Growing up, my classmates and I spent a lot of time memorizing scripture, something I’ve often been grateful for.
I foggily remember my grandmother teaching us short verses in the Sunday morning Bible class for five- and six-year-olds in her small-town Tennessee church. And other teachers helping us with gradually longer passages in similar classes in our large Arkansas church, called College Church because of its origins related to the school that transitioned from college to university in my childhood.
That Christian college community blessed my elementary and high school experience with teachers devoted to growing our minds in ways that would nurture our spirits. Which meant learning lots of scripture “by heart.”
I have some vivid memories—Psalm 121 was third grade with Mrs. Lawson, and we recited it in chapel before the whole school. Psalm 139 and John’s prologue were sixth grade Wednesday night class, sitting in a circle at church with Mrs. Ireland. Sections of 1 and 2 Timothy were with Mr. Diles in high school Bible class at school. Philippians 2.8–9 comes to mind in Latin, because those of us auditioning for All Region Chorus learned Bruckner’s setting of it when I was in tenth grade.
Other passages float around in my mind and surface in my heart as needed, even as I have no specific recollection of when, where, or with whom I memorized them.
Psalm 23 is one of those. I have no clear recollection of when we memorized it, but it was early, and it was done via the King James Version. I don’t remember not knowing that psalm.
In high school, I remember learning an arrangement of the psalm called “The New 23rd,” which I now know is by Ralph Carmichael. Because it was set to music, even though it was different from the KJV I had memorized earlier, it stuck, as did other arrangements of beloved Psalm 23 in our hymnbook at church. I loved all of these ways of reciting or singing that psalm, and I loved the images it portrayed. I felt grateful to have so many ways to express God’s care and be comforted.
And then my relationship to that psalm changed in a way I never could have foreseen. Soon after my newly married husband and I went to live in his home of Croatia, war broke out. It was 1991, when life was lived without the Internet, and phone calls across the ocean were kept to a minimum because of the expense.
I was a newlywed in a new country, learning a new language. I had met people at church, and some of my husband’s friends, but I didn’t have friendships of any depth. And a war was going on all around us. In those days, we were newly supported missionaries. My husband worked with a Christian radio ministry, and my job initially was simply to go to school and learn the language and adapt. But soon we both were involved in helping to provide humanitarian aid to the streams of refugees pouring into Zagreb daily.
I used my English and Italian to communicate with churches in Italy and in the States to coordinate sending food, clothes, and medicines to Zagreb. I sometimes made lunches to take for the workers at church who were actually meeting with the refugees who came for both humanitarian aid and human support. All of us worked together to unload trucks and containers when they arrived. Everyone did whatever they could to help.
Meanwhile, the news was full of reports of battles and bombings. We lived with blackouts at night the first several months. Day or night, sirens went off from time to time, meaning we were to go underground into bomb shelters or wherever a safe place might be. My language classes could meet only half the time because the building couldn’t have more people in classes than could fit in the bomb shelter down below.
This was not a wonderful way to start a marriage, to learn a language, or to start life in a new place. I realize and am thankful that my own life was blessed in that, despite some scary situations, we never were in imminent physical danger, and we never lost anyone close to us. I was blessed in many ways, but that doesn’t change the reality that it was a very, very hard time.
I had struggled before in my life with severe depression. But this added a new depth to the loneliness and sense of helplessness. Being so far from home made it nearly impossible to reach out to anyone for help. I had no close friends. Professional help simply wasn’t an option. I just did my best to get through it.
I slept very little for months at a time. I would read to keep my mind occupied, but access to books in English was extremely limited, and I didn’t have the skill to read in Croatian. I recall lying in bed at night awake, trying desperately to keep my mind away from despairing thoughts. What I remember most is that Psalm 23 (KJV) became the one thing I could count on my mind to recall.
So, I would lie there, “saying” the words silently, over and over, trying to believe them. Trying to find some hope in them. Trying to feel some comfort.
I felt no hope or comfort. Psalm 23 became, eventually, nothing more than a way to give my mind something to do, to keep it from the fear and worry and worst-case scenarios.
After three years, the situation had calmed to the point we weren’t really needed there, and we left Croatia for graduate school in the States. We began a new life. Healing came. Hope returned.
But for many years, I couldn’t read or hear Psalm 23 without a sort of flashback response. It had become a bridge to those long, dark, hopeless nights, the feelings of fear and solitude. As people do with trauma triggers, I avoided it as much as I could.
When the war reached Kosovo and hit the American news, it sent me for the first time into classic PTSD symptoms. I did intensive therapy to heal some of those memories. It made a huge difference.
But Psalm 23 never came up in those sessions. And it remained a point of difficulty for me. Not to the point of flashbacks or unbearable feelings, but for the longest time I avoided that psalm because it reminded me of that dark sense of loneliness.
I can’t point to any particular moment or experience or insight that changed that, but it has changed. I think it’s due to many people, many experiences, and many encounters with God over the years.
I can, however, point to an experience that made it clear that my inner world had changed. Twenty-seven years after that first horrible depression, we were back in Croatia for a visit. We had found an Airbnb out in the country.
And I think I will never forget what happened.
I was standing out in front of the house, talking with the owner, when we heard a bell sounding down the road. I looked surprised, and she said, “Oh, that’s my husband’s father bringing the sheep in for the evening.” And sure enough, here came an older man followed by a small flock of sheep, passing right in front of the house.
What I haven’t said yet is that I have always had a special place in my heart for sheep and have always loved the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. I still have a stuffed lamb that was given to me in high school by a friend who knew this little part of my heart. I always thought I would like to have sheep, to be near sheep. The deeper truth is that I wanted to be a sheep—to be a little lamb and be held in strong, loving arms that would protect me.
Standing in that country yard, I felt that love resurge, and I could hardly believe these sheep were right here, so close, so real. With a shepherd leading them.
Our hostess saw my delight, I imagine, and she said the sheep would pass by every morning and evening, and that it would be fine to “visit” them.
And so it happened that the next evening or the next, I happened to be free when the bell sounded, and I did go out and walk among the sheep. I have a few pictures to prove it, but mostly I cherish the memory of sheer wonder and delight.
Back in Croatia during the war, before the depression had hit, another American came who knew “The New 23rd.” We sang it once for an Evening of Poetry and Music that our church organized each month. I remember that as a very sweet moment. Someone from my home who knew this same music … Standing up to sing that psalm in the face of that war had a powerful kind of beauty. Like defying the forces of darkness with that ancient psalm and that new music. And sheer courage. Because we believed in a Good Shepherd, bigger than time or place or war.
That version says, “Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything that I need.” [1]
God knew what I needed, and even more. As the song goes,
With blessing overflowing
His goodness and unfailing kindness
Shall be with me all of my life
And afterwards I will live with Him
Forever, forever in His home
These days, my husband and I are back living again in Croatia. And I’m planning to decorate the guestroom with images of sheep and shepherds.
[1] This quote and the next are from Ralph Carmichael’s “The New 23rd” (Lexicon Music)
The featured image, “Frosty Morn,” is courtesy of Julie Jablonski and used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
Sheila Vamplin learned early to love God through words, music, and people. Her English degree, piano study, and choral singing somehow led her to Italy and then to Croatia. Landing back in the U.S. after three years of war, she earned a counseling degree. Now a licensed marriage and family therapist with a DMin in spiritual formation, she has concurrently taught piano students and has sung with the Memphis Chamber Choir and the Rhodes Mastersingers Chorale. Her current focus is translating the Italian memoir of beloved friend Tosca Barucci Chesi. As a counselor and spiritual director, Sheila has a heart for artists and those in professional ministry. She loves Gerard Manley Hopkins. With her husband she plans to return to Croatia, anticipating more surprises and trusting that the Holy Ghost will continue brooding over the bent world, even and perhaps especially there.
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