~From Personal Experience

The night sky was like an enormous black velvet blanket with countless sparkling diamonds sprinkled over its surface. As I gazed at the wonder of it, I could hear beautiful music floating down the hillside to where I stood. I felt as if I could almost reach out and touch the Almighty as I quietly began to sing along with the music. "I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed."   I was enjoying a Christian retreat in the hills of Arkansas. It was a much-needed weekend of relaxing physically and refreshing spiritually. I came home uplifted and ready to float through the week that lay ahead. Then Monday came.   In every life there are challenges and trials. But Monday was a doozie! It was one of those events that knocks the wind out of your sails and knocks you clear out of the boat. It took me a few days to get my wind back and get back in the boat, but I did.     Up at an early hour, before the morning light, I came to an old familiar passage in the Bible - Psalm 23. "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul." That's what God did for me at the retreat just a few days before. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death " That was Monday. It was not actual death, like the end of a person's life. But it was death, like a valley of deep darkness. Like an experience that really blows you away it is so difficult. (Maybe you've been there.) The passage goes on to say that when I go through this dark valley that is like death, "I will fear no evil, for Thou (God) art with me."    Lots of people have experienced or will experience Mondays like that one was for me, but not everyone is led to lie down in green pastures to have their soul restored and/or shored up for the storms that are coming. Nor is everyone accompanied through their dark Mondays by God Himself. But if, as the first verse tells us, we know the Lord as our own personal Shepherd, then we are assured that we have this great, caring, comforting, covenant Companion through life. We can trust that He is there and tha He is working in our circumstances for good. (Romans 8:28-29)

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