Photo by Kenny Loule

By Tina Teng-Henson

Psalm 131 

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
² But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

³ O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.

I often occupy myself with “things too great and too marvelous for me.” When I used to serve InterVarsity at Harvard, the level of depression on campus, the perennial question of homosexuality within Christian community, everything could overwhelm me. The image of calming and quieting my soul before God like a child with its mother would comfort me, profoundly. I needed to remember: I was a child.

Then, I became a mother. I birthed our first, learned to nurse her and attend to her, rework our harried lives to make broad space for her. This psalm became differently redolent with meaning. Becoming a new parent could threaten to undo me, yet it proved to be one of the few things I’ve experienced that helped me to not lift up my eyes with haughty ambition or permit arrogance in my work. Having a child imbued humility and simplicity within me. My heart could not be lifted up, my eyes could not be raised too high.

At some point, though, I got to the point in my daughter’s life when I found myself journaling, asking God whether it was time to wean her. I saw how tethered we’d become, sensed we both needed greater independence. It was then that I noticed this psalm spoke of the quieted soul of a weaned child with its mother. So when I would worry that we’d not feel as attached or connected if I stopped nursing her – I found a beautiful promise here. That I would even more understand and receive that quietness of heart, that secure stillness in the arms of our Father – after my daughter was weaned.

She is now weaned, and perhaps because of that, that perennial temptation beckons me to slip back into that harried, occupied life.  But I am resisting that — or trying to anyway — therefore, I am differently grateful for my weaned daughter’s companionship to me. She gives me hugs and likes to be held to see what I am doing. One morning this week, she came to our bedside and said, in barely coherent words that somehow both my husband and I heard distinctly: “play wi’ me. I’m serious.” We could not stop laughing!

I love this. As long as I’m a mom, I don’t know that I’ll ever have too much attention to devote to things too great or marvelous for me.  And I thank God for this firm boundary of love to guide my discernment of future ministry, work, and the like.

Tina Teng-Henson has been blessed to learn + grow alongside so many different people, in so many places: Long Island, NY — Harvard College + the South End of Boston — Nairobi, Kenya and Lanzhou, China.  She is working towards her Master of Divinity at Fuller‘s Northern California campus.