For those who  know me rather well, please do not answer that question?!  My wife Sue and I have been away from home since February 20th after retiring as pastor of the United Christian Church for almost 14 years.  We’ve been away  well over 3 months now, and it’s just plain time to head home.  We are taking our sweet time driving at a leisurely pace, seeing small towns in Virginia,  West Virginia and Kentucky.  We’re spending extra time in Kentucky as it’s such a beautiful  state before we head to Branson, Missouri for lots of wonderful music productions.  Then we drive way too far for a few days until home at last mighty exhausted and fatigued needing yet another break!   But today we’re in Corbin, Kentucky, home of the very first restaurant owned and operated by Harlan Sanders.  Yes, good old Colonel Sanders!  His first place is still here with his home behind it– the current owner  is the same one who bought it from the Colonel back in the early ’50’s.  Quite fun place but I ate way too much, which probably comes as no surprise to those who know me!  I feel quite full at the moment.  Reading Psalm 57 today, I noticed that King David used the word ‘full’ in a couple of places, in different forms.  David has fled from King Saul and is hiding in a cave.  He pleads for God’s help, crying out for His mercy and for a  place of refuge.  He prays, ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.’ Read that again and think of what David just said.  His help will come not directly under God’s wings (figuratively speaking, as you know), but just under the ‘shadow’ of His wings.  Just His shadow will give him the needed help. Just His shadow.   Think about it a moment.   Things just aren’t clear in life. We can’t make out the beginning and the end, the rhyme or reason for everything.   We see through a glass darkly, St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13.  Much of our life is just  not easy to understand this side of heaven.  It’s as if we’re wearing sunglasses in a darkened basement.  We can’t see His wings but it will only take their shadow.  Just the passing over of His presence  is all we need.  Just a smidgen of faith, a tiny mustard seed, a small amount of active yeast in all that flour.  Just His shadow is all I need.  Just to know that He’s always with me no matter what.  I can’t see Him but His shadow is all around me every day. Can you sense His shadow?   Just look and see and marvel at the Lord who loves you and will never leave you. Just takes a little faith to hold onto Him whose shadow can be felt  through the eyes of faith.  Whatever the ‘disaster’ of today, whatever the trouble we’re in, whatever the fears that clutch us, remember, ‘I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.’  Say it over and over when darkness comes, ‘Just His shadow’, ‘Just His shadow’, ‘Just His shadow’…It will help for He will help us.  After all, we have His Word.   More on this fullness next time.