Rehearsing It In The Dark

The lamp went off twenty minutes ago. His dad is on the landing with a basket of washing on his hip, and he can hear the whisper starting up again through the gap in the door.

"On Tuesday our class went to the..."

Stop. Back to the beginning.

"On Tuesday our class went to the..."

He is eight, and tomorrow he stands up in the hall and reads six sentences out to the whole school. The paper is on the bedside table, folded into quarters, gone soft at the creases from being unfolded and refolded all evening. He does not need it. He has known the six sentences since Sunday.

That is not what the practicing is for.

He gets to the fourth sentence, the one with the long word in it, and something in him flinches, and he starts again from the top. He has done this eleven times. His dad has counted, standing in the hall with somebody's damp school jumper in his hand, not going in, because going in seems to make it louder.

At some point the whisper will stop, and he will lie there awake instead, which is worse.

His dad has already said the sensible things. He said he would be brilliant. He said everyone gets nervous. He said nobody will mind. He is not sure any of it is true, and the boy is eight, not stupid, and can hear a hopeful voice from a long way off.

So he puts the basket down and goes in and sits on the floor with his back against the bed.

That landing is what this is written for. Not a lesson about being brave. A parent with an armful of washing, listening to a small person try to walk into tomorrow ahead of time so that nothing in it can surprise them, and having no idea how to make it stop.

There is something true to say here, and the thing about it is that it promises nothing at all about tomorrow, which is exactly why it holds.

What the rehearsing is actually for

A child saying the same six sentences into the dark for the twelfth time is not revising. He knew them on Sunday. This is something else, and it has a shape worth naming.

He is trying to get to tomorrow first.

If he can walk the hall in his head enough times, and say every sentence in the right order, and picture the faces, then tomorrow cannot jump out at him, because he will already have been there. It is scouting. He has appointed himself the advance party, sent ahead into a day nobody has been in yet, to check it is safe.

That is not a child being anxious for no reason. That is a child doing a sensible job. The trouble is that it is not his job, it cannot be done, and it costs a night of sleep every single time it is attempted.

You are not the one holding tomorrow together, and neither is he. Scripture says the Lord goes ahead of you and He is the one who stays with you, and the Holy Spirit reaches a room long before anybody can rehearse their way into it.

And here is the part where most of us go wrong, kindly and with the best intentions. We try to end the rehearsing by promising the day. It will be great. You will be brilliant. You will not forget a word. Every one of those is a check written on an account nobody has access to, and if the day comes back different, the child remembers, and the next promise is worth less than this one was.

So promise nothing about tomorrow. Nothing at all. There is something much better available and it happens to be true.

You have a child who was never the advance party. His word says He is the one who goes on ahead, and the Spirit makes that a fact about an ordinary school hall rather than a nice line in a book.

Somebody is already in that hall

Tomorrow is not an empty room waiting to be entered. It already has Somebody in it.

I am the Lord your God, and I am holding your right hand. I am the one saying to you, do not be afraid, I am helping you.Isaiah 41:13

Notice what is promised there and what is not. Nothing about the outcome. Nothing about how it goes, how it looks, or whether the long word comes out right. What is promised is a hand, held, and a Person doing the helping, and that promise is not conditional on the day going a particular way.

You were not handed a tomorrow that God still has to be told about. Psalm 139 says every one of my days was written down before a single one of them happened, and the Holy Spirit makes that steadying rather than frightening.

So the release is not courage. Courage would be one more job on the pile, and a tired child at half past eight has no capacity for another job. The release is this: somebody has already been where he is going, and He did not go to check whether it was safe. He went because that is where He already is.

Which means the scouting can stop. Not because the scout got braver. Because the position is filled.

You are allowed to hand tomorrow over without knowing one thing about how it turns out. Scripture says He holds your right hand and tells you not to be afraid, and it is the Holy Spirit who turns that from information into actual company at half past eight at night.

And say the honest part too, because a child can carry it and will trust you more for it. If he forgets a word tomorrow, nothing said tonight stops being true. God does not go anywhere at the fourth sentence.