Perhaps largely because of its use in the twenty-third Psalm, the expression "going through the valley" has come to mean passing through difficulty, anxiety, or sorrow. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 596) Mary Baker Eddy has defined "valley," in part, as "depression; meekness; darkness." Mrs. Eddy has here put the word "meekness" between "depression" and "darkness," perhaps to point out that meekness is a road between what to mortal sense appear to be two mountains.
When we are in the valley, mental depression seems to loom on one side, while on the other side darkness prevails. If we hug the mountain of gloom, we find that parallel to it and always blocking our vision of reality is the mountain of mental darkness. And the path between is very narrow. But like the Psalmist we, too, can sing in the valley (Ps. 23:4), "I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." Through studying the Bible and the textbook, we can learn how to take God's hand and be led up into the sunshine of spiritual joy. Then, looking back we can see that the mountains which to darkened material sense appeared to be gloomy and depressing, were so only because we had not yet begun to scale their heights.
Valley experiences of one kind or another come to all of us on our journey Spiritward. Whether we are mentally downcast or literally in a pit, imprisoned in selfishness or literally in a dungeon, it is comforting to reflect that meekness, a quality which trusts all to God, good, was instrumental in bringing many a beloved Biblical character triumphantly through the valley.
