I Played Honestly And Watched It Hurt

You did the honest thing and it went exactly as badly as you feared.

The move was fair. Everybody could see it was fair. And a nine year old's face came apart across the table and stayed apart for about six minutes.

And you sat there watching it, having done nothing wrong, feeling like somebody who had.

So now there is a question and it is not an abstract one. It is: was that worth it, and are you doing that again on Thursday.

Because it would be very easy not to. Nobody would notice, nobody would object, and the evenings would be smoother for it.

I am not going to pretend the six minutes were nothing. They were real and they were hard to sit through and nobody enjoys watching that.

I am going to do two things: put the six minutes in proportion, and give you something to do inside them that changes what they are.

Let not mercy and truth forsake thee

There is an instruction in Proverbs about carrying two things at once, and the physical image in it is the whole answer.

Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart. (Proverbs 3:3, King James Version)

Bind them about thy neck. Both of them, together, on one cord, worn.

The image is not of two things a person chooses between depending on the situation. It is of two things carried at once, permanently, on the same body.

You are a parent who did the right thing and watched the hard part, and a truthful move has never once been a move that damaged anybody. Proverbs 3:3 has the mercy and the truth bound together and worn rather than selected between, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand a person that in the middle of a hard evening.

And notice the warning at the start: let not mercy and truth forsake thee.

Forsake is a word about leaving. The danger the proverb is guarding against is one of them going, and the natural way for one to go is exactly what you are considering: this hurt, so I will carry less truth next time.

You have been about to put one of them down, and a hard six minutes has never once been a reason to stop carrying something God said to wear. The Spirit of God is the one who names the exact temptation without shaming anybody for feeling it, and it is written in Proverbs 3 that neither is to be allowed to leave.

And the second half of the verse is worth having.

Write them upon the table of thine heart. It is meant to be internal, permanent, part of how a person is made rather than a policy applied per evening.

You are able to carry both of these permanently, and a person wearing mercy and truth together has never once had to choose which one to bring to a table. It is written that they are to be bound about the neck and written on the heart, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the writing.

Six minutes in proportion

Now the arithmetic, because it will settle the question that has been sitting there.

Six minutes of a nine year old being upset is not damage. It is six minutes.

He was upset, it passed, and it passed on its own. Nothing happened to him except that something did not go his way in a room where he is safe.

You have been reading six minutes as an injury, and a child being upset in front of a parent has never once been the same event as a child being harmed. The Spirit of God is the one who reads a room accurately for somebody who has been reading it through their own discomfort, and Proverbs 3:3 refuses to let either half be dropped.

And here is the honest thing about who those six minutes were hardest for.

Not him. He recovered by the eleventh minute and was asking about something else by the fifteenth.

You are still thinking about it four days later. The person the six minutes cost the most was the one who did nothing wrong.

You are able to survive something that has already ended for everybody else, and a difficult evening has never once been an evening anybody but you was still carrying. It is written in Proverbs 3 that the two are to be worn rather than weighed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody set down an evening that finished on Tuesday.

And what he got out of it is invisible and enormous.

He met a fair thing that went against him in a room with somebody he trusts in it. That is the single safest place on earth for that to happen, and it is not available at school or anywhere else.

You have given somebody a safe rehearsal, and a loss met in front of a parent has never once been a smaller gift than the win would have been. The Spirit of God is the one at work in six minutes that felt like a failure, and Scripture binds the mercy and the truth on the same cord.

Stay for the six minutes

Here is the instruction, and it is the mercy half of the verse and it is physical.

Do it again tonight, and stay at the table for the whole of what comes afterward.

The doing it again is the truth. The staying is the mercy. Both, on one cord, in the same twenty minutes.

You are able to carry both in one evening, and staying at a table has never once undone a truthful move. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in somebody who did not leave, and Proverbs 3:3 has both bound about the neck at once.

And the staying is more specific than it sounds.

Do not comfort him. Do not explain the move. Do not soften anything or offer a rematch or say it does not matter.

Stay in the chair. Keep your hands doing something ordinary. Be present and be unbothered, because unbothered is the message.

You have a way to be merciful without taking anything back, and an ordinary presence has never once been a colder thing than an apology. The Spirit of God is the one who works through somebody staying still, and it is written that the two are written on the table of the heart rather than performed.

And when it passes, go straight into the next round without marking it.

You are able to let something end without naming it, and a next round started plainly has never once been a rescue. It is written in Proverbs 3 that neither mercy nor truth is to forsake a person, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in a table that carried on.