For All Eternity

Psalm 131 is a quiet psalm.  No loud cries to the Lord in anguish, no shouts of joy or blowing of trumpets.  t is not about the great matters of the world, those that overwhelm us in their immensity and complexity. It is about finding a place of quiet to still the soul and that comfort that comes from a child snuggling close to his mother’s chest. It’s hard for me to remember that quiet stillness as a child. 

I was not much of a hugger, so I would have had to have been a very small child when I snuggled up close to my mother. However, now I have my own small children and I marvel at the peace that comes over each of them and over me when I hold them close. It’s a feeling of being purely whole and satisfied.When I’m holding a child close, the world slows down; frankly, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. The concerns I had the moment before, the tasks around me that seem to call out for my attention, they all settle down into a place of lesser priority. Holding my child close becomes my whole purpose in that moment. I am grateful for those moments of quiet perfection. They feel like little glimpses into what it may be like when this noisy world with all of its great matters passes away, when we will be embraced by our Maker, whole again once more for all eternity.