Psalm 23 at Midnight Is a Harder Read Than You'd Think

I don't think Psalm 23 is the right psalm for a scared child in the dark. I read it to mine anyway, because it's the one I know all the way through without looking, and at twenty past midnight you use what you've got.

An eight-year-old is afraid of the hallway, mostly, and whatever the closet door does when the furnace kicks on. The psalm starts in green pastures and by the fourth verse it has walked her into the valley of the shadow of death and then set a table for her in front of her enemies. It was written by somebody who had already been through the worst of it and was telling you how it came out. A child standing in the doorway hasn't come out of anything yet.

Does Psalm 23 work for a kid who's scared of the dark?

This week's Come, Follow Me reading (Psalms 1-2, 8, 19-33, 40 and 46, for August 17 to 23) leans on it, and the suggestion in the manual is a good daytime one. You ask the children what a lamb needs to be safe and well, and then you let them find what the Savior does for us in the same terms. Food, water, somewhere to rest, somebody walking ahead. Even a seven-year-old can build that list in about a minute.

Somewhere in my reading this week I came across the idea that sheep won't lie down while they're frightened. They have to feel safe first, and only then will they rest. If that's true of sheep it's true of children, and it makes the second verse do a lot more work than I'd ever given it credit for.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Psalm 23:2

Lying down comes before everything else the psalm promises, and I'd say that's the verse for a child at night. I had planned to skip straight to it. You can't, of course, because verse 4 is sitting right in the middle and she's going to hear it.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

What Lily asked once I'd stopped talking

It was Thursday night, her second night of third grade, so really Friday morning. The floorboard outside our room that has complained since we bought the house in 2015 went off, and then nothing. Lily doesn't knock or say anything. She stands there until you notice she's breathing, and David, who had worked at the kitchen table all day and gone to bed at nine-thirty, did not notice.

I walked her back to her room and sat on the carpet with my back against her bed frame. The duck night light was on. I didn't bring my phone, because the screen wakes a child up more than it settles her, so I said the psalm from memory, quietly, with the kind of pauses you leave when you're not sure you've got the next line.

She was quiet until verse 5.

Then she said, "Do the enemies get to sit down too?"

I said I thought they just stood around and watched. "That's worse," she said. "They have to watch him eat?" I told her I'd never thought about it that way and that I'd get back to her.

I haven't yet.

I'd braced for the other verse and practiced an answer for it in the hall, something about how the shadow means a dark place and not a thing that's going to happen. But I'd gone past it and she hadn't stopped me, so I went back and said it again, slower, and asked if she wanted to know what it meant. "It's the valley by Grandma's, with the dry creek, where it's shady in the afternoon," she said. Grandpa walks the grandchildren down that wash every time we visit St. George, with a plastic bag for rocks, and as far as Lily was concerned the psalm was about a walk she'd taken and liked.

Through verse 6 she said nothing, having pulled the quilt up to her chin, the one with the faded horses that Emma outgrew before she did, and her eyes were closed but I know that kind of closed, so I kept going at the same speed.

When I stopped she didn't stir, and I sat there another ten minutes anyway because I didn't trust it.

Why a psalm helps at all if she's thinking about the wrong part

The psalm didn't take the fear away, though it did give her something else to hold, and a child working out who sits at the table isn't, for that minute, working out what's behind the closet door. If I'd said it in a hurry with my jaw tight, because I had a seven o'clock alarm, I doubt it would have done much. I was short with her at that door on Monday, and what you say afterward matters more than the thing you said at the time. I wrote about that in What to Say to Your Child After You've Yelled.

The psalms I'd pick if I were choosing again

Psalm 23 is the famous one, but it isn't the best for this. Psalm 4 isn't even in this week's reading, and its last verse is the one I'll try next.

I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:8

Nobody in it sits at a table and it's short and it's about sleep. Psalm 3:5 is nearly as good: "I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me." Whoever wrote it was in a bad spot, with a lot of people against him, and he slept anyway and woke up. That is a thing a scared child would like to be told is possible.

I'm cooler on Psalm 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God." The manual suggests children memorize it and I understand why, but said to a frightened eight-year-old at midnight, "be still" sounds a lot like a command to stop being afraid. Psalm 30:5 I like for the opposite reason. "Weeping may endure for a night" admits the night is long, and I'd rather tell her that than pretend it's short.

Caleb went straight for the hardest part of Job a while back, and that's another reason I don't try to sand scripture down before reading it to them. If you want to see what that looked like, it's in Caleb Asked Whether Job's Children Did Something Wrong. Children go for the part you were hoping they'd miss. I'd rather they ask me than carry it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal for an eight-year-old to be afraid at night?

Yes, and I'd bet Lily isn't the only one in her class doing it. Fear at that age often shows up a week or two after a big change, and starting a new grade counts. If it's every night for weeks or it's wearing on her days, I'd bring it up with the pediatrician.

Should I let her get in our bed?

We mostly don't, which is a choice about our house and our sleep and not a rule from anywhere. I walk her back and sit with her. If you've got a child who settles once she's between you, do that and don't feel bad about it.

Which psalm should I read for a child who's scared of the dark?

One that's short and about sleeping or being kept. Psalm 4:8 and Psalm 121 both fit. Pick a single one and say it the same way each time, because a scared child isn't looking for variety.

Do I have to explain the rod and the staff?

I did, in one sentence, the next afternoon and not at midnight. As I understand it a shepherd used one to fend off whatever came for the sheep and the other to guide them back. She said "so a stick and another stick," which is about right for eight.

What I still don't like is how verse 4 gets handed to children. "I will fear no evil" is spoken by someone on the far side of the valley, in a voice that has already learned something, and we say it to a child in the doorway as if the fear is the mistake and she ought to have stopped by now. She hasn't done anything wrong by being awake. I don't have a better line for twenty past twelve, and I'm not going to pretend the psalm gives me one.

with love, Melissa