghold of fear.
Years later tired of the struggle, I asked God to give me victory over my run-away imagination. Over time He showed me how to harness my thoughts and take them captive to Him. Memorizing small portions of the Bible helped me.
This promise from the Bible specifically brought peace: I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.1 I often recited and prayed it out loud before bed.
This promise and others like it helped me refocus my thoughts. As God's truth from the Bible sank deep into my heart, I learned to trust Him a little more each time my husband traveled. And I eventually grew strong enough to stay alone.
Furthermore, I experienced victory when I realized that the core of my problem exposed one of my underlying questions: Can God really be trusted? When I confessed my unwillingness to trust Him, courage followed.
Many times since then, Leon has reminded me that the thief comes to “steal, kill, and destroy.” But Jesus had protected us that night. I learned to change my focus from the thief to Him.
Once again, a quiet peace has settled over our home. I have learned to rest secure—not because I have any guarantees whether I would ever face another intruder or not—but because God's truth in the Bible has replaced the lies. Although it took some time, I have discovered a tiny bit more about how to trust Jesus and cling to His promises, seeing His truth beyond the shadows.
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”Psalm 91:1 (NIV)
Bible Reference:
1 Psalm 4:8 (NIV)
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
