I Asked One Question Too Many

It was going well. That is the part that stings.

They said something unprompted. Actual content, three sentences of it, about a person at school and something that had happened, and you did the right thing and said almost nothing and let it run.

And then you asked one more.

Not an unreasonable one. It was the obvious follow up, the one anybody would ask, and it was asked warmly and out of genuine interest.

And the shutter came down. You could see it happen. There was a small shift in the face and then a shorter answer and then a phone, and the whole thing was over about four seconds after you spoke.

I am not going to give you better questions to ask next time. That is a technique and this is not a place that hands those out. And I am not going to tell you it was not the question, because you were there, and you watched it land.

Deep water, and a man who can draw it

There is a proverb about what is inside a person and how it gets brought out, and the picture in it is a well.

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. (Proverbs 20:5, King James Version)

Deep water. Not locked, not hidden, not withheld. Deep, which is a description of distance rather than of resistance.

And drawing water out of a deep well is slow by definition. You cannot hurry a rope. The speed is set by the depth, and no amount of wanting it faster changes the physics of it.

You are drawing from something deep, and the slowness of it has never once been a sign that the well is dry. Proverbs 20:5 says counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a kitchen where a conversation just closed at nine in the evening.

And notice what the verse calls the person doing it. A man of understanding.

Not a man with good questions. Not a skilled interviewer. Understanding, which in the Proverbs is mostly about knowing what a situation actually is rather than about having the right words for it.

You are the one described in that verse, and it has never once required a technique to qualify. It is written in Proverbs 20:5 that a man of understanding draws it out, and the Spirit of God is the one who calls patience understanding and not passivity.

What the extra question did

Now here is the mechanism, because it is worth understanding and it will stop you blaming the wrong thing.

The three sentences came freely. Unprompted, at a moment nobody engineered. That is water coming up the shaft on its own.

You were handed something tonight without asking for it, and none of it was extracted or coaxed or worked for. Proverbs 20:5 calls the inside of a person deep water, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings some of it up without anybody standing over the well.

The follow up, however warm, changed the transaction. It turned a thing they were giving into a thing being requested, and those feel entirely different from the inside even when the words are almost identical.

That is not a fault in your question. It is what happens when a person who was talking becomes a person being asked, and it happens to adults too, constantly, and most of us are just better at hiding the shutter.

Proverbs 20:5 sets the pace by the depth rather than by the eagerness of the one drawing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches somebody how slow slow actually is.

You are not being shut out, and the shutter has never once been aimed at the person who asked. Proverbs 20:5 makes the depth the thing that sets the pace, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a rope out of somebody's hands and slows it down.

And here is the plain thing, because four seconds has become a large thing since.

That is not a verdict. It is not a score, it is not a grade, and it is not proof of a parent that a child cannot talk to.

They talked to you tonight. That is what happened tonight, and the ending of it is not the whole of it.

You were given three sentences freely tonight, and the four seconds at the end has never once undone the three minutes before it. The written word calls the heart deep water rather than a closed door in Proverbs 20:5, and the Spirit of God is the one who refuses to score an evening on how it finished.

If the worry is bigger than a shutter

One straight thing, because it belongs in the middle of this and not at the bottom.

If the feeling here is worry about a child rather than sadness about a conversation, speak to somebody qualified. A doctor, the school, a counselor. Say plainly what has been seen and let a trained person tell you what it is.

That is not going behind their back and it is not an overreaction. It is what a parent does with a worry that is bigger than a quiet week.

Proverbs 20:5 is about drawing out over time and not about diagnosing anybody, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a person both in a kitchen and in a waiting room.

You are able to ask for help without losing anything with your child, and there has never been a version where sitting on a real worry was wiser. Proverbs 20:5 has a long slow work in view, and the Holy Spirit is the one who goes into the difficult conversation with a parent rather than sending them alone.