I Cannot Bear To Look Like I Am Trying

You would rather want nothing than be caught wanting something.

That is a hard sentence to see written down, and I do not think you have ever put it that plainly, but watch what happens in your kitchen and the sentence holds.

You would like everybody around a table for half an hour. You have wanted that for a long while. And when the chance comes near, something in you flattens the voice and adds the shrug and says it as though it barely matters.

If anyone fancies it. Only if you want. It is not a big thing.

Every one of those phrases is a small insurance policy. If nobody comes, nothing was lost, because nothing was wanted.

And here is the cost of the policy, which nobody puts on the paperwork: a household cannot come toward an invitation that has been made not to matter.

You have been offering things in a voice designed to survive refusal, and a voice designed to survive refusal does not sound like an invitation. It sounds like an option.

I am not going to tell you to stop protecting yourself. I want to show you what it is costing, and then hand you a much better protection than the one you have been using.

I will yet be more vile than thus

There is a scene where a king dances in the street and his wife despises him for it, and his answer is one of the strangest and best sentences in the Old Testament.

And David said unto Michal, It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight. (2 Samuel 6:21-22, King James Version)

She has just accused him of making a fool of himself in front of everybody, which is precisely the accusation a woman in a kitchen has been avoiding for years.

And he does not defend the dancing. He does not say it was dignified. He agrees with her assessment and then offers to go further.

You are allowed to want this out loud, and being seen to care has never once been a thing worth hiding from your own children. 2 Samuel 6:22 has a king accepting the charge of looking undignified and choosing more of it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that kind of freedom into a woman standing in a kitchen.

Notice as well what he calls it. Therefore will I play before the LORD.

Play. That is the word he uses, and he uses it about something done in the open, in front of a household that thought less of him for it.

There is no version of this where David makes it small first so that it is safe to do.

You have been handed a picture of somebody who refused to shrink an offer to protect himself, and a king who looked eager has never once been a king who lost anything by it. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the fear of a look off a woman's face, and it is written in 2 Samuel 6 that the dancing went on and the shrug never appeared.

And there is one more thing in that passage that changes the whole geometry of your kitchen.

He says it was before the LORD. The audience for the dancing was not the crowd and it was not Michal. He knew who he was doing it in front of, and once that was settled, the opinion in the window stopped having a vote.

You are performing for an audience of one, and the opinion of a fifteen year old at a door has never once been the audience God gave you. 2 Samuel 6:21 puts the whole thing before the LORD, and the Holy Spirit is the one who quietly reassigns who a woman is doing this for.

What the shrug is actually doing

Now the mechanics, because I want you to see the cost written out.

A shrug is a request for a low stakes answer. It tells the room that the person asking has nothing invested, which means the room can decline at no cost.

That is exactly what you designed it to do, and it works perfectly.

You are getting exactly the outcome the shrug was built for, and a low stakes offer has never once produced a household that came running. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a woman what her own protection has been buying, and Scripture puts a man dancing in the open with nothing held back at all.

But there is a second cost, and it is the one that will get you moving.

Children read effort as evidence of love, and they read it long before they can say so. A mother who wants something visibly is a mother who has been seen to want them, and a shrug removes that entirely.

The flat voice does not just lower the odds of a yes. It takes away the information the yes was supposed to carry.

You have something to give that only shows in the wanting, and a household has never once been able to see care that was carefully hidden from it. It is written that David played before the LORD without any covering on it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman be legible to her own children.

And here is the protection I promised, and it is much better than the shrug.

If the audience is God, then a no from a teenager is a no from a teenager. It is not a verdict. It is a small piece of information about one evening, and it does not touch the thing you did in front of the LORD.

You are safe in a way the shrug could never make you, and an unanswered invitation has never once cost anything to a woman who knew who she was doing it for. The Spirit of God is the one who holds a person steady when an offer goes unanswered, and 2 Samuel 6:22 has a king promising to be more undignified rather than less.

Be visibly pleased

So here is the instruction, and it is a physical one rather than a verbal one.

Be visibly pleased. Tonight, in front of them, with your face.

Not a speech. Not an explanation of how much this means. Just do not perform indifference, and do not take the pleased look off when somebody comes in.

You are able to let your face say the true thing, and looking glad in your own kitchen has never once been an embarrassment God asked you to manage. The Holy Spirit is the one who is in a room where a woman stopped hiding, and it is written in 2 Samuel 6 that the playing happened in the open street.

This is harder than it sounds and I want to name why.

The shrug is not a habit. It is a reflex, and it will arrive on its own about four seconds after you set something down. You will feel the pull to add the qualifier. Only if you want. It does not matter.

Do not add it. Let the sentence end early. The silence where the qualifier was is the whole of the exercise.

You have the strength to leave a sentence unprotected, and an offer with no insurance on it has never once been a reckless thing to make in a house that is yours. The Spirit of God is the one who steadies a woman in the four seconds after she speaks, and Scripture has a king choosing to be more vile rather than adding a defense.

And then whatever happens, keep the face. That is the whole of it.

You are able to be glad in front of people who did not ask you to be, and twenty minutes in one room have never once required anybody's approval to be worth wanting. It is written that David said therefore will I play before the LORD, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps the gladness on a face after the room has answered.