The Story Behind “Even Though I Walk Through the Valley”
In 2011, I won a Word
Guild Canadian Christian Writing Award for an article I wrote in 2010,
entitled, “Even
Though I Walk Through the Valley”. My
daughter had suffered a traumatic miscarriage and our entire family was trying
to negotiate the deep, deep valley of grieving the loss of what would have been
our first grandchild. For my daughter,
it was an intense time of sorrow as she and her husband sought comfort from the
Lord, but also asked those “Why?” questions of God. For me, seeing my child suffer so in her
grief, led me to express my heartache in writing for her in particular, but
also writing and posting an article on my Journey Thoughts blog for all those
navigating mountaintop as well as valley experiences in their lifetimes.
One of my favourite places is the Comox Valley on Vancouver
Island. My husband grew up there, and we
continue to visit the area on a regular basis.
It seemed a fitting setting to describe the beauty of both the mountaintop
of Mount Washington and the Comox Valley.
I was so well-acquainted with the area it was easy for me to contrast
the actual setting of Comox, and to use it as a wonderful analogy for the “mountaintop”
and “valley” experiences of life.
I did a fair bit of research on the article as I read
commentaries and online articles that exegeted the 23rd Psalm so I
could get a better understanding of the wording and meaning of that beautiful
Psalm. I was especially captivated by the
relationship between a shepherd and his sheep as he leads his flock to greener
pastures in search of nourishment. Sheep
follow the shepherd as he guides them up and over rocky terrain. Like sheep, we follow the Good Shepherd,
Jesus. He knows us and we know Him. “I am the good shepherd; I
know my sheep and my sheep know me—“
(John
10:14)
I camped out for weeks in the Psalms and read and reread
Psalm 23. One line in particular drew
most of my attention: “Even though I walk
through the darkest valley…” (Psalm
23:4) One word, “through”
jumped off the page at me and I took note of it in my notes, and then when I
wrote the article I highlighted it in the last paragraph of my article:
“My
family and I are walking through one of those “valleys” right now. Notice
I say we’re “walking through“, we’re not
rushing through it, nor are we going to camp here indefinitely. We’re
walking through, taking our time, being comforted by the Good Shepherd, and
we’ll move on when He says move on. Until such time, we will take
nourishment from Him here in the valley, and though our eyes may stray to the
mountain from time to time, we will find rest and comfort here for now.
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
It
is humbling that this article still gets read and commented on eight years
after it was originally published. Its
message is timeless, I suppose. My sweet
daughter, walked through that particular valley of miscarriage only to carry to
term our first grandson in February, 2011.
Two years later our granddaughter
was born. When our daughter-in-law
suffered two miscarriages before giving birth to a boy in December 2017, and
then our fourth grandbaby in May 2018, we walked through those dark
valleys with her before we experienced the mountaintop joy of welcoming those
boys into our family.
Lynn Dove is the award-winning author, of the YA “Wounded Trilogy”- a contemporary
Christian fiction series with coming-of-age themes. A wife, mom, grandmother, and free-lance
writer with articles published in several magazines and anthologies including
Chicken Soup for the Soul books, her blog, “Journey Thoughts” is a
Canadian Christian Writing Award winner.
Readers may connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and at lynndove.com
