For the last few weeks of my mom’s life, I was her round-the-clock caregiver. Though I had some nursing help for a few hours each day, I was responsible for tending to her physical needs and doing all I could to support her emotionally and spiritually as her body succumbed to stage 4 breast cancer. I experienced unexpected moments of deep joy during those weeks as my mom found peace with God—but the days (and long, long nights) were filled to overflowing with sorrow and exhaustion.
I discovered that the basic spiritual disciplines I’d been practicing for years (such as prayer, worship, Bible reading, and service) had prepared me to enter the valley of the shadow of death in the companionship of my Good Shepherd. Even when the darkness of depression made that valley very dark indeed in the months following my mom’s funeral, I was sustained by the goodness I’d known in my life that I learned through practicing disciplines to follow him daily.
It can be a temptation to treat spiritual disciplines as a set of tasks we must accomplish. Completion of those tasks, then, becomes the temporal way in which we measure our spiritual growth. It is important to remember they are not ends in themselves, but are imprinted with eternity itself. They are the way in which we learn of him so that we can follow him everywhere—even when the journey takes us into the valley of the shadow of death.
Michelle Van Loon is the author of Moments & Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith (NavPress). She’s written four books and has been a regular contributor to CT’s Her.meneutics blog. Connect with her at MichelleVanLoon.com, via Facebook, or on Twitter.
