Our home was orderly and yet, I often was confused and frightened. My dad was a perfectionist and had been a sergeant in the army; he expected everything to run perfectly. The problem was, I was a clumsy child and had difficulty getting things right. The harder I tried, the more I failed.

The angrier he became, the more fear gripped me and the less capable I was of performing. Trying to be safe, I withdrew inside my mind. As I hid, I thought I was safe because no one could see into my mind.

Even so, Dad had an eagle eye. He never seemed to miss anything. He would watch me, especially during meal times, to catch me doing something wrong. During WW2 he lost his left eye. My problem was that left eye seemed always to be watching me. So I would pull deeper inside myself to hide. It was many years before I realized his glass eye couldn’t see me!

Herons are normally blue or gray; they blend into the background of the sky overhead and are unseen by creatures in the water. The Black Heron doesn’t blend with the sky. As it enters shallow water to hunt for food, it hunches itself over, draws its head close to its shoulders, and spreads its wings over its head to form an umbrella like canopy that produces a shadow. It is believed the shadow causes fish to be unaware of danger from the bird watching over them. The Black Heron is patient as it watches. Suddenly, it stabs (and consumes) any prey that comes to rest under its shadow.

The Lord calls us to rest under the shadow of the Almighty; to make His shadow our place of refuge and hope. This shadow is a place of safety where He watches over us to protect, comfort, and bless us.

Shade can be caused by a tree, a rock, a building, even a person. That shadow allows whatever rests beneath it to find shelter from the heat of the sun. The Bible speaks of being overshadowed by God’s love, which shelters us.

Peter, James and John experienced a cloud overshadow them, out of which the voice of God spoke of Jesus being His beloved Son (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:34).

The Holy Spirit came upon Mary; overshadowed by the Most High, she conceived the Son of God ( Luke 1:35).

As God overshadows, He brings life, truth, and enables us to see as we turn our eyes onto Christ Jesus. The brightness of the Presence of God was enveloped, or wrapped in cloud so His glory and holiness blessed the person He overshadowed and caused them no harm.

When Moses saw the Lord, He first hid him in the cleft of the rock, under the shadow of His hand, lest His glory kill Moses. God’s shadow brings the blessing, and protection of His presence.

When you or I are frightened, we tend to run to hide under a shadow that feels safe. But that shadow where we rest intercepts light and foreshadows death. Whenever we feel alienated and withdraw, we rest under the shade of the Black Heron. Satan, prince of the power of the air, and all the demonic creatures are likened to birds of prey. (Ephesians 2:2).

Remember:

Fish feel safe as they hide under the Black Heron, but their feelings are an illusion.

Feelings are shadows that feel true but deceive us. They rise within our reptilian brain, which cannot reason but can only react. Feelings are powerful; they overwhelm and consume us, they shape what we believe is truth.

If you feel covered by despair, alienation, depression, guilt or shame, your feelings feel real, but they present a false truth. You don’t have to stay under that shadow. You may come into the light.

Alienation denotes a severing of connection, a brokenness, a painful wounding. It brings isolation and unwittingly, we rest under the shadow of death.

There is a way of escape. Be slow to trust feelings of alienation. They may be legitimate, but when we embrace them as if they are reality, those feelings become an augury of the shadow over you, behind which a malevolent personality hides.

Though you are separated from yourself, from God, or from others, you have the power to choose life. Stop speaking bad things over yourself.