I Still Check What I Know Is Done

You already knew. That is what makes it strange.

They have done that thing correctly every time for about two years. There is no history of it going wrong, no incident anywhere, nothing that would justify a single one of these checks.

And you check it anyway. Every time. Sometimes twice, and the second one is done quietly so that nobody sees you do it.

They have started to notice. Not enough to say anything, but there was a look last week that was not quite a look, and you have thought about it since.

I am not going to tell you when to stop. That would be naming an age or a readiness, and this site does not hand those out, and there is no line anybody can draw for a house they have not stood in.

And I am not going to tell you it is nothing. You are the one doing it twice.

He shall neither slumber nor sleep

There is a line in Psalm 121 that describes a watch, and the negative in it is doing all the work.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. (Psalm 121:4, King James Version)

Neither slumber nor sleep. Two words, because one would not have been enough.

Slumber is the dozing, the lapse, the moment where attention drops without anybody deciding it should. Sleep is the whole thing. The verse rules out both, which means it is ruling out even the small gap.

You have a watch running that never lapses, and no small gap has ever once opened in it. Psalm 121:4 says he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a hallway where somebody is checking a bag for the second time.

And notice the word keepeth. It is the keyword of that whole psalm and it appears six times in eight verses.

Keeping is not watching from a distance. It is custody. It is the word for a shepherd with a flock, and it does not describe an observer.

You are looking at a child who is in custody rather than under observation, and that keeping has never once depended on you keeping too. It is written in Psalm 121:4 that He keeps and neither slumbers nor sleeps, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds a watch a person cannot hold.

The second check is not about them

Now let me name what the second check is actually doing, because it is not about the bag.

The first check is information. The second one is a settling motion. It is not gathering anything, because nothing changed in the four seconds between them, and you already had the answer.

What it does is put something down in you for about ninety seconds. And then it comes back, which is why the checking happens again the next morning.

You are not doing something faulty, and a small repeated motion has never once been the thing to fix in a person. It is written in Psalm 121:4 that the keeping never lapses, and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies what a habit was reaching for and could not hold.

That is not obsession and it is not a fault. It is a nervous system doing the only thing available to it, which is a small repeated action, because the actual thing it wants cannot be arranged.

Psalm 121:4 supplies the watch rather than the reassurance, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is holding what a person has been trying to hold with their hands.

You are trying to hold something with your hands that is already being kept, and the second check has never once been able to do it. Psalm 121:4 rules out even a lapse in the keeping, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds what nobody's hands were built to hold.

And here is the plain thing, because two years of this has become something about you.

That is not a verdict. It is not a score, it is not a grade, and it is not evidence about your child or about how much you trust them.

It is a body doing a small repeated motion in place of a certainty nobody can have, and everybody does something like it about something.

You are not an anxious or a controlling person, and a repeated small action has never once been a report on your character. The written word puts the keeping outside a person entirely in Psalm 121:4, and the Spirit of God is the one who declines to read a habit as a heart.

What the look was about

One more thing, about the look last week, because it matters and it is not what you fear.

A child who is checked on a thing they have never once got wrong learns something small every time. Not that they are distrusted. Something quieter than that: that the matter is not closed, and that they are not the one who closes it.

That is worth knowing, and it is not a rebuke. It is the reason to let one thing go, and it is a much better reason than any of the ones about their age.

Psalm 121:4 has one keeper rather than two, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person stand down from a post that was already covered.

You are able to stand down from a watch that is already being kept, and standing down has never once been the same as stopping caring. Psalm 121:4 has a keeper who does not lapse, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a second guard go off duty.