What’s in the Shadows?

It’s dark as pitch at 5:30 a.m. I know this because I walk my neighborhood every morning before work (ok, ok most mornings). Oh sure I carry a flashlight, but it does very little to dispel the darkness.  Who knows what’s lurking in those shadows?

As I step out my front door, my surveillance tactics are in full force. So are my ninja moves. I twist my head at every sound, every flicker, every movement. I yell “Hiiiii Yahhhh” while simultaneously executing a “judi chop” to send the scary things running. I check over my shoulder and then check again. Sometimes I even reflect back to my marching band days and decide to walk backwards in a perfect glide step. I thought it may confuse the bad guy when I executed an abrupt about-face. I look left. I don’t like the dark. I look right. Even darker over there.

What was that?
Did I just see something?
Was that a squirrel? Raccoon? S-n-a-k-e? Flesh-eating possum rising from the gutter?
Ninja Turtle?  A friendly but strong ninja turtle to keep me safe?

I have an active imagination. It doesn’t help that it’s Halloween time. People in this neighborhood have lost their minds. They have bed sheet ghosts strung all in the trees. There are skeletal things coming out of the ground next to tombstones. There are creepy fences on sidewalks, spiders on houses, pumpkins on light posts and God-only knows what that was on that one family’s porch.

Thursday morning, I jerked my head around so many times I gave myself a kink in my neck.

Then I heard this question in my mind, “What’s in the shadows?”

Exactly Lord. That’s what I’m saying. WHAT is that? And that? And that?

“No, April, you are in the shadow – My shadow.”

Sometimes God is so cool.

I got home and looked up scriptures that pertain to “shadows” and check this out:

How precious is Your loving kindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. Psalm 36:7

Keep me as the apple of the eye; Hide me in the shadow of Your wings. Psalm 17:8

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1

What’s in the shadows? I am. Me. ME! My morning walk in the shadows just took on a whole new meaning. I’m walking in the shadow of the most high God. And there’s no better place to be.