I Used To Be Able To Take Them All

For about twenty years, you were the one who could take everybody.

That was your part in this family and everybody knew it. You would say the word and it happened. All of them, both cars, the whole weekend, and you settled it and nobody had to work out how. There was a period where you did it two or three times a year and never once mentioned what it came to.

You cannot do that now. The pension is what it is, and the arithmetic is not complicated, and you have been through it enough times to know there is no version where the answer is different.

And what I want to say to you is this: I do not think you are grieving the money.

I think you are grieving the role. Because being the one who could take everybody was not just generosity. It was your place. It was how you were useful, and how you were the head of this family in a way that had nothing to do with anybody deferring to you, and it was, quietly, how you knew you still mattered on a Sunday.

And now somebody else pays. And they are kind about it, and they never make anything of it, and every single time it happens something in you goes down a step.

Nobody talks about that. So let us talk about it.

I have been young, and now am old

There is a line in the thirty seventh Psalm from a man doing the very thing this article is about, which is looking back across a whole life and saying what he has seen.

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (Psalm 37:25, King James Version)

I want to handle this carefully, because that verse gets used as a guarantee about money and it is not one. It is a testimony. It is an old man saying what he has personally seen, and there are righteous people who have gone hungry, and the Bible has some of them in it.

So take it as what it is: an old man is speaking, and he is allowed to, and he is speaking about the whole arc rather than about this month.

You have permission to speak from the far end of a life, and no reduction in what you can pay for has ever once taken away the standing to say what you have seen. Psalm 37:25 opens with a man naming his own age as his qualification rather than his resources, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells an older man that his voice is not diminished with his income.

Look at what he offers. Not money. Not provision for anybody. He offers testimony, which is the only thing that gets more valuable rather than less as a man ages.

That is worth sitting with. Because the thing you have most of now is the thing this Psalm treats as the contribution.

You are able to give the thing you now have most of, and it has never once been worth less than the weekends you used to pay for. It is written that the man's credential is I have been young and now am old, which is why age is the qualification in that sentence rather than the loss, and the Spirit of God is what makes an old man's word land in a child.

And notice one more thing. He is not asked to be useful. He simply speaks, out of a long life, to whoever is listening. There is no role attached to it and nobody appointed him.

You are not waiting to be given a place in this family, and no change in who pays has ever once removed the one you already have. The Holy Spirit is the one who says that to a man sitting in a chair on a Sunday while somebody else settles the check, and Psalm 37 gives an old man the floor without giving him a job.

The role was never the money

Now the useful part, and it is a question about what your grandchildren actually received.

Think back to those weekends. What do you think stayed with them?

Because it was not the arithmetic. They did not know what it came to and they still do not. Children have no idea what things cost and they never once did.

What stayed with them was that you were there and you were pleased about it. That is the whole of it. Being with a man who was plainly glad to be with them, who had time, who did not have anywhere else to be.

You have the entire thing they actually received, and none of it has ever once been priced. The Spirit of God is what makes an unhurried grandfather one of the strongest forces in a child's life, and Psalm 37:25 gives testimony rather than provision as an old man's offering.

And here is where the grief is doing you real damage, so I will say it plainly. Because you cannot do the large thing, you have stopped offering the small ones.

That is the actual loss. Not the weekends. It is that a man who used to say come on, all of you, has become a man who says nothing at all, because everything he could offer feels like a diminished version of what he used to.

You are able to offer something small without it being a reduction, and no morning you can still give has ever once been a lesser version of a weekend. It is written that a man of great age speaks out of what he has seen, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets an offer out of the mouth of somebody who has stopped making them.

Offer one thing, with no comparison in it

So here is the assignment, and there is one strict rule attached.

Offer one thing you can actually do this week. And do not mention what you used to be able to do.

The offer first. Something at the size your hands are now. Two hours. A walk somewhere. Taking one of them to get something and sitting outside with it. A morning at your house with the door open. Anything that costs almost nothing and is genuinely yours to give.

You are able to name something at the size it is now, and that has never once been you offering this family less than you have. Psalm 37:25 has a man speaking from where he actually stands rather than from where he was at forty, and the Spirit of God is with a man making a small offer in his ordinary voice.

Now the rule, and it is the harder half. No comparison anywhere in it.

Not, it is not what we used to do, but. Not, I wish I could still take you all. Not, there was a time I would have. Say the offer, and stop, and let it stand at its own size.

Because the moment a comparison goes in, you have handed the whole family the job of reassuring you, and reassurance is a different transaction from a gift. They will do it, because they love you, and everybody will come away tired.

You are able to give something without asking anybody to make you feel better about it, and leaving the comparison out has never once been you pretending nothing changed. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds an old man's tongue for the three seconds after he makes an offer, and Psalm 37 has a man speaking his testimony without apologizing for his age.