Six Years And I Could Not Tell You Why

If somebody asked you what happened, you could not give them a clean answer.

There was a thing at a funeral, or around a house, or a sentence said in a kitchen that neither of you has ever repeated. But if you are honest, that is not really it either. It was a decline. Calls got shorter, then rarer, then became messages, then became birthdays, and now there is a person who shares your childhood and your parents and about four thousand small references nobody else on earth would understand, and you have not had a real conversation with them in six years.

And what keeps it in place is not anger. It is that any move now would be an enormous move. Six years is heavy. A phone call after six years is not a phone call, it is an event, and an event needs a reason and there isn't one and so nothing happens, again, this year.

Three things this article will not do.

It will not decide who was at fault. I was not there, and even if I had been, the answer would not help you.

It will not require an apology from either direction. Half the pieces about this are really about getting somebody to admit something, and that is a different project and it has a much lower success rate than anybody admits.

And it will not promise you a reply. I do not know what they will do. Nobody does.

And one line to draw clearly: if this sibling has hurt you, or contact with them is unsafe for you or for somebody in your care, then do not send anything. This article is for a silence, not for a wound that is still open, and getting advice from somebody qualified where you live comes first.

A brother offended is harder than a strong city

There is a line in Proverbs about exactly this, and what I appreciate is that it does not pretend the thing is easy.

A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. (Proverbs 18:19, King James Version)

Harder to be won than a strong city.

That is not encouragement. It is an honest assessment, and it is the reason this verse is here rather than something warmer. Scripture looked at a rift between brothers and said: this is harder than laying siege to a city, and the arguments involved are like castle bars.

So the difficulty you have been feeling is not a failure of nerve. It is the accurate weight of the thing, recorded in the text, and you have been carrying it correctly, and the Holy Spirit is not accusing anybody of cowardice here.

And notice the word won. A city is taken over time, in stages, not in one motion. Nobody wins a city with a single decisive gesture.

Proverbs 18:19 states the difficulty honestly rather than minimizing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that be permission to go slowly rather than a reason to give up.

You are facing something genuinely hard, and the weight of it has never once been evidence that you lack the nerve. Proverbs 18:19 says a brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns an honest assessment into permission to move slowly.

Make it small on purpose

Now the practical thing, which follows directly from the verse.

You have been waiting for a move big enough to match six years. That is why nothing has happened. Every option you have considered has been proportionate to the silence, and everything proportionate to six years is terrifying, so you keep not doing it.

Proverbs 18:19 uses the language of a siege rather than a single assault, and the Holy Spirit is not asking anybody to take a city in one afternoon.

So go the other way and make it deliberately small. Small enough that it costs them nothing to receive and requires nothing of them at all. Small enough that it could be ignored without either of you having to acknowledge that it was ignored.

That is not cowardice. A small thing that gets sent is infinitely larger than a large thing that never does.

You are able to make the first move small, and it has never once had to match the size of the silence. The written word describes a city won over time rather than in a single motion, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a person out of waiting for a gesture that would be big enough.

One message that asks for nothing

So here is the assignment, and the constraints are the whole thing.

Send one short message that asks for nothing and does not mention the past.

Asks for nothing: no question that requires an answer, no suggestion of a call, no let me know, no we should. A question puts an obligation on them, and an obligation after six years is a weight, and they will feel it and may well not reply because of it.

Does not mention the past: nothing about the gap, no I know it has been a long time, no I have been meaning to. Every one of those opens the subject, and the subject is the strong city, and you are not laying siege to it today.

So what is left? Something like: saw this and thought of you. A photograph of somewhere from when you were children. Something that was funny when you were both small and is still funny. Proverbs 18:19 describes a city taken in stages, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a very small thing count as the first of them.

And then put the phone down and do not watch it.

They may not reply. If they do not, you have still done the thing, and it is done, and nothing about its value depended on them.

Proverbs 18:19 records the difficulty and never once makes the outcome the measure, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when somebody presses send with no idea what happens next.

You are able to send it without the reply, and the sending has never once been worth less for going unanswered. Proverbs 18:19 names the hardness without making success the standard, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a person who has just put a phone face down.