It Is From A Marriage That Ended

Half the things in that room were chosen by two people and only one of them lives here.

And they are not in the category that anybody has a word for. They are not mementos, because nobody keeps mementos of a marriage that ended. They are not neutral either, because a lamp that two people picked out on a Saturday is not the same object as a lamp.

So they sit in the room, useful and slightly loud, and there is no established way to deal with them.

The advice, if anybody gives any, is one of two things. Clear the lot, which is expensive and impractical and would leave an empty room and no money. Or ignore it, which is not something a person can decide to do.

Neither of those is help, and both of them assume that the only question is whether an object stays or leaves.

There is a third variable and nobody talks about it, and it is the whole of this article.

Where the thing is.

An object in the place it was chosen for carries the choosing. The same object, in a different place, chosen by you for that place, is an object you put there. Same lamp. Entirely different transaction. And nothing had to be thrown away or replaced or paid for.

I will restore the years

There is a line in Joel about years being given back, and the thing that is restored in it is not the objects.

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. (Joel 2:25, King James Version)

The years. Not the harvest. Not the property. The years.

You are somebody God speaks to about years rather than about property, and a lamp has never once been what was actually at stake in any of this. Joel 2:25 puts the restoring on the years themselves, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a woman standing in a room half chosen by somebody else.

Now look at what is remarkable about that promise, because it is easy to read past.

Years cannot be given back. That is what makes the verse enormous rather than sentimental. Time does not run backwards and nobody gets the actual months returned to them.

Which means what is being promised is something other than a rewind, and whatever it is, it operates on a period of a life rather than on a list of things that were lost.

You have a promise about a period of your life rather than about a list of what went, and the years have never once been recoverable by getting anything back. The Spirit of God is the one who restores years rather than property, and it is written in Joel 2:25 that the years are what He named.

Where a thing is

Now the practical piece, and it is the only technique in this article.

Every object in a house has a location, and the location holds a decision.

The lamp is beside that chair because two people decided, on a specific afternoon, that it should go there. And every look at that corner is a look at a decision made by a couple, and the couple is what is loud, not the lamp.

You are able to move a thing without answering any question about whether it stays, and where an object stands has never once been settled by who chose it. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a change nobody has to justify, and Joel 2:25 promises years rather than an inventory.

Move the lamp to the other side of the room and something specific happens. It is now beside a chair because you put it there. The decision in that corner is yours, made this week, by one person, and the object is doing a job you gave it.

You are able to change what an object carries by changing where it stands, and a thing in a new place has never once still been holding the decision that put it in the old one. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something as small as a location, and Joel 2:25 puts the restoring on the years rather than on the objects in a house.

And here is the second half of the technique, and it is the part that does the most.

Put something you chose alone beside it.

Because a moved object on its own is still ambiguous. A moved object with something next to it that you picked, by yourself, since, is a small statement of fact about who is doing the choosing in that house now.

Two objects. One inherited from a marriage, in a new place, and one chosen by one person. Side by side. That is a sentence, and it says something true, and nobody has to read it but you.

You are the only person choosing in this house, and an arrangement made by one person has never once been a lesser arrangement than one made by two. The Spirit of God is the one present when a woman arranges her own room by her own hand, and it is written in Joel 2:25 that God restores the years.

And this, plainly, in these words. That room is not a report on you. Not on the marriage, not on how it ended, not on anything anybody did. A room half chosen by two people is not a verdict on the woman living in it, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while she is standing in it.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a living room, and what is standing in a house has never once been a statement about who lives there. Joel 2:25 promises the years in Joel 2, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

One moved, one chosen

So here is the assignment, and it is two objects and about six minutes.

Move one thing that was chosen in the marriage to a different place in the house tonight, and put one thing you chose alone beside it.

Pick a small one. Not the couch. A lamp, a small table, a picture that stands rather than hangs, a bowl, anything liftable.

Move it somewhere else in the house. Somewhere you decide, this week, for a reason of your own, even if the reason is only that the light is better there.

You are making one decision about where a thing goes, and a moved object has never once carried the decision that put it in the old place. The Holy Spirit is the one who works through a location rather than requiring an empty room, and Joel 2:25 promises the restoring of the years rather than the replacing of the furniture.

Then put something you chose alone beside it.

It does not have to be impressive and it does not have to be new. Something picked since, by yourself, for any reason. A book. A plant. A thing a friend gave you. Something from a place you went on your own.

Side by side, with a little space, arranged on purpose.

And then leave the pair of them there and look at it tomorrow, because the thing you will notice is not about the marriage. It is that there is an arrangement in that house that one person made, and it is the beginning of a room that has one set of decisions in it rather than two.

You are beginning a room with one set of decisions in it, and two objects side by side have never once been too small a beginning for a house. The Spirit of God is the one present when a person starts arranging her own life by her own hand, and it is written in Joel 2:25 that He restores the years that were eaten.