My family is heading to my husbands grandmothers calling hours and funeral today. She was in her 80's and in such bad shape physically that her death really is a blessing. That old standby scripture...."though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil..." comes to my mind. Eight years ago I would of had no idea where that was in scripture. Graciously I know that those words are in Psalm 23. This is a typical reading at many funerals. I have come to love this verse. I think that having the word death in it, is the reason it is at funerals. I would like to challenge you to think of this verse for life rather than death. What does that line/verse mean anyway? This is what I asked myself a while ago. Understanding it has given me such comfort. A dear friend made a great analogy in order to help me see what this meant. Here it is...would you rather get hit by a truck or the shadow of a truck? Huh? Well, which? I say the shadow. I have actually been hit by a truck and it was no fun! (more on that at a later post!) Well, the belief in Christ, turning your soul over to Him is kind of like that. We will all go through times when we are afraid. This could be during life, during the sad times of losing a loved one, just the regular ol' day to day grind that sometimes gets the better of us, OR the actual death experience. This verse lets us know, that death...actually forever death will never get us. We will see it, we will feel it in a way BUT it will only be the shadow of death. The shadow of a truck hitting us might make us catch our breath, frighten us for a quick moment but we don't need to be afraid cause it's only a shadow!! Only a shadow. How many times does a child call for momma when the shadows in his/her life are scary? We have comfort for them when we point out it's only a shadow. Christ does the same thing for us. In life, He is there to reassure us that all those big scary times are nothing but shadows. Death can never really come to us when He is in our hearts. I don't know about you, but that gives me comfort in my today's!