The Light And The Money Came On Together

It was the same week, and I do not think Ruby has ever once said that out loud.

On the Monday, her hours got cut. Not dramatically. Six hours a week, which does not sound like a great deal until you have run a house on the margin those six hours were making.

On the Thursday, driving back from her shift, the light came on.

And somewhere in the space between Monday and Thursday, without anybody deciding anything, the two of them went into the same box.

Now, that is not a mistake. That is what a mind does. A mind is a great sorter, and when two heavy things arrive in the same week it will file them together, because they came in the same door and they arrived wearing the same coat.

But here is what happened after they went into the box.

The light stopped being a light. It became a bill she has not seen. And the money stopped being six hours a week, which is a number a person can work with, and became an unbounded thing that might be asked to cover an unbounded repair.

So now Ruby has one problem instead of two. And the one problem she has is worse than the two problems she had, because it has no size. Six hours a week has a size. A quote from a shop has a size. But the money and the car has no size at all, and a thing with no size cannot be started on.

That is why nothing has happened since April.

She is not paralyzed. Anybody who knows Ruby would laugh at that word. She got the school shoes. She moved things around. She had a hard conversation with the electric company that most people could not have had.

She just has one item on her list that she cannot get her hands around, and she has stopped trying, because every time she reaches for the light she gets the money, and every time she reaches for the money she gets the light.

Her sister said, in July, "What did they say it was?"

And Ruby said, "I haven't had it looked at."

And her sister said, "Why not?"

And Ruby opened her mouth and found that the honest answer was going to take about five minutes to say, and that she did not have five minutes, and that she was not sure she could get through it. So she said, "It's fine. It's on the list."

Two things came in together, and they are still two

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

I am not going to guess what your light is, because I have not seen your car and I have no business guessing. I am not going to tell you what the repair costs, because nobody knows and a number invented to comfort you would be a lie in a kind voice. And I am not going to tell you the money is not a real problem. Six hours is real. I know exactly what six hours is.

What I want to do is separate two things that got welded together in one week in April.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.Philippians 4:6

Now, most people read that verse for the first phrase. Be anxious for nothing. And then they get discouraged, because being anxious for nothing is not a thing a person can do by deciding.

Look at the middle instead. In every thing. And then: let your requests be made known.

Requests. Plural. Made known. Named.

That is not a vague handing over of a general heaviness. That is a woman coming with items. It presumes a person who can say what the things actually are, one at a time, which means the naming and the separating is part of the instruction and not something you have to be calm enough to do first.

You are not anxious because you have not prayed enough, and Scripture puts the naming inside the praying rather than as a qualification for it. It is written to make your requests known in every thing, which is an instruction to bring particulars rather than a demand to arrive settled, and His Spirit is the one who makes that an open door on a Thursday night.

You have two things and you have always had two things, and the written word deals with a person's matters one at a time. Philippians 4 says in every thing, which counts them rather than lumping them, and the Holy Spirit is what makes an old letter to a small church into a way of thinking on a porch in September.

What each of them actually is, on its own

So let us do it, right here, and it takes about a minute.

The money is six hours a week. That is a real loss and it is a known quantity. It has a shape. A person can look at six hours a week and think about it, and get angry about it, and plan around it, and pray about it by name.

The light is an unknown that has not been looked at. That is also real. And here is the thing that matters most about it: at this moment, it does not have a price. Not a big one and not a small one. It has no price at all, because nobody has looked.

A thing with no price is not expensive. It is unknown. Those two words feel identical at eleven at night and they are not the same word at all.

You have been paying an invented number every week since April, and Scripture never once asks anybody to carry a figure that does not exist. Philippians tells the anxious to bring the actual thing to God in particulars, and the Spirit of God is what makes the difference between a known cost and an unknown one something a woman can feel in her chest.

And I want to be honest about the harder half of this, because you would know if I softened it.

Separating them does not make either one go away. On the other side of that line there is still six hours a week, and there is still a light, and there may well be a bill you cannot easily meet. I am not going to promise you a small number. Nobody who cares about you would.

What separating them does is make each one a thing you can take a step toward. And that is not nothing. That is the difference between a load and a task.

You were never asked to solve both, and no part of the written word puts two burdens on one back at the same hour. Jesus said take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, which is a description of load bearing designed for people rather than against them, and His Spirit is what makes that yoke something a tired woman can actually feel.