I Am Not the One Who Is Sick

The same opening as every page here, because it matters more than the rest. This is not medicine. I am not a doctor or a nurse, nothing on this page is treatment, and nothing here ever takes the place of a clinic or a pharmacist. If the one you are looking after has you worried, ring somebody qualified today. That is not an overreaction, it is the job.

Now. Somebody offered to help this week and you said the sentence.

I am not the one who is sick.

You have said it to your brother. You said it to the woman from church who asked what she could bring. You said it to your own daughter, who asked once and has not asked again, which you have not noticed yet.

And the sentence is true. You are not the one who is sick. Every word of it is accurate, which is precisely why it has worked so well for so long, and why nobody has been able to argue with you.

But a sentence can be true and still be doing something. And what that one is doing is closing a door, every time, on a house that is trying to get in.

Somebody said this to a better man than either of us

There is a scene in Exodus where an old man watches his son in law work and then says something completely undiplomatic.

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18:18, King James Version)

Read who is being spoken to. Moses. Not a proud man, not a lazy man, not somebody making a mess of it. A man doing exactly what needed doing, competently, all day, for people who genuinely needed him.

And the observation is not that he is doing it wrong. It is that it is too heavy, and that no amount of being a good man makes a heavy thing lighter.

You are being told the same thing by the same kind of voice, and it has never once been a criticism of how well you are doing it. Exodus 18:18 addresses somebody who was managing rather than failing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a capable man to hear a warning that is not an accusation.

And notice the phrase both thou, and this people that is with thee. The wearing away is not only his. It reaches the people he is serving.

You have been carrying something that reaches further than you, and no household has ever once been protected by a man running out quietly. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a man the second half of the sentence, and it is written that the wearing away lands on the helper and the helped together.

What your no is actually doing

Let me say the practical half, because this is the half nobody says to men.

Every offer of help that gets refused teaches the person who offered. Not immediately, and not with any hard feelings. But after three or four, people stop offering, because nobody keeps knocking on a door that does not open.

So the house around you gets quieter, and then the quiet becomes evidence. See, nobody offers. And the loop closes.

You are not being let down by these people, and the silence around you has never once been indifference. Exodus 18:18 has a man given help he had not requested by somebody who simply watched him for a day, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what his own refusals have taught his household.

And there is a second thing. The people offering are not offering out of pity. They are offering because they love the person in that bed too and have nothing to do with it, and the gate is you.

You were made the gate and you have never once been asked to keep it shut. The Spirit of God is the one who opens a door a good man has been holding closed, and what is written has an outsider name a load as too heavy without insulting the man carrying it.

The plain routing, and part of it has your name on it

Here is the part of this page that is not comfort, and on an article for a carer it points two ways.

If something is happening right now with the one you are looking after, that is 911, and it is before the rest of this page. If the heavy thing tonight is in your own mind, 988 answers, and a real person picks up, and that is for the man in the hallway as well as the one in the bed. And anything at all in that house that has not been looked at goes to a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist today.

You are included in every line of that, and nobody has ever once been excluded for being the well one. Exodus 18:18 names the helper as somebody at risk in his own right, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man count himself among the people being talked about.

And here is the second half, which is the one you will skip. When did somebody last look at you? If the answer is a shrug, that is a call as well, and it is yours.

You have an appointment of your own and it has never once been a luxury. The Spirit of God is the one who gets a carer to make a call for himself, and what is written warns the helper before it warns anybody else.