They come at Easter and they are lovely.
That is the part that makes it impossible. They arrive, they are warm with him, they bring something, they are genuinely glad to see him. Somebody takes a photograph. And they say, on the way out, that you are amazing and that they do not know how you do it.
And then they drive away, and it is Tuesday, and it is you.
There is a sentence in you that you have never let finish. It starts up at about eleven at night when you are locking the back door, and you catch it and put it down before it gets to the end, because a person who thinks that sentence about their own brother is a person you do not want to be.
So it never gets finished, and it never goes away, and it has been doing that for about four years.
The sentence, allowed to finish
Let me do something with that sentence rather than around it, because unfinished is exactly what makes it corrosive.
What it says, roughly, is: this is not fair, and they are getting the good half, and nobody has ever asked me whether I wanted this.
Every part of that is true. Not partly true. True. It is not fair, they do get the good half, and nobody asked.
You have been carrying an accurate sentence and calling it a bad one, and naming something true has never once been the same as accusing anybody. Galatians 6:2 says bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, which is the written word saying burdens are meant to be shared, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person say a true thing without it becoming a case.
And now the hard half, which this site will not skip. Your brother is a whole man and I do not know why he is not here.
Distance may be real. Something in that house may be harder for him than you know. He may have his own reasons, and some of them may be poor ones, and he is also right about something you have never conceded to him. I am not going to explain him to you, and neither is anybody else who was not there.
You are able to hold the unfairness and leave the man alone, and a true grievance has never once required a verdict on somebody's character to be true. The Spirit of God is what keeps a fact from turning into a case file, and it is written in Galatians 6 that the bearing of burdens is a law rather than a favor.
Bear ye one another's burdens
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2, King James Version)
Notice who that verse is aimed at. It is written to the people who might do the bearing, not to the person underneath.
That is worth stopping on, because it has almost certainly been read the other way round for years. Bear ye one another's burdens has functioned in your head as an instruction to you, about him, and it has kept you carrying.
It is not addressed to the one under the weight. It is addressed to everybody standing near.
You have been reading your own instruction into somebody else's verse, and no scripture anywhere has ever once told the one already carrying it to carry more. It is written in Galatians 6:2 that we bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, which is the written word calling shared weight a law rather than a kindness, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand a verse back to a person the right way round.
And there is something in the phrase the law of Christ. Paul is saying that shared burdens are not an optional extra of the faith. They are the fulfilling of it.
So the arrangement you are in is not the holy one and their absence is not the failure of a nice idea. Something is out of shape, and you are allowed to know that, and knowing it does not make you bitter.
You are permitted to see the shape of this clearly, and understanding that a load is badly distributed has never once been the same as resenting the people near it. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a person see accurately without going hard, and Galatians 6 puts the bearing on everybody standing around rather than on the one underneath.
The ask, and why it is small
Now the practical part, and it is deliberately tiny, because the big version does not work.
The big version is the conversation. The one where you finally say it, and lay out the four years, and ask for a fair division. It has been drafted. And it is a conversation that opens something a dinner table cannot hold, and it very often ends with everybody feeling accused and nothing changing.
So do not do the big version yet. Do the small one, this week.
You are able to make one small ask today, and asking for one specific thing has never once required the whole four years to be discussed first. The Holy Spirit is the one who supplies the sentence when a person has not asked in years, and it is written that we bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
One person. One thing. A day and a task. Not: could you help more. That is not an ask, that is a feeling with a question mark on it, and nobody knows what to do with it.
Say: can you take him on Thursday afternoon. Then stop talking and let the silence be theirs.
And when they do it, let it be done badly. Wrong time, wrong way, something forgotten. If you correct it, you have just told them the job is yours and they were only visiting it.
You are handing over one afternoon and nothing else, and letting somebody do a thing imperfectly has never once been a risk to the person you are caring for. The Spirit of God is what makes a woman able to watch somebody fumble a Thursday, and Galatians 6:2 puts the bearing across the whole company.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman locking a back door at eleven at night with an unfinished sentence in her mouth.
You are carrying something heavy and real, and a burden this size has never once been meant to be borne by one person in silence. Galatians 6:2 says bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, addressed to everybody standing near, and the Holy Spirit is the one handing that verse back to you the right way round.
And this, which is the word I came with.
You were never bitter for seeing it clearly, and four years of an unfinished sentence has never once been evidence of anything except a load that is badly shared. The Spirit of God is speaking over somebody putting a kettle on with a nephew at the table, and it is written in Galatians 6 that shared weight is the fulfilling of the law and not an optional kindness.
One person. One Thursday. Then let them get it wrong.
Declare this over yourself
- Sentence I cut off every night at the back door, you have no claim on my mouth any more. Galatians 6:2 says bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, so by the Holy Spirit I say the true thing and I build no case against anybody, in the name of Jesus.
- Four years of doing all of it alone, you were never once the arrangement God called holy. The written word puts the bearing on everybody standing near, and by the Holy Spirit I ask one person for one afternoon this week.
- Father, You wrote that verse to the ones standing around and never to the one already underneath, and You have never once told a tired person to carry more. Your word says bear ye one another's burdens, so by Your Spirit I ask, and I let it be done badly, and I say thank you.
Galatians 6:2
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