Their Rooms Are Still Full Of Their Things

They have both had their own places for years and their rooms are exactly as they left them.

The posters are still up. The drawers have things in them. There is a shelf in one of those rooms that has not been touched since a summer that is now a long way back, and if either of them came home for a weekend they would sleep in the same bed under the same ceiling as they did at seventeen.

You have two rooms in your house that belong to people with mortgages.

And I want to say what I think is going on before anything else, because the obvious explanation is not the right one.

The obvious explanation is that you are holding on. That is what people say, gently, at some point, and it lands badly because it is not accurate.

What is actually happening is that nobody has told you it is allowed.

There is no moment. Nobody comes round and says: those rooms are yours again now. The children moved out gradually and then completely and at no point was there a handover, and so the rooms stayed in a state that was correct in 2016 and nobody has issued any instruction since.

So tonight is not about clearing anything. It is about one thing of yours going in.

She kept all these things

There is a line about Mary that is usually read as sentiment and is actually about a discipline.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19, King James Version)

Kept. In her heart. That is where the keeping is located, and it is worth noticing that it is not located anywhere else.

You are able to keep somebody in the place Scripture puts the keeping, and a room held in one state has never once been where anybody was kept. Luke 2:19 puts the keeping in the heart rather than in an arrangement, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a woman standing on a landing between two rooms.

Now look at what Mary is doing in that verse, and look at what she is not doing.

She is holding things. Keeping them, turning them over, carrying them with her.

And she is doing it while carrying on. That verse is in the middle of a life that continues. She keeps and ponders and then there are twelve chapters of things happening, and nothing is preserved in a room anywhere.

You have a way of keeping that travels with you, and a preserved room has never once been able to hold a person the way a heart does. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps things in a person rather than in a house, and it is written in Luke 2:19 that she kept them in her heart and went on living.

What the rooms are actually doing

Now let me be honest about what those two rooms are currently doing, because it is worth naming.

They are not keeping your children. Your children are fine and they are elsewhere and they have their own rooms now, and they have not thought about the poster on that wall since about 2017.

They are not welcoming your children either. A grown adult coming home for a weekend does not need a shrine to their seventeen year old self. Most of them find it slightly strange, and would not say so.

What the rooms are doing is standing empty, in a house where you live, while you use about four rooms out of six.

You are living in about four rooms of a house you keep the whole of, and two preserved rooms have never once been doing what they appear to be doing. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what a room is actually accomplishing, and Luke 2:19 puts the keeping in the heart and lets the life continue.

And here is the piece that matters most, and it is about them rather than about you.

Your children will one day have to deal with those rooms. That is a real thing and it is worth thinking about once. Two rooms preserved for thirty years is a job that lands on somebody eventually, and it lands hardest if nothing was ever begun.

One thing of yours going in tonight is not a threat to any of that. It is the beginning of a house that is being lived in by the people who are in it, and that is the version of this house they would want.

You are able to begin something small on behalf of everybody, and one object of your own has never once been an eviction of anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a small act on a landing, and it is written in Luke 2:19 that the keeping happened in a heart while a life went on.

And this, plainly, in these words. Those rooms are not a report on you. Not on your mothering, not on your grief about them growing, not on whether you have let go correctly. Two rooms exactly as they were is not a verdict on the mother, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while she is standing on the landing.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from two bedrooms, and how a house has been kept has never once been a measure of how much anybody was loved. Luke 2:19 puts the keeping in the heart in Luke 2, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is on the landing with you.

One thing of yours, going in

So here is the assignment, and the direction is the whole of it. Something goes in. Nothing comes out.

Move one thing of yours into one of their rooms tonight and put it where you will see it every morning.

One thing that is yours. Something you use, or read, or like. Not storage. Not something being put away in there because there is space.

Something of yours, that means a reason for you to be in that room, on an ordinary morning.

You are putting something of your own into a room in your own house, and one object going in has never once been a thing taken out. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman walks into a room she has been keeping, and Luke 2:19 locates the keeping in a heart rather than in an arrangement.

And nothing of theirs moves. That is the rule and it is not a compromise.

The poster stays. The drawers stay. The shelf stays exactly as it is. Nothing is boxed, nothing is bagged, nothing is decided about anybody's belongings, and if either of them walks in next month they will not be able to see that anything has changed except that there is one thing of their mother's in there.

Because the direction is what makes this possible. If tonight involved anything coming out it would not happen, and both of us know that, and there is no need to make this harder than it is.

You are moving in rather than clearing out, and a room with one of your own things in it has never once been a room somebody was removed from. The Spirit of God is the one present when a house starts being lived in by the people who are in it, and it is written in Luke 2:19 that she kept these things and pondered them and carried on.