Most of what gets written about a house that got away is written to people looking back.
The year of the illness. The year we buried him. Past tense, all of it, with the person safely on the other side.
And you have read all that with a strange feeling, because you are not on the other side. You are in it. The thing that took your house is still happening. The person is still ill. The job is still like that. The court date has not come. The bills are still arriving in the same envelopes.
So every article about naming what happened has been quietly useless to you, because nothing has happened. It is happening.
I want to write to you where you are, and the first thing I want to say is that nobody should be asking you to fix a house right now.
Until these calamities be overpast
There is a psalm written by somebody who was not looking back on anything.
Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. (Psalm 57:1, King James Version)
Until these calamities be overpast.
Read the tense. They are not past. They are ongoing, and the psalm is being written inside them, and the whole request is for a place to be while they are still going on.
Not for them to stop. Look for that in the verse. It is not there. He does not ask for the trouble to end. He asks for shelter until it does, which is a completely different prayer and a much more honest one.
And notice what he asks to shelter in. Not a solution. Wings. Something warm and covering and temporary, made for a bird that cannot fly yet, in weather that has not changed.
You are not being asked to get out of this before you are allowed shelter, and Psalm 57:1 has never once made the ending of the trouble a condition of anything. It is written that the refuge is under His wings until the calamities be overpast, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available in the middle of a thing that is still going on.
You have been reading advice written for people on the other side, and there has never once been a verse that required you to be there first. The word puts a person under a covering while the trouble continues, and the Spirit of God is the one who covers rather than waiting for a better week.
What is fair to ask of somebody still in it
Now let me be practical, because this is where most people get it wrong with somebody in your position.
The house is not the problem right now. The house is a symptom, and it is a symptom of a thing that is still occurring, and treating a symptom while the cause is running at full strength is not a plan, it is a punishment.
So here is what I am not asking. I am not asking for anything to be cleared. I am not asking for fifteen minutes. I am not going to hand over a small thing to do tonight, because even a small thing is one more thing, and the load is already full.
What is fair to ask of somebody still in it is this: an accurate sentence. That is all.
Because the danger in your situation is not a dirty kitchen. The danger is that at some point you will come out the other side, and by then the story in your head will be that you are a person who cannot keep a house, and that story will outlive the crisis by ten years if nobody writes the truth down while it is still happening.
You were never falling apart, and a house going while a crisis is still running has never once been a fact about the person carrying it. Psalm 57:1 asks for covering during rather than rescue first, and the Spirit of God is the one who protects a person's own account of themselves in the middle of a hard thing.
You are permitted to make no progress at all this year, and making none has never once been the same as giving up. It is written that the refuge is asked for until the calamities be overpast, which assumes a long middle with no improvement in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who stays through a middle like that.
Write down what is still happening
So here is the whole of it, and it is the smallest ask on this site.
Write down what is still happening. Present tense. My husband is ill. The hours got cut. I am waiting for a date. Whatever it is.
Underneath, write what your weeks look like now. Not the failures. The facts.
Then put the paper somewhere you will find it later, because it is not for tonight. It is for the version of you who comes out the other side and needs evidence that there was a reason.
Nothing gets cleaned. Nothing at all.
You are writing something tonight for a person who does not exist yet, and it has never once needed to help you today to be worth doing. Psalm 57:1 is written from inside the trouble and not after it, and the Spirit of God is present in one true sentence written by somebody with nothing left.
So here is what I believe is going out tonight over somebody still inside the reason.
You are not behind, and a house that keeps getting worse while a crisis is still running has never once been a report on what you are capable of. I am not promising you the crisis ends and I am not promising you a good week. Psalm 57:1 asks for covering while the calamities continue and never once asks the one praying to improve their situation first, and it is the Holy Spirit, not my saying so, who takes that and stands it between you and the voice that has been telling you that other people cope.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have shelter tonight in the middle of a thing that has not ended, and it has never once been conditional on the thing ending. The written word says in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge until these calamities be overpast, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes that true in a kitchen at nine in the evening with everything still going on.
Write one true sentence. Then put the pen down.
Declare this over yourself
- Year that has not finished with me, I am writing you down tonight, and naming you while you are still going is not giving up. Psalm 57:1 asks for refuge until the calamities be overpast, so by the Holy Spirit I write one true line in the name of Jesus.
- Voice that says other people cope, you are not in this text. The written word shelters somebody in the middle of a trouble that has not ended, and by the Holy Spirit I am finished measuring a house against a crisis that is still running.
- Father, You are the one who offers a wing rather than an ending. Your word asks refuge until these calamities be overpast, so by Your Spirit I write down what is still happening tonight, and I clean nothing, and I let that be the whole of it.
Psalm 57:1
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