She Has Never Met My Actual Self

She has never played against you. Not once, in about nine years.

She has played against a version. A careful, reduced, extremely kind version who makes the moves a woman makes when she is thinking about somebody else's evening rather than about the thing in front of her.

That version is not you. And it is the only one she has met at that table.

You did not do it out of any weakness. You did it because she was four, and then five, and then it became how the two of you play, and there was never an evening where anybody announced a change.

Here is the thing that got you last week: she is twelve now, and she is good, and she has no idea whether she is good, because she has nothing to measure against.

And there is a second thing underneath it, and it is bigger.

She has spent nine years at a table with her mother and has never met her mother's actual mind. That is a strange kind of absence, and it has nothing to do with games.

Our heart is enlarged

There is a moment in Corinthians where Paul says something about openness that is unusually direct.

O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. (2 Corinthians 6:11-12, King James Version)

Our heart is enlarged. That is the word he uses about how he is toward them.

Enlarged. Not careful, not measured, not appropriately adjusted for the audience.

You are a mother who can be met, and a woman who made herself small has never once been a woman who gave more. 2 Corinthians 6:11 has a man name his own openness as an enlargement rather than as a moderation, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand a woman that without any charge against nine kind years.

And read the next line, because it is the one for your kitchen.

Ye are not straitened in us. Straitened means narrowed, constricted, made small. He is saying: the narrowness is not coming from our end.

You have been the narrow point without meaning to be, and a mother playing at a fraction has never once been a mother giving her whole self. The Spirit of God is the one who names a constriction without blaming the person who made it, and it is written in 2 Corinthians 6 that the openness was total and the narrowing was elsewhere.

And notice that this is offered as love rather than as correction.

Paul is not scolding them. He is telling them that he is completely open toward them and asking for the same, and the whole passage is warm.

You are able to open something without correcting anybody, and an enlarged heart has never once been an aggressive thing to offer. It is written that our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an opening feel like a gift rather than a demand.

What she has been missing

Now let me be specific about what has not been happening, because it is not about ability.

When you play at a fraction, she does not meet your judgment. She does not see how you think, what you notice, where you decide to take a risk, or how you handle it when something goes against you.

All of that is you. It is the most direct look at a person's mind that a table offers, and she has had nine years of it withheld.

You have been keeping the most interesting thing about you out of the room, and a mother's actual mind has never once been too much for a twelve year old. The Spirit of God is the one who names what has gone missing without any accusation, and 2 Corinthians 6:11 puts an enlarged heart forward as the thing to give.

And here is what she will get from meeting it, which is worth more than a fair contest.

She will find out that her mother thinks in a particular way. She will see somebody she loves take a risk and have it not work. She will watch an adult lose and be entirely fine.

None of those are available from a reduced version, however kind.

You are able to show somebody how you think, and being met by a real mind has never once been a lesser gift than being allowed to win. It is written in 2 Corinthians 6 that the openness came first and the asking second, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work when somebody is actually present in a room.

And she will also find out that she is good, which she currently cannot know.

You have been withholding the only measurement she has, and a real contest has never once been a harder thing for a twelve year old than an unreadable one. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a young person find out something true about themselves, and Scripture asks for the narrowing to come down.

Play as yourself

Here is the instruction and it is one evening rather than a policy.

Play as yourself tonight, at your own level, and let her meet the person she has been sitting across from for years.

Your actual judgment. Your actual risks. The way you would play against anybody.

You are able to be present in a room you have been half in for nine years, and playing as yourself has never once been playing against somebody. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when somebody stops narrowing, and 2 Corinthians 6:11 has a heart enlarged rather than adjusted.

And say one sentence at the start, because she deserves the information.

I am going to play properly tonight. Nothing more than that. No explanation of nine years, no apology, no lesson about growing up.

You have permission to change something and say only that it is changing, and one sentence of notice has never once been an occasion. The Spirit of God is the one who works in something announced plainly, and it is written that his mouth was open unto them without any speech about why.

And she will probably lose, and that is not the interesting part.

The interesting part is that she will spend twenty minutes with an actual person, which she has not done at that table since she was four.

You are able to give somebody your whole attention and your whole mind at once, and a real evening has never once been worth less than a comfortable one. It is written in 2 Corinthians 6 that ye are not straitened in us, and the Spirit of God is the one at work at a table where nobody was reduced.