I'm not a great grammar student. There is likely a grammatical error in that sentence alone. There definitely will be at least one before I've concluded this post.
Commas are tricky. They indicate a pause, separate different thoughts along the same thread, and more. I write under the view of "when in doubt, add a comma." And I doubt myself a lot so you'll find lots of commas here.
But the one thing I did learn from my years in school is that the period comes at the end of a sentence. It is the conclusion of one thought. It has some finality to it.
This morning as I was writing scripture I came across Psalm 23:1.
I used to have the 23rd Psalm memorized. If you asked me now I don't know that I could get all the way through it but I do know that I could without a doubt tell you how it begins.
I can hear the words in my memory- The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.
The thing with memorizing is that you don't have to memorize punctuation, just the words.
When writing the verse today from the NIV bible I had to not only write the words, but also the punctuation.
"The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing."
Something about writing "I lack nothing." And putting that period at the end gave me pause today.
When life gets hard, I have (in the recent past) gotten myself stuck in a bit of a pity party. Partially deserved. I was going through a lot of things mentally and emotionally. Some of which you know but some that I've kept more private. Grief and things of that nature are just things that take time to process and deal with (and never fully go away I don't think). But even when life isn't hard and I'm not feeling down about anything in my life. Even when my attitude is in check and I'm as close to 100% content with my life as I think anyone can get, I still have times where I think I need something I don't have. It could be a material thing. It could be emotional support. It could be physical help. It could be strength to get through a trial. The list is endless. Even when I am not intending to complain about anything at all. Even when im not operating under the mindset of discontentment, I still have moments that creep up where I think, "if I could just get this _________ (finished, started, purchased, organized, etc.), then I'd be good and I wouldn't need to ________ (buy, or do, or ask for anything else).
But that little period in my scripture writing today reminds me that I already have everything I need. I lack nothing. Period. Done. Final. Case closed and concluded. End of discussion.
And while this post is titled, "The weight of the period", and while I had this thought because of that tiny little punctuation mark- I think the most important part of the verse is what comes before the comma. "The Lord is my shepherd"
I lack nothing (period, final, case closed, end of discussion- BECAUSE the Lord is my shepherd. I'm learning what that means. I'm learning what that looks like. I'm learning to trust and fully lean into that thought. I went through a season recently where I was struggling with God's goodness. I'll probably have more trials in life. But today I take so much comfort in that little tiny period that holds so much power to me.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
And praise the Lord for that!
-Monica
A song that hit my mind after having this little epiphany -> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G4SL8cn2dJ4&pp=ygUWZ3JhdGl0dWRlIGRyZXcgaG9sY29tYg%3D%3D
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