Finding Rest

A Reflection on the Psalm for October 16th, 2022:
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 121

R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

I lift up my eyes to the hills — from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 

R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

The Lord will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

If you’ve ever watched a parent wrangle a toddler, it’s truly a sight to see. Too big and mobile to be contained, and too young to be reasoned with, a busy toddler is a force of nature, and it can feel a bit like watching a tornado touch down. Toddlers seem magnetically drawn to the most dangerous thing in the room – the sharpest object, the highest surface, the biggest choking hazard. Watching the toddler, you might wonder how any of us survive to adulthood, but the answer is always right behind them – loving parents. 

Toddler parents negotiate a trade of snacks for dangerous objects, catch falling toddlers (or at least protect their heads), and say “no” approximately seven thousand times a day. But they do so much more – they anticipate their toddler’s needs, scheduling nap time even when a tiny tyrant insists they’re “not tired!” They read their toddler’s mood, correctly recognizing that their rage over sharing the blocks is actually a sign of hunger. And they go above and beyond – spending hours childproofing so that their child has a safe place to explore, introducing them to new activities and old favourites they’ll love, and always supervising them closely or leaving them in only the most trustworthy hands. 

Toddlers often feel like they run their own tiny world, when in reality a loving parent works tirelessly to keep them safe and happy. I wonder if that’s how God sees us sometimes. 

The psalm for this Sunday tells the story of a God who shelters. He protects us from evil. He watches us as we sleep. He shades us from the heat of the sun and protects us from the dark of night. He watches our every move. God as a loving parent is one of the oldest ideas we have of Him, but it rings especially true for me in reading these words. 

Toddlers have a knack for asking why as they try to make sense of the world around them. I’ve moved past questioning my parents, but I have still have questions for God – big, philosophical ones, like why bad things happen to good people or what the ultimate goal is for my life. Like a toddler who’s decided their new comfort toy is a coveted kitchen knife, I can convince myself that I need my favourite sins, that they’re not so bad anyway, they haven’t really hurt me yet. We grow older and wiser, but we never fully grow up. 

Sometimes that frustrates me – I want to know it all, I want to run my own life! But as I write this, I’m struck by the deep comfort this passage offers. I am freed from the burden of having to know it all. God gives me room to take risks and protects me from harm. And when He says no, I can choose to fight it, or I can rest on Him like a toddler naps on their parent – not knowing anything except that love is always safe.




Jenna Young

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