She Has Been Followed Up Three Times

The first one was six weeks and it was good.

She was twenty-two and she had just come to faith and she genuinely did not know anything, and somebody sat with her once a week and went through six things in order, and she still uses two of them.

At the end there was a small certificate. She laughed about it and she kept it.

The second was at a different church after she moved, and it was ten weeks, and it was better. There were four of them in a room with a woman who was excellent, and she cried once and nobody made a thing of it, and at the end of week ten there was a lovely evening with food.

The third was two years ago. Eight sessions. Very well designed.

And here is what she noticed at the end of the third one, standing in a car park with a folder, and it is the thing she has not been able to unnotice since.

Each of them ended on schedule.

Not one of them ended because something had been reached. They ended in week six and week ten and session eight, because that is what they were, and everybody was warm and everybody meant it and then everybody went on to the next cohort.

She has been in that third church for four years now. She is known. People are pleased to see her.

And nobody has ever been with her in a week that was not part of a structure.

What she has started to think, and she would be ashamed to say this out loud because it sounds ungrateful and she is not ungrateful, is that she has been a stage in three systems. Handled well. Properly resourced. Passed on.

She is twenty-nine and she has a folder from each one, and she cannot remember the last time somebody asked her a question that was not on a sheet.

And you have been through something like that. Well run, finite, warm at the end. And you came out the other side of it wondering whether the accompanying stopped because you had finished, or because the thing was always going to stop there regardless of you.

He describes His involvement with no end date in it

There is a verse in Isaiah where God describes His own commitment, and the striking thing about it is the units He uses.

even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.Isaiah 46:4

He does not describe a number of sessions. He describes a lifespan, and then He describes the far end of it, and then He uses four verbs in a row that are all about carrying rather than instructing.

Made, bear, carry, save. Not one of them is a curriculum word.

And the reason this matters is that you have never once been given a description of an involvement without a length in it, and so you have quietly concluded that every involvement has one.

You are inside something whose stated end point is gray hairs, and it has never had a session count. It is written that even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you (Isaiah 46:4), and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old promise about being carried into something a woman of twenty-nine can feel in a kitchen.

Now the thing you would be ashamed to say, because it needs saying without any shame attached.

I have been a stage in three systems.

That is an accurate description of what happened and it is not ingratitude. Those three things were good, and they were run by people who cared, and you still use two of the six from the first one, and none of that is being taken back.

But a course is a course. It has a length because it has to have a length, and the length is not a statement about you, and the ending in week six was decided before anybody had met you.

You were not put down at the end of any of them, you reached the end of a thing that had an end. Scripture says God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have shown (Hebrews 6:10), and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps a person from converting a scheduled ending into a verdict about their own worth.

And the car park, and the folder, and what you noticed.

You noticed that none of them ended because something had been reached. That is a genuinely sharp observation and it took you seven years to make it, and it is the reason you are where you are.

But look at what it actually reveals. It reveals that structures end. It does not reveal anything about whether you are worth staying with, because none of those structures were ever set up to answer that question, and you have been treating them as though they were.

You have been reading the design of a program as an answer about yourself. It is written that the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and it is the Holy Spirit who has been looking at a young woman across seven years and three folders, which no course was ever positioned to do.

And now what this page will not do.

It is not going to tell you to go and ask somebody to meet with you outside a structure. That instruction hands a lonely twenty-nine year old the job of arranging her own accompanying, which is the loneliest task there is.

You are being told about a companion you already have, and no arrangement is being asked of you. Scripture says I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save (Isaiah 46:4), and it is His Spirit who is the way that carrying is actually experienced in an ordinary week with nothing scheduled in it.

And one last thing about the sheets.

You cannot remember the last time somebody asked you a question that was not on a sheet. That is a real ache and it is worth naming, and it is also worth noticing what it tells you about what you want, which is not more teaching.

You want to be known. That is not a defect and it is not greed, and it is the exact thing God is described as doing with people constantly, by name, in every part of Scripture.

You are already known by name and it has never been on anybody's sheet. It is written that He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:3), and it is the Holy Spirit who makes being known something a person feels rather than something they are told about.