a memory, and some thoughts which sprang from it.

As I walked home the other evening from Mamaw's, on the path leading from her house to ours', I was vividly reminded of sundry other late-night walks home on that very same path... walks which were accompanied by the genius of an over active imagination.

When I was Quite Young, whenever the need arose for me to walk home after dark, I was terrified, yet old enough to want to prove myself brave and fearless.

Ha. Now I've just accepted the fact that I'm not brave and fearless and moved on.

So off I'd go, in mortal terror of drifting off the path and into the sewer that was close beside, and in total dread of something Getting Me. Now, what exactly was going to try Getting me was hazy, but that's where my stellar imagination came into play. Oh, yes. I could think of hundreds of animals, bugs, and evil people who might be lurking in the cornfield through which the path ran, ready to pounce.

My solution?

Well, you have to realize that I was a somewhat superstitious child who half-way believed in faeries and probably would've made an awesome Catholic.

So, I would make sure I was safely past the sewer, squeeze my eyes tightly shut, and take off like a rocket in the general direction of home, reciting the 23 Psalm out loud all the while. No joke.

I was apparently laboring under some delusion that prayer would automatically keep me safe, and that reciting a Psalm was easier than actually making up a prayer as I went along. I also remember thinking, "Maybe if a bad guy hears the 23 Psalm he'll leave me alone."

Yes, I was that sort of child.

I'm not really sure what sort it is, but it's definitely a Sort.

As I walked home the other night, (walked, not ran-with-my-eyes-shut, yelping out Psalm 23,) I enjoyed the cool grass under my bare feet, I whispered secrets to the crescent moon hanging low in the sky, and I listened to the pleasantly scratchy sound of the cricket orchestra in the grass. And as always happens when you're in the dark long enough, my eyes grew accustomed to the night, and I could see the path in front of me.

I thought of all the lovely things about the velvety night I missed when I let my fear get the better of me.

That applies to life, too, you know. Are we so intimidated by the dark and the sewer that we try to gingerly rush through whatever-it-is that's going on? Do we choose blindness and "safety" rather than trust God to give us eyes that see in the blackness? What about prayer? Has it, the act of praying, become something you lean on rather than Christ?

I should never be content with fear and trembling.

I have a Heavenly Father who cares for me.