They Think It Is A Compliment

At the naming, four different people said the same sentence to him.

Is it not lovely that he has your grandfather's name.

And he said yes, four times, and meant it four times, and also felt something four times that he has not been able to describe to anybody since October.

Because he had that name. He had it for about six years, quietly, since long before either of them was married, in the way a man keeps a thing without ever telling anybody he is keeping it.

And his brother got there first, and nobody in that family knows there was anything to get to.

Now let me be exact about the difficulty, because it is a particular one.

He is not being asked to endure a loss. He is being asked to be delighted about it. Repeatedly. At gatherings. For the rest of his life, every time somebody makes the connection and says how lovely it is.

And he is delighted, about the child, genuinely, and he is also carrying something, and the family has left him no room to be carrying anything at all, because in their reading of the situation nothing has happened except a nice thing.

That is a lonely position and I have sat on a porch with more than one man in it.

Weep with them that weep

There is an instruction in Romans that most people quote only the first half of, and the second half is what he has been missing.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. (Romans 12:15, King James Version)

You are entitled to both halves of that verse, and Romans 12:15 has never once made rejoicing the only response available in a family. The written word puts them side by side in one line, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that reach a man who has only been offered the first half since October.

Notice that it is one sentence with two instructions in it, and neither is ranked above the other.

The family has done the first one. Enthusiastically, and rightly, because a child was born and that is worth rejoicing about.

Nobody has done the second, because nobody knows there is anything to do it about, and he cannot tell them, because telling them would put a shadow on a naming that is already done and cannot be undone.

You have been given one half of a verse, and Scripture holds both in a single line without choosing. Romans 12 puts the weeping and the rejoicing together, and the Spirit of God is what makes room for a man to be doing both at once.

Both things are true

Now the practical part, and it is an untangling rather than a fix.

Two things are true and they do not cancel each other.

He is glad about his nephew. Genuinely, without reservation, and that gladness is not a performance and never has been.

And he has lost something he had carried for six years, and it went without anybody knowing it was there to lose.

You have been trying to delete a true thing to fit a version, and Romans 12 has never once asked anybody to hold one feeling at a time. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes room for a man who is doing both, and the written word sets the rejoicing and the weeping in a single line.

The family's version has room for only the first, and he has spent five weeks trying to make himself fit that version, which requires deleting the second one, which cannot be done.

You are able to hold both without either being false, and no verse anywhere asked a person to feel one thing at a time. Romans 12:15 sets the rejoicing and the weeping in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man be two things at once without shame.

And here is a thing worth saying about telling his brother, because it is the question underneath.

He does not have to. There is no obligation here and no unfinished business, because the naming happened in innocence and there is nothing to resolve between two people.

But there is one thing worth knowing: this kind of grief tends to leak. Held for years without ever being said anywhere, it comes out sideways at some later point over something unrelated, and the brother will not understand it, and it will look like something else entirely.

You are able to say it somewhere before it leaks, and Scripture never once asked anybody to hold a thing until it warped. Romans 12 makes the weeping a shared act, and the Spirit of God is what gives a man somewhere to put it.

Say it once, to somebody who is not family

So here is the assignment on this row, with the second half specified.

Say the lost name out loud once, then put it away and say a new one.

And say it to somebody outside the family. That is the specification here, and it matters.

You are allowed to choose the hearer, and Romans 12:15 has never once required the weeping to be done in front of the people it would wound. The Holy Spirit is the one who supplies a safe pair of ears, and the written word makes the weeping a shared act without naming who it must be shared with.

Because in that family the name now belongs to a child, and saying it in a way that means anything else, in that house, is not available to him.

Somebody outside it can receive the whole thing without any of it landing on a nephew.

You are able to give it somewhere safe, and Romans 12:15 has never once made grief a private undertaking. The written word makes the weeping a thing done with, and the Holy Spirit is present when a man says out loud to one person what he has been carrying since October.

And then the second half, which is the ordinary one on this row.

Say a different one. Because there is very likely a child coming, or one already there, and a man who has spent five weeks on a word he cannot have has not yet spent an evening on a word he can.

You are permitted to move to a different word tonight, and Scripture does not leave anybody in the weeping half of the verse. Romans 12 keeps both in one line, and the Spirit of God is with a man saying two names out loud today.