Christian Living

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Blessed Assurance…Do You Have It?
© 2006

by

Stephen A. Peterson


Now 17 years old, Patricia Talton reported that as a small child she was afraid of the dark. She lived with her family way out in the country roughly twelve mile east of Saskawa , Oklahoma and had no neighbors unless one counted the Harjo family who lived three miles up the road. With so few people around, the rustling noises in the quiet rural Oklahoma nights seemed very scary to young Patricia.

By the age of twelve, Patricia felt as though she was being a baby about being afraid. She decided to try to overcome her fears. She challenged herself by walking the perimeter of their property whereby she could see the light of their house at night all by herself. Patricia thought of this walk as a walk through the valley of the shadow of death. After all, she said to herself who knew what or whatever might be lurking about out there in the woods on a hot summer evening—snakes, bears, wild dogs or rabid skunks!

One evening Patricia did just that. She left the flashlight behind, begged God to come with her, took a deep breath and set out to conquer her fear.

Patricia had been hiking and praying for close to an hour when she realized that her eyes had adjusted so well to the dark that she could see quite clearly. She also realized that no one was lurking behind the bushes, trees or down in the dry river bed to snatch her away. Patricia came to realize that there were only two individuals/entities out there in the backwoods of Seminole County, Oklahoma—God and Patricia—moving along the riverbed, the dirt road, and in the wooded area. As she finally walked back up to her house, Patricia knew then that she would never again be afraid of the dark. Since her first walk with God in the darkness of an Oklahoma summer night, Patricia had walked in the dark many times before her seventeenth birthday and even camped out alone with her parents’ permission and knowledge.

Whenever Patricia begins to feel afraid of anything (school tests, relationships with people, or about graduating from high school and going away to college), she remembers her walk through the night with God. Then her fears dissolve in the assurance that God will be with her no matter the time, the place or the situation she may find herself.

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