Scared of Shadows No More

(Photo credit: legends2k)

When I was a kid, maybe seven or eight, I watched a horror movie. I can’t remember what movie it was (one of those ’70s low-budget jobs) but I remember it was dark, it seemed very real, and I was really scared.

For weeks I was afraid to turn off the lights in my room. When the lights went off the shadows came out. Ominous things, stretching long arms across the ceiling, waiting in the corners for me to fall asleep, lurking behind furniture. I knew the moment my eyes closed that they’d move and writhe and make their way to my bed where I’d be enveloped and probably eaten or dismembered or taken to some other realm.

I’d pull the covers over my head and do what all little boys do when they get scared: call for mommy.

My mom would come, sit on my bed, and assure me that the shadows were harmless, that they didn’t move, weren’t alive, and had no intentions of devouring me.

They were just shadows.

As an adult this reminds me of one big audacious shadow that haunts us whenever we find ourselves in one of life’s valleys.

The shadow of death.

But we need not fear. It’s only a shadow. As harmless as those shadows that darkened the corners of my childhood room.

And even what that shadow represents is powerless. Death has lost its sting. Lost its stranglehold on mankind. Lost its ability to intimidate, to control, to manipulate. Its weapons of fear and hopelessness have been disarmed. Its stinger has been removed.

When Jesus hung on that tree some two millenia ago he paid the price for mankind’s sin, he took the punishment, suffered the sting of death. But that wasn’t the end of the story, was it? No. He then conquered the grave and lived again, forever robbing death of any power it once held.

The next time you find yourself in a valley, struggling to hold your head up, to keep your  footing, don’t fear the shadows. They’re really harmless. They’re only shadows. Instead, look to the Light.

He lives and brings life to all who ask.

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