The Piece Of Tape Over The Dashboard

It was electrical tape, and it was cut with kitchen scissors, and it took about four seconds.

Deborah did it on a Wednesday evening in the driveway with the engine off. She had come home from work, sat there, looked at the small orange shape that had been glowing at her for six weeks, and thought, with a clarity that surprised her: I cannot look at that one more time.

So she went inside, got the tape out of the drawer under the phone, came back out, cut a piece about the size of a postage stamp, and pressed it over the light.

And it worked.

That is the part nobody tells you about coping. It works. She got in the car the next morning and the dashboard was calm. She drove to work without the small drop in her stomach at the moment the engine caught. For the first time in six weeks the inside of her own car was a place she could be.

That was in July.

Now, here is what I want you to see, and I want you to see it without one drop of contempt in it, because there is a whole lot of contempt available on this subject and I am not handing you any of it.

Deborah is not hiding from her car. Deborah is a woman who has been carrying a great deal, and the light was the thing in her day with the least room around it. Everything else she was carrying had people attached, and duties attached, and consequences she could name. The light had none of that. It just sat there and glowed at her, every morning and every evening, and reminded her that there was one more thing.

The tape was not denial. The tape was triage.

And triage is right, in an emergency. The trouble is that an emergency is meant to end.

Her friend rode with her in August. Looked at the dash. Did not say anything for about a mile. Then said, "Deb, is that tape?"

And Deborah, who is funny, said, "It's a feature."

And they both laughed. And then it was quiet for a while, and her friend said, "Baby, what's under there?"

And Deborah said, "I don't know," and heard how that sounded, and then said it again, differently: "I don't know."

The tape did what it was asked to do

Let me lay down first what I am not doing, so nothing in you has to brace.

I am not going to guess what is under that tape. I have not seen the car and I would not know, and a woman writing at a distance guessing at somebody's dashboard is no help to anybody. If that car ever does anything on the road that frightens you, the tape is not the subject any more and it goes to somebody qualified today.

What I want to talk about is the four seconds, and what they were for.

Because that little square did exactly what it was cut to do. It gave a tired woman a quiet drive to work. And I am not going to stand here and pretend that was nothing, because it was not nothing. There are seasons where the difference between a person coping and a person coming apart is whether the drive to work is quiet.

But listen. A covering is a truce, and a truce is not a peace.

You are not a coward, and six weeks of glowing followed by four seconds of tape is a woman managing a load rather than a woman running from one. It is written that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, which is Psalm 46 describing where the actual covering comes from, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a place to stand instead of a phrase on a card.

Now let me put the passage in front of you, because it says the opposite of what most people think it says.

But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.John 3:21

Read the end of that verse again, because the end is the whole thing.

Most people hear "cometh to the light" and brace for exposure. They hear a searchlight. They hear a woman standing in a beam with her worst week on display.

But look at what the verse says is made manifest. Not the failure. Not the six weeks. It says his deeds are made manifest that they are wrought in God. The light is not there to reveal how bad it was. The light is there to reveal Who has been in it.

You have been coming to the light already, and the passage says the thing that gets shown is God's work rather than a person's mess. John 3 puts the manifesting on what was wrought in God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes an old verse about coming and makes it safe enough to actually come.

Nothing under there is bigger than Him

Here is what I believe the tape was really about, and tell me if I am wrong.

It was not about the car. It was about the reserves.

Because a woman knows roughly how much she has left. And when the tank is low, the honest instinct is to protect what is left from anything that would draw on it. And a warning light draws on it. Not much. A little, twice a day, every day, for six weeks. And when there is not much left, a little twice a day is a great deal.

So the tape was a woman defending her reserves. That is not weakness. That is arithmetic.

But here is the turn, and it is the whole message.

The tape defended her reserves by hiding a thing, and hiding is expensive. Every single day, some part of Deborah knew the light was under there. The knowing did not go away. It just went underground, where it could not be seen and could not be answered, and it kept drawing on the tank anyway, quietly, for two more months.

You have been paying twice for the same thing, and Scripture never once asks a person to carry a load in secret in order to carry it well. Peter says to cast all your care upon Him because He cares for you, which is a command to hand it over rather than a suggestion to hold it better, and the Spirit of God is what makes that handing over an actual event and not an idea.

You were not made to be your own covering, and there is nothing in the written word that puts the roof on a person's own shoulders. Psalm 91 says He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust, which is a covering that does not require you to hold it up, and His Spirit is the one who makes that shelter real tonight in a driveway.