They Ask at Every Gathering

It is usually before the food, and it is usually somebody's aunt, and it is never the same person twice in a row, which is somehow the hardest part.

And you two? Any news?

Asked warmly. Asked by people who love you and who would be genuinely appalled if they knew what the four seconds afterwards costs. Asked in a room where everybody is talking and where the two of you have developed a whole system.

You have three answers ready. The light one for a crowded room. The vaguer one for somebody who might follow up. And the one that changes the subject to somebody else's news, which is the best of them and which you can deploy in under two seconds.

Four years of this.

The system works. That is the strange thing about it. Nobody has ever noticed. You get through every gathering, and you are warm, and you hold the babies, and you drive home.

It is the driving home that has changed. There used to be talking. Now there is a stretch of about twenty minutes where neither of you says anything, and you both know exactly what the other one is not saying, and neither of you starts.

And there is another one on Sunday.

The verse chose the word gently

There is a line in Isaiah, in the middle of a passage about God's enormous power, that suddenly goes very quiet.

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.Isaiah 40:11

Look at where it sits. Two verses earlier He is measuring the waters in the hollow of His hand and weighing the mountains in scales. Then this.

Gently lead those that are with young. The shepherd changes his pace for the ones who cannot go fast. That is the whole image, and God puts it in the middle of a passage about His own immensity on purpose.

He is not a shepherd who requires the flock to keep up. He adjusts.

You are being led at the pace you can actually go. I am not putting my own idea over you here. Scripture says He shall gently lead those that are with young, Isaiah 40:11, and the Holy Spirit is the one who sets that pace in a car on the way home from a gathering.

They are not the enemy

Put this down before anything else. Nobody who asks that question is against you.

Your aunt asks because in her world it is the kindest possible thing to be interested in, and because not asking would feel to her like not caring. The cousin who asked at Easter has no idea. Not one of them has ever been told, because you have never told them, and there is no version of this in which they are behaving badly.

We are not going to arm you against your own family. There is a version of this article that hands you something sharp to say on Sunday, and it would feel wonderful for about four seconds and it would cost you people you actually need. Scripture puts honor and affection in the same instruction, Romans 12:10, and the Holy Spirit is not asking you to win a lunch.

You have not been asked to choose between your family and your own heart. Scripture says be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, Romans 12:10, and the Holy Spirit does not require a person to become cold in order to be protected.

What the system is costing

Now the honest part, and it is not about the aunts.

The system works, and it is expensive. Every gathering, the two of you go in performing. You are warm, and the warmth is real, and it is also being generated on top of something you are both carrying and neither of you is putting down.

That is why the drive home has gone silent. Not because you have drifted. Because you both used everything you had in the room, and there is nothing left for the car, and neither of you wants to be the one who starts. Scripture calls that ordinary human frailty and not a fault, Psalm 103:14, and the Holy Spirit has not been grading either of you on the journey.

You have not lost each other on those drives. Scripture says a threefold cord is not quickly broken, Ecclesiastes 4:12, and the Holy Spirit has been the third strand in that car for four years of silent journeys.

One of you says one sentence on Sunday on the way home. It does not have to be good. That was hard today is enough, and the other one will do the rest.

And you may tell one of them

Here is a thought, and it is only a thought.

You do not owe the family an explanation. Nobody is entitled to your medical life or your marriage, and there is no obligation anywhere to disclose anything to anybody.

But you might tell one. Not the room. One person, the one who would be safe with it, and let her be the one who quietly moves a conversation on before it reaches you next time.

That is not weakness and it is not a betrayal of your privacy. It is having one ally in a room instead of a system.

And if you would rather not, then do not. You are held either way, and there is no correct move you are failing to make. Scripture says the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, Psalm 34:18, and the Holy Spirit does not grade a couple on how well they manage a family occasion.