Reflections on Psalm 139
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. -Ps. 139:5
Psalm 139 was an anchor and comfort for me when I was in the hospital for three weeks awaiting Henry’s birth, and is a monument to God’s tender care for the two of us in that season.
In all the craziness that has been 2020, I find myself returning to this familiar psalm, reminding myself that I am seen, understood, and kept by God (and that my precious family and friends and neighbors are too).
Often lately, v. 5 comes out as a breath prayer in the in-between moments. The image is like warm hands on a heart that, to be honest, has felt less “hemmed in” and more exposed to the elements these days.
Though there are no life threatening complications this time around, there are tough decisions to be made about delivering this baby, each option with its benefits and potential risks and costs that feel steep and scary.
With our oldest going to kindergarten next year, we are navigating the complicated web of schooling options, while trying to communicate to these schools the unique giftings and challenges of a child on the spectrum. Hearing a term as loaded and varied as “special needs” attributed to our son for the first time feels tender and surreal and unwanted and sacred and full of potential and full of uncertainty, and can send me from peace to mama-bear-mode in nothing flat.
Last night, I filled out my ballot in a world that looks different than it did four year ago—with eyes fixed on the God who is who he was four years ago and will be four years from now. Yet the bubbles are darkened differently than four-years-ago-me would have anticipated, with a more fully formed allegiance to her King and his kingdom.
And then there are the thousand other things in my peripheral vision, as I ask again for the grace of just today’s bread, always finding that it really is enough for this day. I’m learning to acknowledge the unknowns, and then turn toward the Bread of Life even in the midst of anxiety that tells me I have to try to stretch today’s bread—meant to be received anew each day—to be enough to fill me in my imagined tomorrows.
Psalm 139:17 caught my attention this morning as I came to him with a busy mind: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!”
The Psalms were first written to be a offering we make together. So if you too find yourself with decisions to be made or thoughts spinning, with a desire for know that you are hemmed in when you feel exposed or to access his thoughts when yours are muddled, let’s pray these words together.