My Own Child Said Nothing At All

It arrived. You know it arrived.

And then nothing. Not a call, not a message, not a line in a message about something else three weeks later. Nothing at all, from your own daughter, and it has been about a month.

And you have been going round the same loop ever since, and the loop has two things in it and you cannot separate them.

One of them is a small flat hurt. You went to some trouble. She is your child and you taught her to say thank you and you know that she knows.

And the other one is not hurt at all. It is a low hum underneath, and it says: something might be wrong.

And you cannot tell which one is the loud one, and that is why nothing has been done about either.

There is a verse that puts a forgetting and a promise in the same sentence, and it is more use here than a verse about gratitude would be.

Yet will I not forget thee

Here it is.

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. (Isaiah 49:15, King James Version)

The question is rhetorical and then He answers it in a way nobody expects.

Can a woman forget. The obvious answer is no. And then, at once: yea, they may forget.

He does not use the family bond as a guarantee. He names it, admits it can fail, and moves past it.

You have been handed a verse that does not pretend about families, and the Holy Spirit is the one who allowed that sentence. Isaiah 49:15 says yea, they may forget rather than holding a mother up as the one sure thing, and He allowed it because a comfort built on a lie about families is no comfort at all.

Now the second half, which is the part with the weight in it.

Yet will I not forget thee. The certainty moves. It is taken off the human relationship and put somewhere that does not fail, and the verse is entirely comfortable doing that.

You are held by something that does not run on anybody remembering, and it is written that He will not forget rather than that people always do. The Spirit of God is the one who relocated the certainty, and He relocated it so that a silence in a family is not the end of anything.

And there is something in it aimed at the hum underneath.

That verse is spoken over a people who had concluded they were forgotten. That was the situation it was written into: a long silence, and a conclusion drawn from it.

You have been drawing a conclusion from a silence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who speaks into a silence. The passage was written for exactly that and says the conclusion is wrong, and He speaks into it before anybody has any new information.

Two feelings, and which is which

Now let me help separate the two, because they need completely different things and they have been getting treated as one.

The hurt is about you. It is small, and it is real, and it is allowed. A woman who went to trouble and got nothing is entitled to a flat feeling about that and nobody has to defend it.

The fear is about her. It is not small at all, and it is the reason you have not slept properly, and it has been disguising itself as the hurt because the hurt is the more manageable of the two.

You have been feeling the safer one out loud, and it is written that they may forget rather than that a silence always means indifference. The Spirit of God is the one who separates two feelings that have been wearing one face, and the separating is most of the relief here.

And here is what each of them needs, which is different.

The hurt needs nothing. It genuinely does not need anything doing about it. It will go in a few weeks and it does not need to be raised with anybody, because raising it would cost more than carrying it.

The fear needs a phone call. Not about the gift. About her.

You have one of these to put down and one of these to act on, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a mother which of two things to move on. The written word answers a silence with a promise rather than with an inquiry, and it has never been the first one.

And one plain thing about adult children, said without excusing anybody.

They frequently go quiet when things are hard and they frequently do not know they have gone quiet. A month of silence from a daughter is very often not about the parent at all, and the parent is the last person to be told.

You are probably not being ignored, and it is written that He will not forget thee rather than that anybody in a family is keeping track well. The Spirit of God is the one who knows what is in her month, and you have been given none of it.

Ask about her, not about it

So here is what to do, and the whole thing turns on what the call is about.

Call her. This week. And do not mention what you sent at all.

Not lightly, not in passing, not as a way in. If she raises it, say something warm and brief and go straight back to her.

You are able to call about her rather than about it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a subject out of a phone call. Isaiah 49:15 answers a silence with a promise rather than with a question about why nobody wrote, and it is a harder thing than it sounds.

And ask her something with edges on it.

Not how are you, which will get fine. Something she has to actually answer. What has this month been like. What is the hardest thing going on at the moment.

Then stop talking and let there be a gap, because the gap is where the answer lives.

You have a question that goes past fine, and it is written that He does not forget rather than that anybody has to be asked twice. The Spirit of God is the one who opens somebody with an ordinary question, and He opens adult children that way more often than any other.

And prepare for either answer without needing one of them.

She may say something is wrong, in which case you will be glad you called and the whole of this article will have been about that.

Or she may be perfectly fine and busy and slightly surprised to hear from you, in which case the hum stops, and the hurt is still small, and it will go in a few weeks exactly as it was going to.

You are covered either way and you were before you called, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is in that call whichever way it goes. His word puts the not forgetting on God's side rather than on the outcome of a conversation, and He has been in her month the whole time.