Psalm 131:2-3

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned
child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever
more.

This is a time in our history when many people have found their anxiety to be at an all-time
high, myself included. At the beginning of the quarantine, I realized that my mind was shutting
down emotionally. I wasn’t acknowledging or experiencing emotions in the same way that I
had been previously, and I believed this to be a product of my heightened anxiety. A coping
mechanism, and one that I had recognized in myself before. For months I have looked at this as
a negative thing, something that I should be ashamed of because I wasn’t “correctly”
processing my potential emotions. A lot of terrible things were and still are happening, so why
am I not reacting like everything around me tells me I should be? And then I came to read
Psalm 131, specifically verses 2-3. They read, “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a
weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the
Lord from this time forth and forever more.”

Perhaps what I believed to be a potentially harmful coping mechanism was actually the hand of
the Lord protecting me from what would have surely been an overwhelming deluge of
emotions? As my life has settled into a new normal and new routines have begun to form, my
emotions have returned and my mind has “woken up” and is able to process events again.
There has been no delayed reaction, no explosion, no waterfall coming from within me, but
rather an acceptance of things past and a tentative hope for the future. I read this passage and
recognized within myself a similar feeling of a quiet soul. Where once I was upset at my own
inability to conform to emotional norms, I now only have gratitude for the Lord and his love and
goodness in protecting me through the gift of a quieted soul.

Dear Lord, you are the God who formed us. In you we live and move and have our being. Come
shepherd our hearts and quiet our minds as we trust in you our Savior. Amen.

– Ashley Serraglio