The First Night at Somebody Else's House

The bag had been packed since Thursday and it was Saturday, and the sleepover was not until tomorrow.

It was a small canvas bag with the pajamas rolled at the bottom, the toothbrush in a sandwich box because she had decided a sandwich box was the correct way to transport a toothbrush, and a torch that nobody had asked her to bring. She had put it by the front door on Thursday with some ceremony, and checked it twice on Friday.

Tonight, at about half past seven, she carried it back upstairs and put it on the floor beside her own bed.

Her father saw it there and understood the whole situation immediately, which does not mean he had the first idea what to say about it.

She had been quiet all evening. Not sulking. Quiet in the particular way of a child doing arithmetic in her head about a place she has never slept: where the bathroom is, whether they leave a light on, what happens if she wakes up and does not know which way round the room is. She had asked for this sleepover and talked about nothing else for a fortnight. And she wanted to go, and she did not want to go, and both of those were true at once and neither canceled the other out.

At the edge of the bed she said the sentence out loud that she had been carrying since Thursday.

"What if I want to come home."

Every good and useless answer arrived in his mouth at once. You will love it. You will be fine. You will not want to come home once you are there. He knew what was wrong with all of them, which was that he could not actually promise a single one, and she would remember by Sunday teatime if any of them turned out not to be true.

So he did not promise her the day. He carried the bag back down and set it by the door with her, which took about forty seconds, and then he came up and sat on the edge of the bed and said something much smaller and much more useful, twice.

That is the room this is written for. Not a lesson about being brave. One ordinary bedroom, one packed bag, one small person whose nerves have turned up a day early, and a parent with nothing honest to promise.

There is something true about that room, and it is worth having ready before the light goes off.

God gets there first

Here is the thing a nervous child is quietly doing, and it is worth naming, because it explains the whole evening.

They are trying to go first. They are sending themselves ahead into tomorrow to check it: the room, the stairs, the bathroom, the moment everybody else goes to sleep. It is a scouting trip, it costs them a night's rest, and it never once comes back with useful information, because tomorrow is not there yet to be scouted.

Somebody has already been. That is the whole message and it is better than any of our reassurance.

And you are not the advance party for tomorrow, and neither is your child. Exodus 33:14 has God saying that His presence goes with us and gives us rest, and the Holy Spirit is in that other house tonight, while the bag is still by the door here.

My presence goes with you, and I will give you rest.Exodus 33:14

Notice the order in that sentence. The presence goes, and then the rest is given. Rest is not something a child works up in order to earn a good day. It is what turns up once somebody else is doing the going ahead.

You have full permission not to promise anything at all about tomorrow. Scripture is generous about God being present and remarkably quiet about guaranteeing anybody a lovely afternoon, and the Holy Spirit is what goes through a strange front door with a seven year old.

That matters more than it sounds. A child remembers a promise with terrible accuracy. Tell them they will love it, and if they do not, then at eleven o'clock in a room they do not know, the person they trusted has turned out to be wrong. Say instead where God is, and it stays true whichever way the evening goes.

Asking to come home is not a failure

Now the sentence that gets left out, and it is the one that lets a child sleep tonight.

If they want to come home, they can ask, and asking is allowed, and nobody will be disappointed. Say it plainly and without a warning attached to it. Not you can come home but let us try to stick it out. Just: asking is allowed.

Parents hesitate here because it sounds like handing them the exit before they have started. It is the opposite. A child who knows the door is open goes through the front door much more easily than a child who has worked out that there is no way back. The escape route is what makes the trip possible.

You were never asked to make a seven year old brave by half past seven at night. His word says the Lord goes before us and stays behind us at the same time, and it is the Holy Spirit who does the going, never a small person's nerve.

And nothing here is a lesson in courage. Courage puts the weight of tomorrow on someone who has to sleep tonight. What is being handed over is the opposite of weight. Somebody is already there. The going has been done. All that is left for a small person is to lie down.

You are allowed to leave the door open behind them and say so out loud. Scripture says the Lord keeps your going out and your coming in, and the Holy Spirit is on both ends of tomorrow, the leaving and the coming back.