The message came at four in the afternoon with three exclamation marks on it.
And she said something warm back within about ninety seconds, because that is what you do, and then she put the phone face down on the table and sat there.
That was three weeks ago.
Since then she has been carrying a thing she cannot name to anybody, because every version of the sentence sounds appalling out loud.
My cousin had a baby and I am upset about it. My cousin used a name and I am grieving. There is no way to say it that does not make her sound like somebody who begrudges a child.
So she has said nothing, to anybody, for three weeks, and has been extremely kind about it in every message, and has cried twice in a car.
I want to say the first thing plainly, because nobody has said it to her.
It is a real loss. Small, and real, and those are not opposites.
She had that word for a year. She said it in her head. She had imagined a person with it. It was, in every way that matters, already attached to somebody who does not exist yet, and now it is attached to somebody who does, and there is no way to get it back.
That is a loss. It is not a large one on any scale you could draw, and the size is not the point, because grief is not proportional and never has been.
That which hath been is named already
There is a line in Ecclesiastes that sounds bleak and is oddly steadying here.
That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it is man. (Ecclesiastes 6:10, King James Version)
You are inside something Scripture already knew about, and Ecclesiastes 6:10 has never once been surprised by a thing being named before we got there. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a comfort instead of a shrug, and the written word says already, plainly, without softening it.
The verse is not warm and I am not going to pretend it is. Ecclesiastes rarely is. What it does is refuse to be shocked, and there is a particular relief in being met by something that is not shocked.
Named already. Somebody got there first. That has been happening since the beginning, and the writer says so, and does not add that we should not mind.
You have been minding something old and ordinary, and Scripture states it without any embarrassment at all. Ecclesiastes 6 reports it as the way of the world, and the Spirit of God is what lets a person be met rather than corrected.
The word that has been doing damage
Now the practical part, and it is one word.
Petty.
That word has been in her head for three weeks, and it has done more damage than the loss did.
Because grief that is allowed can be felt and then finished. It runs its course, which for something this size takes about a month, and then it is over and the person is fine.
Grief that is forbidden cannot finish. It gets pushed under and it stays exactly where it is, and it leaks out sideways at Christmas in about four years, at which point nobody, including her, will know what it is about.
You are able to feel it and let it finish, and no verse anywhere required a loss to be large before it could be grieved. Ecclesiastes 6:10 does not measure anything against anything else, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a forbidding word out of somebody's own mouth.
And the cousin, who needs saying: she did nothing. She did not know. She was not competing. She sent a message at four in the afternoon with three exclamation marks on it because she was happy, and she is going to remain entirely innocent of this for the rest of her life.
You are grieving without anybody being at fault, and Scripture never once required a villain before a loss could be real. The Spirit of God is what holds a person who has nobody to be angry with, and Ecclesiastes 6 simply reports that things get named already.
Say it once, and put it away
So here is the assignment on this row, and both halves matter.
Say the lost name out loud once, then put it away and say a new one.
Out loud, properly, once. Not in your head, where it has been living for three weeks. In a room, in your own voice.
Because a thing that has never been said out loud cannot be finished. That is why the crying happened in a car and not at a table: it has had nowhere to go.
You are able to say it out loud once and be done, and Ecclesiastes 6:10 has never once asked anybody to carry a thing silently. The written word names what has happened without decoration, and the Holy Spirit is present in a car or a kitchen where somebody finally says a word out loud.
And then the second half, and it goes in the same sitting, because the first one on its own is only a wound reopened.
Say a different one. Any different one. It does not have to be the replacement and nothing is being decided by it.
The two halves together are the whole thing: an ending, and then a next word in the same breath, so that the mouth does not stop on the loss.
You are permitted to close it and move in the same minute, and Scripture states the naming and then carries straight on with the sentence. Ecclesiastes 6 does not linger, and the Spirit of God is with anybody who says two names out loud today.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman who has cried twice in a car.
You are grieving a real thing, and Ecclesiastes 6:10 has never once required a loss to be large enough before it counted. The Holy Spirit is the one who meets somebody instead of adjusting them, and the written word states plainly that things are named already, without a word of correction.
You have been silenced by a word you used on yourself, and Scripture measures nothing against anything else. The Spirit of God is what takes petty out of a woman's own mouth and lets a small grief finish.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You are able to say it once and be done, and no loss has ever once finished while it was still forbidden. Ecclesiastes 6 names it and carries on in the same sentence, and the Holy Spirit is with a woman saying two names out loud today.
Once, out loud. Then a different one.
Declare this over yourself
- Word petty, you have kept me from grieving a real thing and you were never fair. Ecclesiastes 6:10 says that which hath been is named already, so by the Holy Spirit I say it out loud once today and then say another, in the name of Jesus.
- Three weeks of holding this in a car, you are over and I say it out loud in a room instead. The written word states the loss without softening it and without correcting me, and by the Spirit of God I let a small grief finish rather than storing it.
- Father, You let Your book say plainly that things are named already, and You did not add that we should not mind. Your word says it in Ecclesiastes 6, so by Your Spirit I grieve this properly and I am glad for her, and both are true.
Ecclesiastes 6:10
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.