I Had Already Told Everybody

You told everybody at work.

Three weeks of it. You brought it up on a Monday because it was going well and you were pleased, and after that people asked, because people do ask about a thing once they know it is a thing.

And you gave updates. Actual updates. There was a day you took a photograph.

And now it is over, and the problem is not the plant.

The problem is that on Monday somebody is going to ask you how it is going, in that pleasant automatic way, and you are going to have to say something.

You are not being watched by anybody keeping score, and a thing that failed after you talked about it has never once been a public event.

And you have been rehearsing. Let me guess at the shapes, because there are only about three.

There is the deflection, where you say it is fine and change the subject, which buys a week and costs more later.

There is the comic version, where you make it a joke about yourself, and everybody laughs and you feel slightly worse afterward without being able to say why.

And there is the long explanation, where you set out the frost or the light or whatever it was, and while you are doing it you can hear that you are defending something.

I want to offer a fourth, but first I want to look at what makes this so heavy for what it actually is.

Let me not be ashamed

There is a line at the start of Psalm 25 that asks for exactly this and is not embarrassed to ask.

O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me. (Psalm 25:2, King James Version)

Let me not be ashamed.

Now, notice that he asks. Out loud, to God, in a psalm that got written down and kept and sung by other people afterward.

He does not treat the fear of being shamed as beneath him or as a thing a serious man would not mention.

You are able to name a fear of looking foolish without that being beneath anybody, and shame has never once been a subject Scripture treated as too small to bring up. Psalm 25:2 asks it directly of God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a man rehearsing an answer for Monday morning.

And notice what he is asking for and what he is not.

He is not asking to be made not to care. He is not asking for the situation to be hidden. He asks not to be ashamed, which is about what happens in him rather than about what the circumstances do.

You are able to ask for something about your own inside rather than about the room, and a request like that has never once required the circumstances to change first. The Holy Spirit is the one who works on what happens in a man rather than on who is present, and the written word puts the asking on the shame itself.

And there is the first half, which is the thing the request rests on. O my God, I trust in thee.

The trusting is stated before the asking, and it is not conditional on the outcome. He is not saying he will trust if he is not shamed. The trust is the standing position and the request comes out of it.

You are standing on something that does not depend on how Monday goes, and a position held before an outcome has never once been decided by the outcome. The Spirit of God is the one being trusted in that line, and the word puts the trusting first and the request second.

The audience is smaller than the rehearsal

Let me be practical, because there is an arithmetic error running and it is a big one.

Nobody is following this.

They were pleasantly interested for about four seconds each time it came up. They asked because you had mentioned it and asking is what people do with a thing somebody has mentioned. It occupied approximately none of their week.

What has happened is that you have been carrying the whole of it, and have assumed that everybody else is carrying a proportional share.

You are the only person holding the whole of this, and a thing mentioned at work has never once taken up in anybody else's head the room it takes up in yours. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings an audience back to its actual size, and Psalm 25:2 puts the matter between a man and God rather than between a man and a room.

And here is the specific thing about the answer, which is the practical core.

Whatever you say on Monday, the conversation lasts under ten seconds. That is the whole exposure. It is not a scene, it is an exchange in a corridor, and the other person is already half thinking about something else.

You have been rehearsing for a hearing. It is a corridor.

You are preparing for something much larger than what is going to happen, and ten seconds by a kettle has never once been the event a man rehearsed for. The Spirit of God is the one who cuts an anticipated thing down to its real size, and the written word puts a man's request about shame in one short line and moves on.

Say it plainly to the next person

So here is the assignment, and it is the fourth option.

Say plainly, to the next person who asks, that it did not work.

That is it. It did not work. Or it died, if that is the truer word.

You are able to give a complete answer in four words, and a plain report has never once owed anybody more than the truth of it. Psalm 25:2 asks its question in one line without elaborating, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing beside a man at a kettle on a Monday.

And here is what makes it work, and it is the part to hold onto.

No explanation. Do not tell them about the frost. The moment an explanation starts, the exchange becomes a defense, and a defense tells the other person there was a charge, and now they have to reassure you and it takes ninety seconds instead of ten.

No joke either. The joke costs more than the deflection because you have to hear yourself make it.

Just the plain fact, in a normal voice, and then ask them something.

You are able to say a true thing and hand the conversation onward, and four plain words have never once needed anything attached to them. The Holy Spirit is the one who can hold a man steady for the length of a short sentence, and the word asks not to be ashamed rather than asking for the subject to be avoided.

What they will say is oh, that is a shame. And then something about their own. And that will be the whole of it, forever.