I Have Not Looked At Them In A Week

Somebody asked how your daughter was and you gave a good answer.

Accurate, up to date, three sentences long. School, the thing with her friend, the way she has been about the exams.

And in the car you noticed that every word of it was information rather than observation. You knew all of it. None of it came from looking at her.

Then you tried to picture her face at the table on Tuesday and you could not.

That is not a small gap and it is also not what it feels like. It does not mean you have stopped loving anybody. It means the looking has gone somewhere else.

A mother in a busy house watches for problems. That is the job and it works, and it means her eyes are on the situation rather than on the person, which is exactly what a household needs from her.

But a person can go a week under those eyes and never once be seen, and something in a house goes quiet when that happens for long enough.

I am not going to ask you for more time. You have not got any, and that is not the missing ingredient.

I am going to ask for about eleven seconds.

Seest thou this woman

There is a moment in Luke where Jesus asks a man a question about somebody who has been in the room the whole time.

And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head. (Luke 7:44, King James Version)

Simon has been watching her for some time. He has formed a complete opinion about her and it is a detailed one.

And Jesus asks whether he sees her, which is a strange question to ask about somebody in plain view.

You are a woman with everything she needs already in the room, and being with people has never once been the same thing as having seen them. Luke 7:44 draws a line between watching somebody and seeing them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can raise that with a mother without any accusation attached.

And notice what Jesus does before He asks it. He turned to the woman.

He physically turns. He puts His body toward her and looks at her, and only then does He speak about her.

That is the difference the whole passage is built on: one man in that room had assessed her and one had looked at her.

You have been assessing where you meant to be looking, and a mother's attention has never once been in short supply in a house like yours. The Spirit of God is the one who redirects something that was already there, and it is written in Luke 7 that He turned to her first and spoke second.

Then read what He lists about her, because it is all physical detail.

Her tears. Her hair. What her hands did. He noticed the specific things a person does with their body, which is the thing you get only by looking.

You are able to see rather than to monitor, and eleven seconds of looking at a face have never once been a lesser gift than an hour of watching a room. It is written that He said seest thou this woman, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a woman's eyes off the situation and onto a person.

Eleven seconds

Here is the instruction, and the size of it is deliberate.

Look at one person's face for the length of one whole sentence they are saying.

Not the evening. Not everybody. One sentence, from beginning to end, with your eyes on the face of the person saying it.

You are able to do this once tonight, and one sentence watched to the end has never once been too small a thing to be felt by the person saying it. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something as ordinary as where a woman's eyes go, and Luke 7:44 has a man asked whether he sees somebody standing right in front of him.

And a whole sentence is longer than you think, which is the point.

Most looking at a table lasts about a second and a half, which is the length of a check. Eleven seconds is a completely different act, and the person on the other end of it knows immediately, without ever being able to say what changed.

You have a way to be felt in a room that costs eleven seconds, and a look that lasted has never once needed a word attached to it. The Spirit of God is the one who works through something entirely physical, and it is written that He turned to her before He said anything about her.

And do not do anything else with it. That is important.

Do not respond warmly. Do not follow up. Do not make it a moment. Look at the face for one whole sentence and then carry on as normal.

You are able to give something without making it an event, and eleven seconds of ordinary looking have never once put anybody under pressure. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something nobody named, and Luke 7:44 has the seeing come before any word was spoken.

Why you stopped

Now, briefly, why this went, because knowing it will keep you from taking it as a verdict.

Looking at faces is what a person does when there is nothing to solve. In a house with several people in it there is always something to solve, and the eyes go to the thing that needs solving.

That is not a defect. That is a mother functioning correctly, and if she stopped doing it the household would notice within a day.

You have been running a house well, and eyes that went to the problem have never once been eyes that stopped caring about the people. The Spirit of God is the one who names what happened without laying anything on anybody, and it is written in Luke 7 that seeing and assessing are two different acts by two different men.

And there is one more reason, which is quieter and harder.

Looking at a person for eleven seconds is exposing for the one doing it. You cannot look at your own daughter properly and stay entirely composed, and a woman running a household on a tight margin has good reasons not to open that.

You are able to be moved by your own child and still function, and eleven seconds of feeling something have never once cost a household anything. It is written that the woman in that room was weeping and He let her, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when something rises in a mother at her own table.

Let it rise. Then carry on with the evening.

You have permission to be affected in an ordinary room, and a look that landed on you as well has never once been a look that went wrong. The Spirit of God is the one who does something in eleven seconds that an evening of managing cannot do, and Luke 7:44 puts the turning before the speaking.