The Question He Stopped Asking Her

He used to ask her at the door.

Coming in, coat half off, boots in the porch. So how was it. And she would tell him, standing at the counter, and it was rarely anything remarkable, and it was the shape of the evening for thirty odd years.

They talk plenty. That should be said straight away, because otherwise this sounds like a marriage in trouble and it is not one. They talk about the farm, the children, the roof, whether the car will get through another year, her mother, his back, everything.

But a few weeks ago he came in, and hung the coat, and started talking about the fence at the top field.

And she said something about her day, unprompted, the way you do when nobody has asked.

And he heard it.

Not the words. He heard that nobody had asked, and that nobody had asked for a long time, and that at some point in the last couple of years the question had quietly gone out of the doorway and neither of them had said one word about it.

Nothing is wrong. He would swear to that. She is not unhappy and neither is he and there has been no cold stretch between them.

It is that a small thing that ran for thirty years stopped running, and he never once decided it should, and now he cannot unhear it.

He has said nothing, because saying it would make it a thing, and it is not a thing, and it is also the only thing he has thought about in the doorway for three weeks.

If you have stopped asking something you used to ask, come and sit down at this table. This is not going to turn into a list.

Mercy that arrives daily is not a reward

There is a line written from the middle of a ruined city, and its position is the whole point.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.Lamentations 3:22 and 23

A man is sitting in the worst circumstances he has ever been in and he says something about supply that has nothing whatever to do with how things are going.

Never ceases. Never come to an end. New every morning. Not renewed when deserved, not restored once things improve. Arriving daily on a schedule that owes nothing to anybody's performance.

That is the material the thought in your doorway was made of.

You were shown this early and you were shown it kindly, and both of those are on purpose. Lamentations 3:22 puts mercy on a daily arrival rather than a merit system, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries it at exactly the temperature a person can take, which is why what came to you was one question and not a review of thirty years of marriage.

Saying it would not make it a thing

Now let me answer your objection, because you have been running it in a doorway for three weeks and it is the only thing keeping you quiet.

You believe that mentioning it would turn a nothing into a something.

That is a reasonable fear and it is usually wrong, and here is why. What makes a small thing into a large thing is not mentioning it. It is the two of you both knowing and both waiting. She said something about her day unprompted, and you heard it, and there is every chance she heard herself say it too.

Nothing is being repaired here. There is no fault. A question that stopped can start again tonight in about four words at a door, and it does not need a conversation attached.

You are being dealt with gently, and you are not under inspection. Isaiah 42:3 says a bruised reed is not broken by Him and a faintly burning wick is not put out, and it is His Spirit who carries a word at exactly the temperature a person can receive, so nothing in that doorway was an alarm going off.

And here is the ground it stands on, which this site will not leave out.

You are being kept while you keep watch, and the noticing never rested on how observant you are. Philippians 1:6 says the One who began a good work in you is carrying it through to completion, and it is the Holy Spirit who noticed a question you had stopped asking, because God is the one keeping you and you are not standing this watch alone.

One thing. Not the rest. Say the one thing and stop there, because the pull to go looking for what else has gone quiet is the exact thing that turns a mercy into a weight.