They Said It Came From Me

Somebody told you it comes from you, and you have never got over it.

They probably did not mean it as an accusation. It may have been a professional, or a relative, or your own mother, and it was probably phrased carefully. Children pick things up. She is very tuned in to you. She takes her cues from how you handle things.

And every version of that sentence has the same thing underneath it, which is that your daughter is frightened because you are.

Here is what it has done, and this is the part I actually want to deal with.

You no longer make decisions about going anywhere. You conduct an inquiry. Before every plan there is a private process in which you examine your own motives to work out whether you are keeping her home because it is genuinely too much for her, or because you cannot face it and are hiding behind her.

And that inquiry has no verdict available, because both things are somewhat true, as they are in every parent alive. So it runs, and it does not conclude, and the decision gets made by the clock instead.

That is what I want to take off you today. Not the question of where anxiety comes from, which is not mine to settle and would not help you anyway. The audit.

Not the spirit of fear

There is a sentence Paul writes to a young man he was worried about, and the three things it names are the three things this article is for.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7, King James Version)

You have a verse in the written word that names what was given rather than what went wrong, and no conversation anybody has ever had about you has once changed that list. 2 Timothy 1:7 states what God has given as a settled fact rather than as something to be achieved, and the Holy Spirit is the one who reads that list over a mother who has been auditing herself for two years.

Look at the third item, because it is the one nobody quotes and it is yours. A sound mind.

That phrase, in that letter, is closer to sober judgment than to mental health. It means the capacity to weigh a thing and decide. Not certainty. Judgment.

You have been given the capacity to judge this, and no professional sentence about where anxiety comes from has once removed it from you. It is written that God has given power, love and a sound mind, listed as things possessed rather than things to be earned, which is why your judgment about your own daughter stands, and the Spirit of God is what returns a decision to a woman who has handed it to an inquiry.

And notice what the verse does not do. It does not say God has not given you a fearful temperament. Plenty of faithful people have one, including whoever this letter was written to, which is rather the point of the letter.

It says the spirit of fear is not what was given. That is about what has authority in you, not about what feelings pass through you.

You are able to feel afraid without fear having authority in this house, and no anxious afternoon of yours has once handed it any. The Holy Spirit is the one who distinguishes a feeling from a government in a person, and 2 Timothy 1 names the three things given rather than the one thing that was not.

The audit has no verdict in it

Now the practical part, and it is about a process rather than a subject.

The question that has been running is this: am I keeping her home for her sake or for mine?

That question cannot be answered. Not because anybody is avoiding it, but because it has no answer. Every parental decision has some of both in it. A mother who did not have some of her own feeling in the decision would be a stranger to her own child.

So you have been running an inquiry with no possible verdict, before every plan, for about two years.

You are able to stop asking a question that has no answer, and setting it down has never once been you refusing to examine yourself. The Spirit of God is what shows a person that a loop is a loop, and it is written that a sound mind was given, which is judgment rather than certainty.

And here is what the audit costs, which is the reason to end it. It does not make your decisions better. It makes them later, and it makes them by default, and default is almost always staying home.

That is the actual harm. Not that you are keeping her home for the wrong reasons. That you are keeping her home because a process never finished.

You are able to decide before the process ends, and deciding has never once required you to be sure of your own motives first. It is written that God has given power and love and a sound mind, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a decision possible in the middle of an unresolved question.

And there is one more thing, which is about her rather than about you. A child watching her mother deliberate for four days about a Saturday learns something from the deliberating, whatever the outcome is.

The length of the pause is itself information to a child. And that is not a reason to feel worse. It is a reason to decide faster, which is easier than deciding better.

You are able to decide quickly rather than perfectly, and speed has never once been the same thing as carelessness with her. The Spirit of God is with a mother who says yes or no in an ordinary voice on a Tuesday, and 2 Timothy 1:7 puts sober judgment on the list of what has already been handed to her.

One decision with no audit in it

So here is the assignment, and it is about one decision rather than about the pattern.

Make one decision about going somewhere without checking it against your own anxiety.

Choose something small this week. Then decide it in under a minute, out loud if that helps, and do not run the inquiry.

You are able to make one decision without the inquiry, and skipping it once has never once been you being reckless with your own daughter. 2 Timothy 1:7 names a sound mind as given rather than as something to be verified, and the Spirit of God is with a woman deciding something in her kitchen in forty seconds.

And here is how to tell you are actually doing it rather than doing a faster version of the same thing. You will feel slightly uncomfortable, as though you have skipped a step. That feeling is the whole point. The step you skipped was the one with no answer in it.

Then either outcome is fine. If you decide to go, go. If you decide not to, that is also a decision, made with judgment rather than by the clock, and it counts.

You are able to decide either way and have it be a decision, and choosing not to go has never once been the same thing as failing to choose. The Holy Spirit is the one who honors a plain judgment in a person, and it is written that what was given includes a sound mind rather than a guarantee about outcomes.

Then do not review it afterward. That is the second half of the assignment and it is harder than the first. No going back over it that night to work out whether you got it right.