Where the Goodnight Goes

The goodnight in that house always had two halves.

Nell would call it down the hall from her doorway, four words, the same four every night since she could talk. And four words would come back, in the voice that always came back, from the chair in the front room.

She has not said her half since it happened.

Not once. She goes up. She does the teeth and the water and the blanket. She gets into bed, and she gets to the place in the night where the four words used to go, and she stops there like a person stopping at the edge of a step in the dark.

Tonight her mother is sitting on the end of the bed and Nell finally asks it.

"Am I allowed to still say it?"

And her mother, who has been braced for that question all week and had answers ready for four other ones, finds she has nothing at all in her hands.

Because look at what a six year old has managed to put into six words. She is not asking a question about heaven. She is asking whether the loving is over. Whether the part of her that still turns toward the front room at half past seven is a part she is now supposed to put away, quietly, so that nobody has to be sad again.

That is the actual question, and it deserves a better answer than a brave face.

If you are sitting on the end of that bed tonight, this is for you. Not to explain anything. There is nothing here that explains it.

Just this: the loving does not have to stop, and there is somewhere for every word of it to go.

The question underneath the question

Nobody has to know what to say. That is worth putting down first, because most of the pressure in that room comes from a grown-up believing that some sentence exists which would make this all right, and that they simply have not thought of it yet.

There is no such sentence, and no one has been withholding it.

You are not required to have an answer that explains this. Psalm 56:8 says God keeps count of every turning over in the night and holds every tear in His care, and the Holy Spirit is the one holding that room while nobody has the words.

That verse is a strange and enormous kindness once you slow down on it. It does not say God tidies grief up. It says He counts it. Every restless turn, every tear, all of it kept and none of it wasted or ignored.

You keep count of all my tossing and turning. Every tear of mine is kept in Your care.Psalm 56:8

Which means the sadness in that bed is not a problem to be got past before God will engage with the room. It is the thing He is already holding.

You have a child whose loving does not have to stop tonight, and it never did. Scripture says nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is the one keeping that true in a room with a photograph in it.

Where the words go

Now the part to get right, and it takes about three sentences and no lecture at all.

A child wants to say goodnight to her. That wanting is good and it is not a mistake and nothing about it needs correcting.

But we do not send it out into the dark hoping it lands. We say it to God. God is the one holding her, and God is right here holding us, and He is the one we talk to about her. So the goodnight does not stop. It changes direction. It goes to Him, out loud, in plain words, with her name in it.

That is the whole distinction, and a six year old grasps it faster than most adults, because they already know the difference between shouting to somebody who is not there and telling somebody who is.

You were not handed the job of making this make sense. The written word says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and the Holy Spirit is that closeness, in that bed, at that hour, with no explanation attached.

Let the words be theirs, too. A child will say something about a dog, or a pudding, or a coat that smelled a particular way, and every bit of that belongs in what gets said to God. He is not waiting for the tidy version, and He is not embarrassed by the small one.

You have somewhere to put every word of it, and so does your child. His word says He is near to everyone who calls on Him, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries what a small person says about her straight to the God who is holding her.

And hold two things together tonight without letting either one win. Sad, and all right. Both. Nobody is being asked to stop missing her, and nobody is being asked to pretend the missing has ruined everything either. Those two can share a room, and in that house they are going to have to.

You are allowed to be sad and to be all right inside the same ten minutes. Scripture says He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds, and the Holy Spirit does not wait for the sadness to finish before He starts.