psalm 131

Today was my first day to drop off Callie at kindergarten, not walking her in… to drive through the line and say goodbye in the van, let a duty teacher open her door and help her down, and drive away as she walks into her school, to find her room, her name, and her way on her own (well, and with the help of a school full of amazing teachers and staff). 

On the fifteen-minute drive from our home to school today, we talked about favorite songs (from Wicked to Passion - ha), about new friends, about art class vs. ballet (we’re letting her decide this semester), but for the most part it was a very quiet, calm trip.  At every stop sign and red light I looked back to check on her… (and just to look at her – I’m still as crazy about her as the day we brought her home from the hospital… maybe more.)  I was checking to see if she looked stressed, or worried.  But she didn’t.  She looked calm.  Quiet.  Inside and out.  After drop-off when Dan called to check on me I told him it was like she’d been doing this her whole life. 

As a mom, I could freak out multiple times a day, every day.  No doubt in my mind this is the hardest job on the planet.  (Keep in mind I have a 10 year-old and a 13 year-old as well.)  A quick glance at the TV, movie previews, or the internet is enough to send me into panic.   I am raising three girls in a world where images scream that their bodies aren’t good enough from the grocery store checkout, where sexy panties are sold to seven year-olds at our town mall, and where there are more kidnappings of young girls worldwide than ever before in history, most of which are sold into sex slavery.  That IS our world, 2011.  Working in college girls’ ministry, I don’t have the luxury of ignoring what our culture is doing to young women.  I deal with the results of it every day.  And some days it makes me want to take my family and go hide in a tent in New Zealand.  (Seriously, Dan and I talk about that a lot.)

“But I have stilled and quieted my soul;

like a weaned child with its mother,

like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD

both now and forevermore.”

-       Psalm 131:2-3

When I first read these verses, I pictured a baby in its mother’s arms.  I didn’t make it long breast-feeding – haha!  Thankfully, my NIV Study Bible text note reminded me that in the psalmist’s culture, a “weaned child” would have been understood to be a child of four or five.  “A child of four or five who walks trustingly beside its mother.”*  I laughed out loud, realizing that this image from Psalm 131 was the very image I had just seen twenty minutes ago!  We don’t live in a world where I walk my Callie many places, but we drive… A LOT.   And suddenly I remembered looking back behind my shoulder in the van at her face, her countenance, her quiet calmness, a happy stillness, as she trusted me to drive her to a new place, a new season, a new world of possibilities.  And He told me, “Be like Cal.  I am in the driver’s seat.  I know this is new, and could be scary.  But trust me.  I have never forsaken you.  Trust me… and put your hope in me, both now and forevermore.”

I don’t know where He’s “driving” you today… but I just wanted to share this image with you.  With me, still and quiet your soul.  He is your hope, both now and forevermore.