Neither Of Us Will Say It First

They are due five weeks apart and they both have the same name in their heads.

Neither of them knows the other one does. That is the assumption anyway. And both of them are absolutely certain, in the way you are certain about a cousin you have known since you were four, and neither has said a word.

Because saying it first would be a claim. And a claim, said out loud in that family, would be a thing everybody heard about within a day and would be talked about at Christmas for years.

So there is a silence, and it has been going for about eleven weeks, and both of them are being extremely nice to each other in it.

And here is what that silence is costing, which nobody has added up.

They used to talk about this constantly. Two women due in the same season, in the same family, who have been close their whole lives, and there is one subject they should have been enjoying together for three months and it has been fenced off since June.

Neither has lost a name yet. Both have already lost the season.

That is worth saying plainly, because the standoff is being justified as politeness and it is costing more than the thing it is protecting.

Follow after the things which make for peace

There is an instruction in Romans that is much more active than it sounds.

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. (Romans 14:19, King James Version)

You are told to go after peace and not to wait for it, and Romans 14:19 has never once described peace as a thing that arrives when nobody speaks. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on two women who have been calling a silence peace since June, and the written word says follow after, which is a chase.

Follow after. Pursue. Go and get.

That is not what is happening in that family. What is happening is avoidance, which produces quiet, and quiet is being mistaken for the thing.

And the second half names what peace is for: that one may edify another. Build each other up. Which requires speaking, because nobody has ever built anybody up by carefully not mentioning something.

You have been keeping a quiet that Scripture does not call peace, and the written word makes it a thing to be chased and used for building. Romans 14 sets the edifying beside it, and the Spirit of God is what moves somebody from avoiding to pursuing.

What the silence assumes

Now the practical part, and it starts with the assumption underneath the whole standoff.

Both women believe there is one name and one of them can have it.

That has never been said out loud and it has never been checked, and it is the load bearing belief in the entire situation.

And it may not be true. Families use the same name in the same generation all the time and think nothing of it. Two cousins born five weeks apart with the same name is a thing that happens constantly, and in about six years the two of them find it funny and everybody uses a middle name or a last name or a nickname and nobody minds at all.

You are able to check a belief that has held two people still since June, and Romans 14 has never once made an untested assumption into a reason. The written word puts the pursuing of peace in a person's own hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a plain question possible.

It is also possible that one or both of them would mind, and that is real too.

But nobody knows which, because nobody has asked, and eleven weeks have been spent defending a position in a negotiation that has never opened.

You are able to find out rather than to assume, and Romans 14:19 has never once made a guess into a reason for silence. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a real question finally gets asked, and the written word says follow after peace and edify one another.

And here is the part that decides who speaks: whoever is reading this.

Not whoever is due first. Not whoever mentioned it first years ago. Whoever is holding this page, because that is the person who has been shown what the silence is costing, and the other one has not.

You are the one who can end this, and Scripture puts the pursuing on the person rather than on the circumstances. Romans 14 is written to people who were at odds about something, and the Spirit of God is with the one who moves first.

Say it to her, and ask her

So here is the assignment for this row, changed, because on this row the name is not lost yet and it does not need to be grieved.

Say the name out loud once to her, in a full sentence, and ask her straight out.

To her. Not about her. In an ordinary voice, at an ordinary moment: I have been holding this one, and I have wondered about you as well.

That is the whole thing. It contains no claim. It does not say I want it. It says: here is what I have, and I think you might have it too, and I would rather talk about it than have three more months of this.

You are able to open it without claiming it, and Romans 14:19 has never once required a person to win before they could speak. The written word makes the peace a thing to be chased, and the Holy Spirit is present when one of two people goes first.

And what happens next is one of three things, and all three are better than the silence.

She says: yes, me too, and they laugh, and then they sort it out between them like two adults who love each other, which is the most likely outcome by a long way.

Or she says: no, I had not thought of it, and eleven weeks of silence turn out to have been for nothing.

Or she says: yes, and I want it, and there is a real conversation, which is not comfortable and is still enormously better than a Christmas built on a thing neither of them ever said.

You are permitted to end eleven weeks with one sentence, and Scripture puts the edifying of one another in the same line as the peace. The Spirit of God is with a woman who asks straight out today, and Romans 14 asks for both together.