Wean-ed or Wean-ing?

My Grandmother sometimes tells me the story of when she looked after my sisters and me while my Mum was away.

My youngest sister wasn’t quite weaned yet. At night, she screamed and screamed and couldn’t be comforted. The source of her comfort was taken from her – Mum’s milk.

The expression of contentedness on a baby’s face, after a long feed, will put a smile on most people.

However, it doesn’t last long. After a couple of hours, they will be fretting and thrashing around, until they get another feed.

When you start to wean a baby, and they don’t get milk when they want it, the whining, complaining, and sometimes screaming, can go on and on.

But, eventually, the complaining stops. The child is calm and quiet. They don’t worry about what to eat. They simply trust their mother to give them all they need.

Psalm 131 is only 3 verses long, but it packs a lot in. It is one of my favourite Psalms and challenges me every time I read it:

“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 marvellous for me. 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 forevermore.”

What is the source of our contentment? Is it our circumstances, family, home, health, or work? These are good things, but temporary. What happens when they are taken away from us? Do we stay quiet and calm like a weaned child? Or do we complain and fret like a child who is still weaning?

The last few months have taken a lot away from us. Remaining quiet and calm, in the storm of Covid-19, has no doubt been a challenge for us all.

However, Covid-19 is not the only challenge to being content. Were we all completely content before Covid-19? Hmm.

 

What I especially like about Psalm 131 is the active nature of it: “I have calmed and quietened my soul.” We have to take action to put a stop to those attitudes.

Once you take a child’s milk away, you have to replace it with good and wholesome food. Only then will they be satisfied.

So it is with us. To wean our souls, we must feed on the bread of life – Jesus. Read His words often. Trust Him. Speak to Him. Unlike the things of this world, He is eternal, and He can never be taken away from those that trust in Him.

Weaning a child is a process – so is weaning the soul. But we can be encouraged knowing that David (the author of the Psalm) was able to do it. David’s life was as hard as anyone’s. He experienced war, persecution, succumbed to sexual temptation, lost a child, had a son turn against him – the list goes on.

 

If David was able to wean his soul, there is hope for us all.

 

 

It took me a while to find a meatloaf recipe I was content with. For a long time all the recipes I tried didn’t quite hit the mark. But then I found this delicious Italian one, and I haven’t looked back!