The same words at the top of every article on this site. This is not medicine. I have no clinical training, nothing on this page is treatment, and nothing I write ever takes the place of a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist. If somebody in that house is unwell, ring somebody qualified today, and do that before you read another line about what was handed down.
Now. There is a card in a drawer or a tin or the back of a book.
It is in her handwriting. It might be a recipe. It might be a way of doing something. It might be four lines about what to do when somebody in the house is poorly, written out because you asked her once, probably on the phone, probably when you were much younger than you are now.
And the reason it has never been thrown away is not the information. You could not tell me what is on it without looking. The reason it has never been thrown away is the loops on the letters and the way she crossed a t.
So there are two things in that drawer and you have been treating them as one thing, and that is the whole of what I want to say to you today.
What was actually commanded to be handed on
There is a line in Deuteronomy about teaching children that people quote in general terms, and the specific content of it matters here.
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7, King James Version)
Read what them refers to. It is not household practice. It is not the way a family does things. It is the words of God, named a few lines earlier, and the command is to hand those on in the ordinary hours of a house.
The handing on is real and it is commanded. What is being handed on is specified, and it is not a method.
You are permitted to hand on what was commanded and to be free with everything else. Deuteronomy 6:7 is precise about the content of what gets taught in a house, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person sort an inheritance without feeling like a traitor.
And I love where it puts the teaching. Sitting in the house, walking by the way, lying down, rising up. Ordinary hours in an ordinary home, which is exactly where your grandmother was when she said whatever is on that card.
You have been given a real inheritance and it has never once been the thing written on that paper. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a person what they actually received, and it is written that the teaching happens in the ordinary hours rather than in the instructions.
Keeping the hand without keeping the rule
Let me be practical, because there is something to do here and it is small.
The card contains a set of words and a set of marks. The words are information, and disagreeing with them is allowed. The marks are her hand, and they are not making any claim at all.
You can keep one without keeping the other. In fact you almost certainly want to, and the reason it has felt impossible is that nobody has ever given you permission to say so out loud.
You are allowed to keep the handwriting and to leave the instruction where it is. Deuteronomy 6:7 specifies what a household is to carry forward and leaves everything else to the household's judgment, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates a person from a piece of paper.
And here is what I would say gently about the content. Some of what is on that card is plain kindness and you should go on doing it. Some of it is practical and harmless. And some of it is a frightened woman from a hard century, and you are permitted to love her and decline it.
You were never asked to carry her fear forward, and no grandmother has ever once wanted that particular inheritance kept. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a person hold a dead woman's love and put down her worry in the same afternoon, and what is written commands the words of God through a household rather than the household's own methods.
The plain routing, which is not on the card
Here is the part of this page that is not comfort, and on an article about a handed down instruction it is the one that matters most.
If somebody in that house is in trouble right now, that is 911, and nothing on any card is part of that answer. If the heavy thing today is in your own mind, 988 answers, and a real person picks up. And if anybody in that house is unwell, ring a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist today, and do not work through what is written on the card first.
You are permitted to go past what she wrote, and going past it has never once been a rejection of her. Deuteronomy 6:7 names the thing to be handed on and quietly leaves a great deal outside it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves somebody from a drawer to a phone.
I will say the obvious thing once, because this site has to. Nothing on that card is medicine and neither is anything I write. Whatever is on it, the appointment is the part that changes a week.
You have a call that has never once been replaced by anything anybody wrote down. The Spirit of God is the one who is present with somebody ringing instead of reaching, and what is written puts the ordinary hours of a house at the service of God's words rather than of a family's rules.
So here is the word I came with, and it is for one woman with a card in a tin.
You are free to keep her and to decline what she wrote, and those two have never once been in conflict. I am not making light of her. Deuteronomy 6:7 is exact about what a household hands on and it is not a set of methods, which leaves a great deal of what any family does in the category of affection rather than instruction, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my telling who lets somebody love a woman and put down her worry in the same afternoon.
And this, which is the one I want left standing when the tin closes:
You have inherited the love, and the love has never once been what was written on the paper. The Spirit of God is the one who is present with somebody reading four old lines out loud for the first time in twenty years, and what is written puts the teaching in the ordinary hours and not in the instructions.
If you want one sentence to say holding it, say this one: I can keep her kindness and put down her worry, and the hand that wrote it is not the same as what it says.
Declare this over yourself
- Instruction written on that card, you are not my grandmother and you never were. Deuteronomy 6:7 names the words of God as the thing a house hands on, so by the Holy Spirit you do not govern this kitchen, in the name of Jesus.
- Feeling that declining it is declining her, you have no standing on this floor. The written word specifies what gets taught and leaves the rest to the household, and by the Holy Spirit I am finished treating a piece of paper and a woman as one object.
- Father, You told a household to teach Your words in the ordinary hours of an ordinary day. Your word says when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, so by Your Spirit I read it out loud today and say what I am keeping, and I make the call.
Deuteronomy 6:7
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