The Shadow

“Hi, Shadow…”

I felt my hand quiver apprehensively as I attempted to unclench my tightly-balled fist. I managed to loosen a few, stiff fingers enough to wriggle them shakily at the ominous figure in front of me. It was a very pitiful excuse for a formal greeting, but it was the most I could muster given my otherwise trepidatious relationship with this fear-inducing figure before me. The nightly journey down my grandmother’s hallway might have well been a mile-long, midnight, African safari through a pride of hungry lions. I am sure that my terrified 4-year-old legs could have rivaled the speed of the leanest gazelle as I lunged through the hallway and leapt into the nearest bedroom with Olympian effort.

I loved trips to my Nanaw’s house, but this foreboding form that perpetually occupied the hallway in the evenings after supper was an undeniable, source of dread. My mother had tried to explain to me that the lovely, tulip-shaped nightlight my grandmother had used for years was the cause of this unavoidable, looming darkness in the hall, but I could not fathom how. I also wasn’t quite sure why I found the darkness of this wordless entity so terrifying. All I knew now was that it was going to persist in spite of my pointed prayers for its expulsion and my Nanaw had told me the best thing to do was to “be friends with the Shadow.”Therefore, I resolutely resigned myself to do just that! So, given the Shadow hadn’t decided to swallow me whole after my first greeting, I took another deep, heaving breath, squared my pink, pajama-clad shoulders, and with all the courage my timid heart could gather, I tried again! “Hi, Shadow!”

New Life is in the Shadow

We have a natural inclination to maneuver around the things in life that we can’t see a purpose in, just as I fled from that ill-defined, indeterminate shadow in the hall! However, the Word of God shows us that it is the painfully ambiguous spaces in life that are preferential to our Creator! In Genesis 1:1, we are told of God’s presence in the “formless and void,” clueing us in from the very beginning to God’s unmatched ability to operate in the most misshapen and unlikely of life’s circumstances! Genesis delineates the Spirit of God moving over chaotic waters, fathomless and empty, and transforming them into perpetually burgeoning wombs of life!

The Creator God moves again to speak light into existence days before our seeable light source, the Sun, is ever created! Hear this, weary soul wandering in the chaos and confusion of the unforeseen, it’s okay if you haven’t seen the light, yet! It’s okay if you haven’t seen results, yet. It’s okay if you’re still waiting on a promised end that hasn’t come to pass, yet! God’s Word moves faster and reaches farther than the speed of light! If it’s too dark in your struggle to see any hope yet, be encouraged because the Word already went out to reshape your situation and God does His best work in the dark! There is new life in the Shadow!

It’s okay if you’re still waiting on a promised end that hasn’t come to pass, yet! God’s Word moves faster and reaches farther than the speed of light!

Kara Moses

Calling is in the Shadow

“Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:” Isaiah 45:1

There is a calling to purpose in the Shadow. The above chapter in Isaiah references the deliverance of the children of Israel by an anointed man named Cyrus. The wonderfully miraculous thing about this prophetic passage is that it was written 150 years before Cyrus’ birth and 80 years before the Jewish people were even taken into the captivity it spoke of! The shadowy figure named from the mouth of God in this account turned out to be the pagan King Cyrus of Persia who didn’t at all seem to fit the narrative for a Jewish Messiah. Yet, it was King Cyrus who made it possible for the Jews to return home from their exile in Babylon and who actively assisted them in the rebuilding of the temple. He even restored the temple treasures to Jerusalem and allowed building expenses to be paid from the royal treasury (Ezra 1:4–11; 6:4–5).

“I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.” Isaiah 45:3

Cyrus’ calling had languished 150 years in precursory darkness before it ever came to light, but when it did, it meant the rebuilding and restoration of God’s people! Cyrus wasn’t from the right family or of the right people, but revival requires neither of those things. What if the unexpected part of your story becomes the place where your worship is rebuilt stronger than ever and the gleaming treasures of God’s promises you thought were lost are brought back to you in abundance? There is calling in the Shadow. 

If it’s too dark in your struggle to see any hope yet, be encouraged because the Word already went out to reshape your situation and God does His best work in the dark!

Kara Moses

Healing is in the Shadow

“Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.” Acts 5:15

I bet the last thing Peter ever thought would come of that dark, horror-filled night when he fled into the shadows after denying Jesus, was that healing would come to others from this terrible walk of shame.  Peter could have given up. He could have pronounced himself a failure and disappeared into the night, forever to wallow in the worst of all of his embarrassing mistakes. However, when he heard the news that his Savior might be alive, Peter did not retreat into defeat. He swam up from the sorrow he could have drowned in and went searching for Jesus, Peter pressed on past his bleeding heart and viciously bruised ego to find the tomb empty! His defeat was swallowed up in the Savior’s victory!

If your lungs are filled with heavy disappointments and you are struggling to breathe choking on all of your mistakes, get up and get to Jesus! Shadows are created when something or someone is simply standing in the pathway of light. Come out of whatever shameful, painful situation you are despairing in and let Jesus shine on you again, for there is healing in the Shadow.

Shadows are created when something or someone is simply standing in the pathway of light. Come out of whatever shameful, painful situation you are despairing in and let Jesus shine on you again, for there is healing in the Shadow.

Kara Moses