I Am Waiting For An Apology

Nine years is a long time to hold a position.

And it is a position, not a feeling. You worked it out early and you have been consistent ever since: he did it, so he goes first. Any move from you would let him off, and it would rewrite the history, and in about four years somebody would be saying that the two of you had a misunderstanding.

That is not bitterness. That is accuracy, defended over nine years, at considerable cost.

And here is the thing you have started to notice at about two in the morning. The waiting has become the relationship. There is no relationship left underneath it. What the two of you have now is an account, and you are the one keeping it, and you have been keeping it since a Tuesday in 2016.

What you would actually get

Let me take the apology seriously for a minute, because it has been imagined here a great many times.

It would have to be specific. Not sorry things got difficult. It would have to name the actual thing, and say it was wrong, and it would have to arrive without any qualification about what you had done first.

And here is what would happen if it did. There would be about four days of enormous relief, and then a question that has never come up, which is: what do the two of you do now.

Because a relationship built on an outstanding account does not automatically become something else the moment the account is settled. There is nothing behind it. Nine years of waiting has been the whole of it.

You have been waiting for something that would not by itself give you a brother, and no apology on earth has ever once been able to rebuild what was not being built while it was awaited. Romans 12:19 says vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord, which is the written word taking an account off a person's hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put down a ledger without tearing up the debt.

And he is a whole man on the other side. He may not think an apology is owed, which is intolerable and is also possible. He may think one is owed and be nine years past knowing how to give it, which is far more common than people believe.

He is right about at least one thing you have never conceded, and neither of those changes what he did.

You are able to hold what he did and stop being the one who holds it, and putting an account down has never once been the same as saying it was nothing. The Spirit of God is what separates a fact from a burden, and it is written in Romans 12 that repayment belongs to God.

Vengeance is mine

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. (Romans 12:19, King James Version)

That verse is usually heard as a restraint and it is at least as much a transfer.

Vengeance is mine. Mine, meaning: it belongs to Me, it is My department, and I am taking it. It does not say the debt is canceled. It says the debt is Mine to handle, and I will repay.

Which means the account is not being closed. It is being moved to somebody else's desk.

You have somewhere to move an account that you have been keeping personally, and no transfer of a debt to God has ever once been the same as forgiving it out of existence. It is written in Romans 12:19 that vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord, which is the written word taking the file rather than shredding it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can lift nine years of keeping off one woman.

And notice the phrase before it: give place unto wrath. Make room for it. Step aside so that something can happen that is not yours to do.

You have been standing in that place for nine years, and the position has been occupied the whole time, and what is being asked is that you step out of it and let it be handled by somebody with actual authority.

You are able to step out of a position you were never appointed to, and letting go of an account has never once meant the account was wrong. The Spirit of God is the one who takes over a file completely, and Romans 12 puts the repayment in His hands and the stepping aside in yours.

What to send, and what it is not

Here is the practical part, and it is going to look like conceding and it is not.

Send something short that has nothing in it. No reference to the nine years. No mention of what happened. No hint of being ready to move past it, which is a sentence that puts one person above the other and would be felt as one.

A message about something ordinary. Something you saw. Something about a person you both know.

You are able to send something that concedes nothing at all, and a message with no history in it has never once been a withdrawal of a position. The Holy Spirit is the one who supplies a sentence that costs nothing and asks nothing, and it is written that vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.

That message is not forgiveness. It is not a statement that it was fine. It is not going first in the sense you have been refusing, because it is not about the thing at all. It is a woman deciding that nine years is enough of her own life to have spent standing in a doorway.

And nobody here is telling you to reconcile, or on what schedule, or whether to raise it ever. This site does not know your family. If contact would be unsafe for you, do not send it and take that to somebody qualified where you live.

You are able to make one small ordinary contact without deciding anything about the future, and one message has never once obliged anybody to anything. The Spirit of God is what makes a small thing possible when a large thing is impossible, and Romans 12:19 leaves the repayment entirely with God and asks only that you step aside.