The Visit in the Morning

The good shoes are by the door. That is how everybody in that house knows what tomorrow is.

They came out of the cupboard at about six o'clock and they went by the door, and the clean shirt went over the back of the chair, and nobody had to announce anything. Rosa is seven and she watched the shoes go down without saying a word.

There is a visit in the morning. This is not going to say who to, because it is a different person in every house and the shoes are the same shoes in all of them.

At bedtime she asked the question. Then she asked it again on the way back from the bathroom, and then a third time with the lamp already off, in a voice that was trying very hard to sound like it did not much matter.

"How long do we have to stay?"

Her mother gave her a number the first time and a slightly kinder number the second time and by the third time she had stopped answering with a number at all, because she had realized something.

Rosa was not asking about the length of the visit. She was asking whether she was going to have to hold the whole thing on her own.

That is what the third asking is. A seven year old does not have the words for I am walking into a room tomorrow and I do not know what will be in it, so she borrows the only question she has, which is about time, and she asks it until somebody answers the real one.

Meanwhile the small bag is half packed on the floor. Her mother knows exactly what happens next, because it happens every time. Rosa will lie there running the morning in her head, over and over, arriving in that room again and again, alone every time, for as long as she can stay awake doing it.

And if you are the one at the edge of that bed, you already know the two things you are not allowed to say. You cannot promise her it will be lovely, because she will remember if it is not. And you cannot tell her there is nothing to think about, because there plainly is, and a child who is told otherwise simply stops mentioning things.

So here is the third option, and it is better than either of them.

Somebody gets there first

A child rehearsing tomorrow is doing a very specific thing. They are walking into that room, in their head, as the first one through the door. Alone, on point, with everything depending on how they handle the first thirty seconds.

That is the picture to take away, and taking it away costs nothing and promises nothing.

Because the room is not empty when she gets there. God is already in it. Not meeting her there, not turning up when she needs Him, not summoned by her doing something correctly at the door. Already in it, before the shoes are on, before the car, before the handle turns.

You are not sending your child in ahead of anybody tomorrow. Psalm 139:5 says God goes in front of us and comes behind us and lays His hand on us, and it is the Holy Spirit who has that room occupied long before either of you reaches the door.

You go in front of me and You come behind me, and You put Your hand on me.Psalm 139:5

In front, and behind, and a hand on top. There is no gap in that sentence for a seven year old to be first through anything.

You have not been asked to guarantee tomorrow, and guaranteeing it was never on offer. Scripture says tomorrow carries enough of its own without tonight being added to it, and the Holy Spirit is already there in the morning, holding it, while this house sleeps.

What tonight is actually for

Notice what has not been said. Nothing here says the visit will be lovely. Nothing here says it will be short, or easy, or that everybody will be in a good mood.

That silence is deliberate and it is a kindness. A child keeps a promise word for word and checks it against what happens, and a parent who promises a day cannot deliver it. What can be handed over is far more solid than a forecast: somebody is already there, and He was there before anybody set out.

You were given tonight and not tomorrow, and tonight is a much smaller thing to hold. His word says He gives sleep to the ones He loves, and the Holy Spirit is the one handing that over, rather than a small person managing to unclench.

And one thing said plainly, without any weight laid on the child. If any part of tomorrow is about somebody who has frightened her, telling a grown up she feels safe with is right, and it is right every time. She never has to decide first whether it is serious enough to mention. That was never a seven year old's calculation to make, and she is not the one who has to work out where the line is.

You are allowed to say that sentence flatly, with no reason attached to it. Scripture says the Lord watches over the small ones and loves justice, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that line sounding like an open door instead of a warning.