It Died On The Way To School With All Three In It

It was a Tuesday in May and the car stopped in the middle lane with a bus behind them.

Shira had all three. The nine year old in the front because of a thing about her ear, the twins in the back, and a bag of gym clothes on the floor that ended up in the footwell when the car lurched.

She got the hazards on. She could not get it started. The bus behind sounded its horn twice, and then a third time, longer.

And Shira said something.

She does not know what. That is the whole of this and it is why four months have gone by and it is still the first thing she thinks about in the morning.

She knows she said something, because the twins went completely quiet in a way they do not, because her eldest looked at her, and because there was a quality in the car afterward she has never been able to describe to anybody.

And what she has done since May is reconstruct it, over and over, and every version is worse than the last, because that is what a reconstruction does when the person building it is ashamed.

By now the version in her head has her shouting at three children in a stopped car, in front of a bus, on the way to school.

She does not know that she shouted. She has no evidence at all: a quiet car, a look from a nine year old, and four months of building.

Her mother said in July, "They are fine. They talk about it like an adventure."

And Shira said, "Do they?"

And her mother said, "They talk about the tow truck constantly."

And Shira nodded and did not believe her, because her mother was not there.

The only account of that morning is one nobody heard

Let me put down what I am not doing, so nothing has to brace.

I am not going to tell you that you did not say anything sharp. I was not there and neither was your mother, and a message that assures a woman about a moment nobody witnessed would be worth nothing.

And I am not going to guess at what happened to the car. That belongs to somebody qualified.

One plain thing first. A morning like that can leave a person somewhere darker than a bad memory, and four months of a thing being the first thought of the day is worth saying out loud to somebody. If it has gone anywhere near thoughts about not being here, tell a person today: a mother, a friend, a doctor, or the 988 crisis line for anyone in the United States. That is not a detour from this message. It is the most important line in it.

What I want to look at is who has been writing the account.

You are not the only witness God has, and Scripture says He knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust. Psalm 103 has Him holding what a person is actually made of while they are judging themselves by a standard nobody could keep, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that knowledge kinder than a reconstruction built at four in the morning.

Because there are four people who were in that car, and only one of them has produced a version of what happened, and that one has been producing it alone, at four in the morning, for four months, in a state of shame.

That is the worst possible witness under the worst possible conditions, and it is the only testimony that has been entered.

The other three have never been asked.

Now here is the verse, and I want you to notice what it does and does not promise.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.Isaiah 43:2

When thou passest through the waters.

Not if. When. The water is assumed. It is in the sentence as a certainty, and God does not offer to route anybody around it.

What He offers is the being with.

And that matters enormously here, because the thing Shira wants is a morning where the car did not stop and she did not say whatever she said. That morning is not available. It happened.

What is available is the thing actually promised, which is that she was not alone in the middle lane, and neither were her children.

You are not being asked to have avoided that morning, and Scripture promises the presence in the water rather than a way around it. It is written when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, which assumes the water and promises company, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a fact about a Tuesday in May with a bus behind.

You have been carried through a thing that already happened, and the passage puts the not-overflowing inside the passing rather than after it. Isaiah 43 says the rivers shall not overflow thee while a person is going through them, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that a claim about the minutes themselves.

Ask one of them

Here is the practical thing, and it is one question, and it will take about ninety seconds.

Ask one of them what they remember about that morning.

Not the eldest. The eldest saw your face and is the one carrying the most, and she is also nine and will manage her answer to protect you. Ask one of the twins.

Ask it lightly, while something else is happening. In the kitchen, over a bowl. Do you remember when the car broke down on the way to school?

You are able to hear whatever they say, and Scripture says perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. 1 John 4 puts the casting out on love's side rather than on the strength of the one afraid, and the Holy Spirit is what makes a light question in a kitchen a safe thing to ask.

And then listen. All the way to the end. Without correcting anything.

Because here is what is almost certainly going to happen, and I say almost because I do not know your household.

They are going to tell you about the tow truck.

Children who were in a stopped car in May do not have four months of shame organizing their memory. They have a truck with a hook on it and a man who let somebody sit in the cab and a morning where they got to school late in an unusual vehicle.

And when they have told you, you will have a second account of that morning from somebody who was actually there, and it will be the first one in four months that was not written by a woman at four in the morning.

You have three witnesses who have never been called, and no verse anywhere makes a person's own worst reconstruction the record. Isaiah 43 opens by saying fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine, which is a naming that comes before anything about circumstances, and the Spirit of God is what makes that naming louder than a reconstruction.

And I want to say the hard, kind half, because there is a version of this where the answer comes back and it is not the tow truck.

It might be that one of them says, you shouted.

And if that happens, here is what to do, and it is very short. Say: I did. I'm sorry. I was frightened and I shouted, and that wasn't your fault.

Nine or ten words. No explanation of the bus, no account of the middle lane. And then let them go back to what they were doing, because children accept apologies at a speed that astonishes adults, and they do not need the whole story.

You were never going to be unable to repair this, and Scripture puts the passing through and the presence together rather than requiring a clean crossing. It is written that when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, which is Isaiah 43 in the same verse describing a going-through rather than an avoiding, and His Spirit is what makes an apology in a kitchen a complete work rather than a partial one.