When It Is Loud Downstairs

There is a boy in this story and we are going to call him Sam.

Sam's room is at the top of the stairs. His door does not shut the whole way, because the carpet under it is too thick, and there is a gap at the bottom about as wide as a finger. Sam knows the exact place on his floor where you can hear everything that happens downstairs. He also knows the place where you cannot. Tonight he is lying in the second place, on his side, with his pillow folded over both of his ears.

Down below, the voices are loud. Not words he could tell you. Just the shape of loud, coming up through the floorboards the way warm air comes up through a grate.

Sam has a plan, because Sam always has a plan. Tomorrow he is going to be good. He is going to get up before anybody. He is going to put the bread in the toaster and put out both plates and carry them in, and everyone will laugh, and it will all be all right again.

He has made that plan a lot of times. It is a kind plan. It is a brave plan. It is made by a boy with a good heart. And it has never once worked, and Sam cannot understand why, and he has started to think it must be something about him.

So here is the thing nobody has told Sam yet, and it is the only thing in this whole story that matters.

Under Sam's floor there is a foundation.

It is under his bed and under the landing and under the stairs. It is under the loud room too. It was poured a long time ago by hands that were not his, before he was born, before anybody in the house could even walk. Sam has never seen it. Sam has never touched it. Sam has never held it up for one single second.

And it is holding the whole house tonight, while he lies there with a pillow over his ears.

What is under the floor

Here is a true thing, and you can hold onto it in the dark.

You did not make it loud.

You cannot make it quiet.

And you do not have to.

That is three separate things and every one of them is true. Grown-up voices are a grown-up thing. They are a big, heavy thing that belongs to big people, and you are not big yet, and you were never supposed to be. You are not the toast. You are not the plan. You are not the one who fixes it.

And you are not carrying a job that was never handed to you. Deuteronomy 33:27 says the eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms, and the Spirit is the one who holds a house up while a small person lies still in it.

Do you know what you actually are tonight? You are the one who is being held.

The Bible says something about that, and it says it about a whole nation of people who had a lot of loud around them:

The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.Deuteronomy 33:27

Underneath. That is the word to keep.

Not beside you, waiting for you to be good enough. Not above you, watching to see if the plan works. Underneath. Down where the foundation is. God's arms are under the floor you are lying on right now, and they are under the stairs, and they are under the loud room too, and they have been there the whole time, and they are not tired. The Spirit is the one who keeps them there through a night nobody in that house chose.

You can be small tonight. Small is allowed. Small is what you are supposed to be, and being small in a house that God is holding is one of the safest things there is.

And you were never meant to be the big one in this. Scripture puts the holding on His arms rather than on anybody’s shoulders, and the Spirit is the one doing it tonight.

And there is nothing wrong with you for wanting it to stop. That is a good and right thing to want, and God is not annoyed with you for wanting it. He hears the wanting. He hears it from up here at the top of the stairs, through the pillow, in the dark, without you having to say it properly or say it out loud.

He is very good at hearing small people. He always has been.

One more thing, and then we will get to the words.

If what is happening in your house is bigger than loud, if somebody is hurting you or hurting somebody else, that is something to tell a grown-up you trust. A teacher. An auntie. A neighbor. Anyone safe. You do not have to work out whether it is bad enough. Telling is the right thing, and it is a brave thing, and you never get in trouble for it. Tell somebody, and keep telling until somebody listens.