Even Though I Walk Through a Dark Valley

One of the saddest days of my childhood is when our family moved from a wonderful neighborhood in Ellet (a subdivision of the City of Akron in Ohio, USA) to South Arlington Street in Akron. In Ellet we had good neighbors and many friends to play with and to do things with. We played all sorts of sports and games with our friends and put on plays and had bake sales and rode bikes and roller skated and sang the old hymns together (some of us did). Our neighbors were like family to us, and we loved spending time with them.

Then we had to move, and my dad moved us to South Arlington Street between the Children’s Home and a local bar. We had no more neighborhood. We had no neighbors and friends to hang out with and to play games with and to enjoy one another. It was just us up on a hill isolated from our friends. And now my sisters and I had men pulling up in front of our house throwing money at us trying to get us in a car with them. Wow! What a drastic change, like going from light to darkness all of a sudden.

I think we felt relatively safe in our neighborhood in Ellet. But I did not feel safe at this house on S Arlington Street at all. For one, the house was built during the civil war, and although we did have access inside the house to the basement, there was also one of those outside cellar doors. I was always afraid to go down into the basement for fear that someone might have gotten into our basement through the door on the outside. It was spooky in that basement anyway. I am sure I cried plenty. 

The two years that we lived on S Arlington Street I think were the two loneliest years of my childhood. I really felt abandoned like never before. But it got me to read books. For I was not much of a reader before because I have always had a low reading comprehension level, so I didn’t like to read. But I think I spent an entire summer reading books because there really was not much else to do. I just know the empty feeling I felt inside of me during those two years without my old friends and without their companionship.

Then we moved again, this time to Goodyear Blvd in Goodyear Heights (another Akron subdivision). And this was an improvement. One friend that I did make when I lived on S Arlington Street who also attended the same church that I did also moved to Goodyear Heights, just up the street from me, and I met another girl who lived down the street from me in another direction, and the three of us became good friends, along with another friend I had from church. And I also became friends with a boy up the street, too.

It was not the same as living in Ellet. That will always be my favorite place I have lived in my childhood with the fondest of memories. But at least we weren’t on S Arlington Street anymore, and we had neighbors again and friends nearby who we could do things with and hang out with and enjoy our times with them. And I didn’t feel so abandoned now, and this house was not as spooky as the last one. It didn’t mean everything was perfect now, but it was better. I had friends again and that was healing.

So, why am I writing this? I don’t know. It was just on my mind today for some reason. But I do believe it illustrates the importance of friendships and companionship and feeling as though we are loved and cared about by someone. And I know from experience the reality of being literally abandoned and not loved and of being treated as though I am a nothing and just someone to be used and abused by others, too. And I will spare you all the details. But there are a lot of hurting people out there in this world.

So, how did I survive it all? I believed in Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior when I was 7 years old. His love for me is what sustained me through it all and what kept me going in spite of feeling abandoned and in spite of being mistreated and used and abused, and then isolated from my friends on top of it all. S Arlington Street was a dark valley for me, but the Lord brought me through it and out of it and he gave me a new beginning with new friends, some of whom have been my friends for life.

But this was not the only dark valley I have faced in my life. There have been many, but the Lord has brought me through them all, and I know he will be with me through any other dark valleys I may yet have to face in this life. And he promises all of his followers that we will have these dark valleys but that he will walk through them with us. So we don’t have to be afraid of what may be coming next, or of where we may end up physically located, but we can trust the Lord that if we are with him, he will walk us through it.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

    He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

    He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

    for his name's sake.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

    I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

    your rod and your staff,

    they comfort me.

“You prepare a table before me

    in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

    my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

    all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

    forever.” (Psalms 23:1-6 ESV)