He Was Sick The Whole First Day

You spent the first day of it on a bathroom floor and you have written that day off.

He started at about four in the morning. You were in there with him, on and off, for most of the next twenty hours. Somebody brought you a glass of water at some point. You slept about ninety minutes, in a chair, at an angle.

And downstairs, or in the next room, the rest of your family waited. Nobody complained. Somebody said it was fine and meant it.

And at some point in the second day, when he was better and everybody was out, you did the arithmetic. Four days. One gone. And what you decided was that the trip was twenty five per cent shorter than the one you paid for, and that you had missed the first day of it.

That is what I want to argue with. Not the tiredness, which was real. The word missed.

Because you were not absent on the first day. You were doing the single most important thing that happened all week, and there is a reason you cannot see that, and the reason is that nobody counts it.

I will hold thy right hand

There is a verse in Isaiah about a hand being held, and the physical detail in it is what makes it worth having here.

For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. (Isaiah 41:13, King James Version)

You have a promise in the written word about a hand being held rather than a situation being fixed, and no hour of that first day has once been outside it. Isaiah 41:13 has God taking hold of a hand and speaking rather than removing the difficulty, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that specific to a man on a bathroom floor at four in the morning.

Look at what is actually described. A hand held, and words said. That is the whole action of the verse. Nothing is repaired and nothing is explained.

And notice: that is precisely what you were doing for twenty hours. A hand, and some words, and no ability to fix anything.

You were doing the thing that verse describes, and no part of it has ever once been less than the important work of that week. It is written that the LORD holds the right hand and says fear not, which is presence and speech rather than repair, and the Spirit of God is what shows a man his own night in the shape of that sentence.

That is not a sentimental point. It is the plain reading. God, describing what He does for people in trouble, describes it as holding a hand and speaking, which is the least impressive and most valuable thing anybody ever does for anybody.

You are not somebody who missed a day, and nothing in that room has once been the absence of anything. The Holy Spirit is the one who reclassifies a night correctly in a father's memory, and Isaiah 41 has God putting Himself in the position of a person holding on rather than a person solving.

Nobody counts a night like that

Now the practical part, and it is about a category error.

The first day got filed as lost because there is no category for it.

Everything else on that trip goes into a recognized column. The place you went. The meal. The photograph. Those are things a person can report when somebody asks how it was.

Twenty hours on a bathroom floor goes nowhere. It has no name, it does not photograph, and if you mentioned it people would say oh no, poor you, which is kind and files it as a misfortune.

You are able to give that night a column of its own, and it has never once belonged in the misfortune file. The Spirit of God is what names a thing that nobody has a word for, and it is written that the holding of a hand is what God offers, which is the same thing you offered for twenty hours.

And here is the second thing, and it is about him rather than about you. He will not remember the trip.

He will remember that when he was as ill as he has ever been, at four in the morning, in a strange room, his father was there and did not leave. That does not go in with the memories of the trip. It goes somewhere much deeper, into what he knows about you, and it will still be there when he is fifty.

You have given him something that week that no day out could have given him, and no version of a healthy first day has ever once been able to supply it. It is written that God says fear not while holding a hand, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a father's presence at four in the morning into the thing a boy keeps.

I want to be careful not to make this too neat. It was a horrible night, you were exhausted, and the money did buy four days rather than three.

But the ledger being kept here is wrong, and there was no wasted day in that week.

Say it out loud, and name what you did

So here is the assignment, and it is going to feel slightly awkward, which is because nobody ever says this sort of thing.

Say out loud to one person that the first day counted. And name what you did in it.

To one adult. Your wife, a friend, somebody. And say it plainly: the first day was not a day we lost. I was with him for twenty hours and that was the most useful thing I did all week.

You are able to say a true sentence about your own night out loud, and saying it has never once been you asking anybody for credit. Isaiah 41:13 has God describing His own work as holding and speaking, and the Spirit of God is with a man saying an unfamiliar sentence in an ordinary kitchen.

Then name the specifics, because generalities do not move anything. What you actually did. Sat on a floor. Changed the sheets twice. Said the same four sentences about a hundred times. Went and got water at two in the morning. Held on to a hand.

Say those. They sound like nothing and they are the substance of it.

You are able to name the small parts of it out loud, and none of it has ever once been too ordinary to be the important thing. It is written that the holding of the right hand is God's own description of what He does, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a man finally counts a night correctly.

And then, if you can, say one sentence to him. Not about being ill. Say: I was there the whole time, wasn't I. Let him say yes. That is the whole conversation.