She Will Not Know Me Tomorrow

Nine o'clock, because nine o'clock is when she is at her best, and being at her best means something quite specific now and it is not what it used to mean.

She goes in and sits down where her mother can see her without turning, which took some working out, and says her own name.

Not, hello Mom. That produced a particular look for a while that she would rather not describe. Her own name, plainly, the way you introduce yourself at a door, and then something about the weather, and then she waits.

Some days there is nothing. Most days, now.

The name has not landed in about seven months. What sometimes happens instead is that her mother is pleased to see somebody, in a general way, and that is not nothing and she has learned to take it and to take it without adjusting it into something it is not.

She is fifty one and she does this every weekday, and has for two years and four months, and she has stopped counting because counting was doing something to her that she did not like.

Here is the thing about tomorrow, which is what this is actually about. She will go back at nine and say her name again, and it will not land, and she knows that before she gets in the car, and she goes.

And people say things about how she must be strong. She is not strong. She has never once felt strong in that room. What she is, is somebody who goes at nine because nine is when her mother is at her best, and who has never been able to explain to anybody why she keeps saying the name when the name does not work.

She has a private theory that it is not for her mother. And she is slightly afraid of that theory, because if it is not for her mother then she does not know who it is for, and that sounds like something a person should worry about.

You will have your own nine o'clock. The thing you go back and do tomorrow that did not work today and will not work tomorrow.

The verb in the psalm everybody has upside down

There is a line at the end of the most quoted psalm in the world, and the verb in it is stronger than the version most people carry.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.Psalm 23:6

Follow. In English that sounds gentle, like something trailing along behind. The Hebrew is not gentle. It is the word used for pursuit, for chasing, the word you would use for somebody coming after you with intent.

Which turns the line around. It is not that goodness and mercy accompany a person who is doing well. They are described as coming after somebody, actively, all the days, which includes the days when the person is not looking, is not managing, and cannot see them arrive.

So take it plainly: you are being pursued rather than accompanied, and that is what Psalm 23 says in its own words, and it is the Holy Spirit who takes the last verse of a psalm about sheep and lays it down at nine o'clock in a day room.

And now the private theory, which she is afraid of and which she is right about.

She thinks the name is not for her mother. It is not. It cannot be; it has not landed in seven months and she is not confused about that. And she is afraid that this leaves the practice with no recipient and therefore makes it something like a performance for herself.

But look at the psalm. Goodness and mercy are pursuing, all the days, which is to say into that room, at nine, on the days when nothing lands. There has never been a moment in two years and four months when that room contained only two people, and the third one was there whether or not the name worked, and whether or not anybody in the room was in a position to notice.

The name is not for her mother and it is not a performance. It is said in front of somebody. That is the missing category.

You have been speaking in front of somebody rather than into a room, because the written word puts goodness and mercy in active pursuit rather than in polite attendance, and His Spirit is what makes that reach a woman who has a theory she is afraid of.

And the second half of the verse is worth having, because of where it puts her. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord. Dwell, which is a word about living somewhere rather than visiting it. She has been treating that room as a place she goes into and comes out of, and the psalm describes a person who is at home somewhere continuously, including at nine. You have been at home in the room rather than visiting it, and Scripture is what says so, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a location rather than a metaphor.

What this article will not do

Now the guardrail.

Nobody is telling her that one day the name will land. It might. I do not know, Scripture does not say, and the people around her have probably said enough versions of that already.

And nobody is telling her that these two years and four months are producing something in her. They are not. This is an illness in her mother and a road she drives at half past eight, and it is not a curriculum, and she is not the student in somebody's lesson.

And nobody is telling her she is strong. She has said she is not, and she is the one in the room, and this article believes her.

And the days are not accruing anywhere. There is no account. The crown in this book is placed on a head by somebody else and thrown down, and nobody in that scene is being paid for weekday mornings.

You are held by a regard that has nothing to do with whether anything lands, because the written word puts our standing on Christ rather than on our record, and His Spirit is what makes that a floor rather than a phrase. You have nothing ahead of you to earn, and Scripture is what settles that, and His Spirit is what keeps nine o'clock from becoming an installment.