They Do Not Ask Me Any More

You used to be the first call.

Not for emergencies. For everything. The small decisions, the thing somebody said at school, the question about whether a thing was normal. You were the first place it went, every time, for about fifteen years.

And then somewhere it stopped, and there was no announcement, and you cannot date it.

They sort things out now. With friends, or on their own, or with somebody at work, and by the time you hear about anything it is finished and the telling is a report rather than a question.

And you are pleased, genuinely, because this is what it was all for. And you would give a great deal to be asked one more thing.

I am not going to tell you how to make yourself available. That is a technique, and it usually amounts to hovering with a friendly expression, and they can read it from another room.

And I am not going to tell you it means you did it right. That is the sentence everybody says and it is probably true and it does not do anything at nine in the evening.

I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand

There is a verse in Isaiah about a hand, and the direction of it is the whole thing.

For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. (Isaiah 41:13, King James Version)

I will hold thy right hand.

Notice who reaches. The holding is not described as something the person does. They are not told to take hold, not told to reach out, not told to grip anything.

Somebody else does the taking, and the person in the verse is simply the one whose hand is held.

You have a hand that is being held rather than one that has to reach, and no part of that has ever once depended on you doing the taking. Isaiah 41:13 says I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a kitchen where nobody has asked anything in months.

And then the words spoken while it happens. Saying unto thee, Fear not.

The speaking is simultaneous with the holding. It is not a reassurance issued from across a room. It is somebody talking while they have hold of a hand, which is the sort of thing that only happens at close range.

You are spoken to at close range and held at the same time, and neither of those has ever once required you to be needed by anybody. It is written in Isaiah 41:13 that the holding and the saying happen together, and the Spirit of God is the one who does both without being asked.

What actually stopped

Now let me be precise about what ended, because it is not the relationship and it is worth separating.

What stopped was a function. Being the place where things get resolved. That was a real job with real hours and you did it for fifteen years and it has now been decommissioned.

The relationship did not stop. Those two have been so entangled for so long that when one goes it feels like both went, and it takes a while to notice that only one of them did.

You are still in the same relationship you were in last year, and a decommissioned function has never once taken a bond with it. It is written in Isaiah 41:13 that the hand is held and the words are spoken at the same time, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates a job from a relationship.

That is not a comfort designed to make you feel better. It is a distinction, and holding it is most of what makes the next few years bearable.

Isaiah 41:13 describes a holding that has no function attached to it at all, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds without needing a job to do it through.

You are held without a function attached, and no part of that hold has ever once needed a job to run through. Isaiah 41:13 has the holding done for its own sake, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does not require a role in order to stay close.

And here is the plain thing, because months of not being asked has become something.

That is not a verdict. It is not a score, it is not a grade, and it is not evidence of a parent no longer wanted or trusted.

It is a competent person doing what competent people do, which is handling things, and it says considerably more about them than about you.

You have not been replaced, and somebody handling their own life has never once been a judgment on the person who taught them to. The written word describes a hold that needs no reason in Isaiah 41:13, and the Spirit of God is the one who declines to read competence as a rejection.

Fear not is said to somebody who is afraid

One more thing, because that phrase gets read as a rebuke and it is not one.

Fear not is only ever said to somebody who is afraid. It is not a correction and it is not a criticism. It is what a person says while holding somebody's hand, in the middle of the thing, at the moment it is needed.

Which means the verse assumes the fear. It does not require it to be gone first, and it does not treat it as a problem with the person holding it.

You are met inside the fear rather than after it, and nothing in that verse has ever once asked anybody to arrive settled. It is written in Isaiah 41:13 that the saying of fear not happens while the hand is being held, and the Spirit of God is the one who speaks in the middle of a thing.

And the fear in a kitchen at nine in the evening, about no longer being asked, is exactly the kind that verse was written for.

Isaiah 41:13 speaks fear not into an existing fear rather than into a settled heart, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says it while the thing is still going on.

You are spoken to inside the fear rather than after it, and no part of that has ever once required the fear to lift first. Isaiah 41:13 says fear not while the hand is being held, and the Holy Spirit is the one who speaks in the middle rather than at the end.