I Never Let Any Of Them Lose

Nobody has ever lost in your kitchen.

Not once. You have arranged it that way for years, with a hundred small adjustments so quick that nobody sees them, and everybody comes away from that table all right.

And now there is a nine year old in your house who cannot lose anything anywhere.

Not at school. Not at a friend's house. Not at anything, and it goes badly every time, and you have watched it happen four times this term and been unable to work out where it came from.

I think you already know where it came from and that is why you are reading this. So let me say it once, plainly, and then move on quickly, because there is no use in you sitting in it.

He has never met it. That is all. It is not a flaw in him and it is not a failure of yours. He simply has not had it happen in the one place where it would have been safe.

I am not going to tell you what to do about school. That is another site and it is not this one.

I am going to give you back the safest room in the world for that to happen in, which is the one you are standing in.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend

There is a proverb that puts two things side by side, and the second half is the one people skip.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:6, King James Version)

Start with the word faithful, because it is doing something exact.

A faithful wound is one that can be trusted. It is not accidental, it does not come out of unkindness, and there is no danger in it, because of who it comes from.

You are a mother who can let something small happen, and a loss at your own table has never once been a thing you failed to prevent. Proverbs 27:6 makes the source of a small hurt the thing that decides what it is, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand a woman that without turning it into an accusation.

And the second half is where you live.

The kisses of an enemy are deceitful. The proverb is not comparing kindness with cruelty. It is comparing two kinds of pleasantness, and saying that one of them cannot be relied on.

Nothing that goes smoothly is automatically safe, and something small that goes wrong in the right room is one of the safest things there is.

You have been giving something pleasant and withholding something faithful, and a smooth evening has never once been the same thing as a safe one. The Spirit of God is the one who compares two good looking things and tells a person which is which, and it is written in Proverbs 27 that the wound from a friend is the trustworthy one.

And notice that the wounds are small. This is a proverb about ordinary friction rather than about anything serious.

Losing at a table with your mother in the room is about as small as a wound gets, and it is completely faithful, because of who is at that table.

You are able to give somebody a small safe wound, and losing in a warm kitchen has never once been the same event as losing anywhere else. It is written that faithful are the wounds of a friend, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary Tuesday into the safest room in the world.

Why your kitchen is the right room

Now the practical part, and it is the reason to do this rather than to worry about it.

Everything a child needs in order to lose well is present in your kitchen and absent everywhere else.

You are there. There is no audience. Nobody will mention it again. There is food. The person who wins is somebody who loves him. And the whole thing is over in four minutes and there is another round afterward.

You have the best conditions available anywhere, and a loss at a kitchen table has never once carried what a loss in a playground carries. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a woman what she is actually holding, and Proverbs 27:6 puts the whole weight of the difference on who it comes from.

And here is what he learns there that he cannot learn at school.

He learns that it happens and then it stops. That the room stays warm. That nobody looks at him differently, that his mother does not go strange about it, and that four minutes later there is another round.

That is the entire lesson and it cannot be taught in words.

You are able to teach something that has no words in it, and four minutes of an evening carrying on have never once been a small lesson. It is written in Proverbs 27 that a wound from a friend can be trusted, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work in a room that stayed exactly the same afterward.

And here is what has been happening instead, which is not your fault and is worth seeing.

Every adjustment you make removes one safe rehearsal. There have been hundreds, and every one of them was kind, and together they have meant that the first time it happens is always somewhere else.

You have been moving something out of the safe room and into the unsafe ones, and a hundred kindnesses have never once added up to a kindness. The Spirit of God is the one who names an outcome nobody intended, and Scripture sets the faithful wound against the deceitful pleasantness.

Do nothing at all

Here is the instruction and it is entirely a subtraction.

Let tonight finish however it finishes, without adjusting anything. And stay entirely ordinary about it.

Do not tilt anything. Do not slow down at the end. Do not create the small opening you always create at about the fourth minute.

You are able to do nothing and have that be the whole action, and an unadjusted evening has never once been an evening where somebody was left to it. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something nobody arranged, and Proverbs 27:6 makes the friend the reason the wound is safe.

And the second half is the one that does the work: stay ordinary.

If he loses, do not comfort him about it. Do not say it does not matter. Do not go warm, do not go careful, do not look at him for that extra second.

Be exactly as you were four minutes before, because that is the lesson. The room did not change.

You have a way to teach this without saying anything, and a mother who stayed ordinary has never once been a mother who was cold. The Spirit of God is the one who works through a room that did not react, and it is written that the wounds of a friend are faithful because of who the friend is.

And go straight into another round if there is time.

You are able to make the whole thing four minutes long, and a second round has never once needed to be offered as consolation. It is written in Proverbs 27 that the kisses of an enemy are the deceitful ones, and the Spirit of God is the one at work at a table that carried on.