Betrayed.
Nothing else could describe what our son was feeling as we brought him into the clinic and into the room where he would receive the dreadfully anticipated shot that we had tried to prepare him for since about a week prior. How could his parents do this to him? He had even been good that day, and we were handing him over for torture. Utterly betrayed.
Another son went through a season where he could not bear a full day of school, with too many new rules and not enough play time. He liked home with us, where he was willing to spend time studying but also know the comfort of home and enjoy the flexibility that a rigid school schedule could not. He resisted getting on the bus, and objected to being dropped off at school. How could we do this to him? We were turning our backs on him when he wanted us most! Utterly abandoned.
Most of us now understand that many of the undesired “valleys” of life as children, like shots, school, homework, rules, discipline, etc., were for our own good. We may not have liked them, and we would never have chosen them, yet… we are better for having endured them, now healthy, educated, self-disciplined, and perhaps having to guide our own children or others through undesired needs in their lives.
This sheds a little perspective for us on some of the circumstances that God allows or even leads us into in our lives. It can be difficult and even PAINFUL. Our emotions might be the adult versions of the child who feels betrayed or abandoned. Why, Lord? How long? And we might identify with the cries of David in Psalms 6, 13, and others.
And, unlike our adulthood, where we see purpose in some of our childhood valleys, we may never learn of why God brought us through various difficulties and trials. But we do know that the Lord is our Shepherd. He is calm, gentle, guiding, caring, comforting. He leads us… sometimes through deep, dark valleys.
And we also know that He is with us. This is emphasized repeatedly in the Bible, in Psalm 23:4, Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 43:1-3, Matthew 28:20, Romans 8:38-39, Hebrews 13:5, and many others. When our son reluctantly went to school, he knew he could look forward to his return home with us. When our son had to endure the pain of the shot, he had the comfort of sitting on my lap with Mama’s hug. Dark valleys are so much better with loving and comforting support accompanying you through.
God has not betrayed or abandoned us. He knows best, and He has sent His own Son into darkness in order to bring us to light and eternal joy of salvation and eternity with Him. Nothing can steal that from us or separate us from Him!