I Have Never Asked Her Anything

Eight years and you have never asked her a question.

Not one. You have been perfectly pleasant. You have said hello properly and passed things and made the remark about the traffic, and once, memorably, you both looked at a dog together for about a minute.

But a question, aimed at her, about her, that she would have to think about before answering: not once in eight years.

And it is not that you do not like her. You do like her. It is that you are eighty one, and she is thirty four, and somewhere along the way you concluded that a man your age asking a young woman about her life would be an odd thing to do.

So you have said nothing, warmly, for eight years, and she almost certainly thinks you do not care.

Why it never happened

Let me name the actual obstacle, because it is not indifference and it is not manners.

It is that the first question is enormous. In year one it would have been ordinary. In year eight it carries eight years with it, and anything you ask now will land as significant, and neither of you is prepared for a significant moment at a dinner table.

So you say something about the traffic, which is safe, and the debt gets one year larger.

You have been kept out by the size of the first question, and no silence has ever once been made of anything except an accumulation of ordinary evenings. Proverbs 20:5 says counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out, which is the written word making the drawing out somebody's job, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put an ordinary question into a room after eight years.

And she is a whole woman at that table. She is not waiting to be interviewed and she is not keeping score.

She is, however, thirty four and in a family where the oldest man has never asked her anything, and she has drawn the only conclusion available to her, which is that she is tolerated rather than wanted. She is right about at least one thing nobody in that family has conceded.

You are able to change what somebody has concluded about you, and eight years of a wrong conclusion has never once been permanent. The Spirit of God is what makes a first question possible late, and it is written in Proverbs 20 that a man of understanding draws out deep water.

A man of understanding will draw it out

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. (Proverbs 20:5, King James Version)

Two halves and both of them are about you rather than about her.

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water. What a person actually thinks sits a long way down. It is not hidden on purpose and it is not being withheld. It is simply deep, which is the ordinary condition of everybody.

And then the second half, which assigns the work. A man of understanding will draw it out.

Draw out is a bucket word. It is what somebody does at a well. It requires a person to go over, let something down, and pull, and nothing at all happens if nobody does it.

You are the one holding the bucket in that room, and no depth in another person has ever once come up on its own. It is written in Proverbs 20:5 that a man of understanding will draw it out, which is the written word putting the job on the asker, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary question into a bucket going down.

And there is something in the phrase a man of understanding that is worth taking. It is not describing a man with a gift for conversation. It is describing somebody who knows that the water is down there.

You already know that about her. You have known for eight years that there is a whole person at that table.

You have known the water was there the entire time, and knowing has never once been the same as lowering anything into it. The Spirit of God is the one who turns a knowing into a doing, and Proverbs 20 makes the drawing out the work of the one who understands.

The question, and the size of it

Here is the practical thing, and the key is to make it small enough to be ordinary.

Do not ask a large question. Nothing about how she is finding the family, nothing about the eight years, nothing that reads as a moment.

Ask about a fact. Where did you grow up. What did your father do. How did you end up in that line of work.

You are able to ask something small enough that nobody notices it, and one factual question has never once needed to carry eight years on its back. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary sentence do more than it looks like it should, and it is written that counsel in the heart of man is like deep water.

The reason a fact works is that it is answerable without any risk to her, and it opens onto everything else. Nobody can answer where they grew up in one word, and inside the answer there will be four things you did not know.

Then ask about one of them. That is the second bucket, and the second bucket is where the real work happens.

And do not apologize for not having asked before. Do not say I should have asked you this years ago. That turns a question into an occasion, and she would have to comfort you about the eight years, which is not what any of this is for.

You are able to ask without an apology attached, and a question that arrives eight years late has never once needed a preface to be welcome. The Spirit of God is what keeps a small thing small, and Proverbs 20:5 puts the whole responsibility on the man with the bucket.