The phone went at ten past eleven last night and her stomach did something before she had even looked at the screen.
That is new. It did not do that a year ago. A year ago she picked up on the second ring with her whole chest open, and she is not sure when the change happened, and she has told absolutely nobody about it because of what it seems to say about her.
She is the one her friend rings. She has been for two years. Not casually: she is the arrangement. She knows the medication and the sister's number and the name of the woman at the housing office, and she has driven across a city at one in the morning twice.
She loves her. That is not in question and she would want it stated first. If you asked her whether she would do it all again, she would say yes without a pause, and mean it.
And she dreads the phone. Both of those are true at the same time, and holding both of them has begun to make her feel like a fraud in her own kindness.
She has not said it to her friend, obviously. She has not said it to anybody else either, because every version of the sentence sounds like a complaint about somebody who is drowning.
And a woman at church, meaning it entirely as support, said last week: you should fast for her.
She said good idea. And what she felt was not hope. It was the weight of one more thing being added to an account that is already overdrawn.
If your stomach does something when the phone goes, come and sit down here. Leave it face down on the table for ten minutes.
The dread is not a failure of love
Let us settle that first, because it is the thing making you feel like a fraud.
Dread and love are not opposites and they are not competitors. What your stomach did last night is what a body does when it has been running an emergency service for two years without a rota. It is information about a load. It is not information about your heart.
You are not a fraud, and the dread was never evidence against your love. That is not a kind thing said to somebody holding a phone. It is written that the Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been in the car with you at one in the morning on both of those drives and knows exactly what is in you, and the reading He has is not the one you are afraid of.
The oldest management advice in Scripture
There is a scene in Exodus where a man watches his son in law work and tells him the truth, and it is remarkably blunt.
Moses was doing exactly what this article is about. All day, every day, one man being the entire arrangement for an enormous number of people, and doing it well, and doing it out of genuine care.
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.Exodus 18:18
Look at what Jethro does not say. He does not say Moses is doing it badly. He does not say his heart is wrong or his motives are off or that he should love these people less.
He says the shape is wrong. Too heavy for thee. Not able to perform it thyself alone. And notice the first clause, because it is the one nobody quotes: thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people. Both. The person carrying and the people being carried. A single point arrangement fails everybody in it, including the one it is meant to serve.
You are not able to do this alone, and that is a sentence God let stand in Scripture without one word of rebuke attached. I am not saying it to give you permission to step back: it is what the text says and who says it (Exodus 18:18), and it is His Spirit, not this page, who makes it a relief rather than an accusation.
And nothing you do is what keeps her
Here is a thing that has to be said plainly, because the suggestion at church landed somewhere specific.
Going without food is not a shift you work on her behalf. It is not a covering over her and it does not keep her safe, and if it were any of those things then every night you slept through would be a night she was unprotected, and that is a load nobody should carry and that God has never issued to anybody.
You are not what keeps her alive, and you were never appointed to be. Scripture says the Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand (Psalm 121:5), and it is His Spirit who makes that an actual arrangement rather than a comforting phrase, and the keeping in that verse has never once been shared with a friend on the end of a telephone.
Now the sentence this site says everywhere. Some people must not go without food at all, and being one of them takes nothing away from you. Diabetes, pregnancy, medication, any hard relationship with eating, being underweight, unwell, elderly or simply unsure: speak to your doctor and let their answer be the answer. And a woman running an emergency service on four hours a night needs feeding, not one more thing taken off her. You are not one step further from God because of what your body needs. Scripture says the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and the Holy Spirit has never once come in a smaller measure to anybody on account of a body.
And if this week has more in it than a page can carry, if you are frightened for yourself or for her, put this down and ring somebody real: your doctor, her team, a counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if either of you is in danger tonight. That is not a road around God. That is help He put in the world on purpose, and her care belongs with people who are trained for it.
Here is the turn, and it takes weight off you rather than adding to it.
You are not able to do this alone, and saying so is obedience rather than abandonment. He is not waiting on you to hold out longer and He is not withholding anything from a woman who is already overdrawn, because a man in Scripture was told exactly this, kindly, by somebody who loved him, and God kept the advice in the book (Exodus 18:18). You have permission today to say that sentence out loud to one other person. The word puts it in your hands, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you (1 Peter 5:7), and it is His Spirit who does the actual keeping, at ten past eleven, when a phone goes and a stomach turns over.
Go on loving her. That is yours and it is the good part. What you can put down is the belief that you are the only thing between her and the worst outcome, because you never were.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, in your own front room, in your own voice. The standing to speak this way is yours in Christ and it is not issued on the strength of how many nights you have answered. Scripture is the ground under it, the Holy Spirit is what makes it living rather than merely loyal, and what God does about your friend and when is His, however He answers.
- Dread I feel when the phone goes, you are real and you are not a failure of love. A man was told this thing is too heavy for thee, thou art not able to perform it thyself alone, and Exodus 18:18 stands in the book with no rebuke attached to it anywhere. In the name of Jesus I say that sentence out loud today and I say it to one other person.
- Fear that I am the only thing between her and the worst outcome, you are not God's word about me and you are not sitting in this room any longer. The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand, and His Spirit is the one making that an arrangement rather than a phrase. The keeping was never shared with me, and I am not the fence, and I am free.
- Father, You let a man be told plainly that a single point arrangement wears out both the carrier and the carried. Your written word keeps that advice exactly as it was given (Exodus 18:18), and Your Spirit is what makes it a relief rather than an accusation. Her name is out of my mouth and into Your hands, and I am going to go and book that weekend now.
Exodus 18:18
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