I Am Never Off Duty

It is not the doing that has emptied you. It is the watching.

Because you are always watching. In the house, in the car, at the table, at your own mother's, and at every single place this family has ever gone. Some part of your attention is permanently assigned, tracking where he is and what is about to happen and how close the next difficult thing is.

And the thing about that kind of attention is that it does not rest when the room is quiet. It just gets quieter itself, and stays on.

Eleven years. You cannot remember what it is like to be somewhere and not be doing that.

And people are kind about it. They say you should get a break, and they mean it, and once or twice they have actually arranged one, and you sat in a café for forty minutes with your phone face up on the table, tracking a house you were not in.

That is what I want to talk about. Not respite in general, which is a word from a leaflet. One hour, and the specific mechanism that stops you having it.

They that wait upon the LORD

There is a line at the end of Isaiah forty about strength being renewed, and I want to read it with a particular emphasis on the first three words.

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31, King James Version)

I am not going to promise you that you will feel renewed by Thursday. That is God's business and it is His to give, and it is not something I can hand out.

What the verse does establish is where the renewing comes from, and it is not from the watching stopping. It comes from waiting on the LORD, which is a thing done rather than a state achieved.

You have a source of strength named in the written word that is not the absence of difficulty, and no eleventh year of this has ever once put you outside of it. Isaiah 40:31 puts the renewing on the other side of waiting on the LORD rather than on the other side of the circumstance changing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does that in a woman whose situation has not altered at all.

Now look at the order of the three things promised: mount up, run, and walk. It goes down the way, not up. Flying, then running, then walking without fainting.

That is not an anticlimax. It is honest about what most days need. Most days do not need wings. Most days need a person to keep walking and not go down.

You are able to receive the walking rather than the flying, and asking for the smallest of the three has never once been you expecting too little. It is written that they shall walk and not faint, listed last and therefore included on purpose, and the Spirit of God is what supplies exactly that on a Tuesday in the eleventh year.

And there is one more thing in that chapter worth having. Four verses earlier the prophet is arguing with people who said their way was hid from the LORD. He answers with the size and attention of God, and then arrives at this verse.

So the promise is addressed to people who had already concluded nobody was watching them.

You have not been unnoticed in any of these eleven years, and no hour of that watching has once been done without Him seeing it. The Holy Spirit is the one who tells a mother that her attention has been observed, and Isaiah 40 answers a complaint about being overlooked before it says one word about strength.

Why the arranged hour did not work

Now the practical part, because people have tried to give you a break and it has not landed, and there is a reason.

An hour of respite with the responsibility still assigned to the same person is not an hour off. Being out of the house changed the location and nothing else. It was duty at a distance, with worse information.

That is not ingratitude toward whoever arranged it. It is a design flaw in how it was arranged.

You are able to name why the last attempt did not work, and saying so has never once been you refusing help. The Spirit of God is what lets a woman be honest about a kindness that missed, and Isaiah 40:31 puts the renewing in something actively done rather than in a gap in the schedule.

Because what makes you the one watching is not proximity. It is that the responsibility has never been transferred. Everybody assumes you are still holding it, including, when you are honest, you.

So the hour has to be built differently, and there are three parts, and all three matter.

You are able to hand the responsibility itself rather than the location, and doing that has never once meant you stopped caring what happens in that hour. It is written that the walking without fainting comes to those who wait on the LORD, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a load off a woman rather than moving her away from it.

First: one specific adult, told plainly that they are the one in charge for that hour, in those words. Not keeping an eye on things. In charge.

Second: it has to be short. One hour. An afternoon is too much to hand over and everybody will fail at it, and then nobody will offer again.

Third, and this is the hardest: leave the building.

You are able to be out of reach for sixty minutes, and being out of reach has never once been the same thing as being unavailable to him. Isaiah 40:31 puts the renewing in waiting rather than in staying within earshot, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a household while a mother is twelve minutes away.

One hour, and leave the building

So here is the assignment.

Hand the watching to one other adult for one hour this week. And leave the building.

The words matter, so use them. Say: for one hour on Saturday morning, the watching belongs to you. If something happens, you handle it. I am going out and my phone is in my bag.

You are able to say that sentence out loud to another adult, and handing it over has never once been the same thing as walking away from him. Isaiah 40:31 has the strength renewed for those who wait rather than for those who never put anything down, and the Spirit of God is with a woman saying a plain sentence in her own kitchen.

Then leave. Not the yard. Out. A ten minute walk away is far enough, and it has to be far enough that going back is a decision rather than a reflex.

And the phone goes in the bag. Not face down on the table, which is what happened last time, because face down on a table is still the command post.

You are able to put the phone away for sixty minutes, and doing that has never once been you being unavailable to your own child. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds a mother's hand off a bag for an hour, and it is written that they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, which is a thing received while doing nothing else.

And do not use the hour to be productive. Do not shop for the house. Do not make the calls. The whole value of it is that nothing in it is on anybody's behalf.

If it goes badly, and it might, that is information about the arrangement and not about whether you can ever do this. Try it again with a different adult.