I Leave A Note Instead Of Asking

You write it out and you leave it where they will find it.

By the kettle, usually. Sometimes on the arm of the chair. Somewhere they will come across it on their own, in their own time, without you in the room.

And they answer it later, or they do the thing, or they say something about it in passing, and it all works perfectly well.

You have been doing this for years and it has never failed you.

But there is a question underneath it that you have never settled, and it comes up every time you put a piece of paper down and walk out of a room.

Is this wisdom, or is it cowardice?

You have argued both sides. Wisdom, because it gives them time and does not put anybody on the spot. Cowardice, because you cannot make yourself say it out loud with a face in front of you.

And because you have never settled it, every note carries a small unresolved thing with it, and after enough years that adds up.

Let me try to settle it, because I think it is mostly one of them and there is one small piece of the other in it.

Write the vision, and make it plain

There is an instruction to write something down, and the reason given is entirely practical.

And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. (Habakkuk 2:2, King James Version)

Write it. That is the instruction, and it comes from God, and there is nothing apologetic in it.

And the reason is that a written thing can be read by somebody moving, at their own pace, without the person who wrote it standing there.

You are permitted to write it plain, and no written thing has ever once been the lesser form of saying something. Habakkuk 2:2 says write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, and the Holy Spirit is the one who dignifies a habit a woman has been half apologizing for.

Notice the phrase make it plain. Not make it gentle. Not soften it. Plain, meaning clear, meaning readable at speed.

The instruction is about being understood rather than about being comfortable.

You have been given an instruction about clarity, and no note anywhere has ever once been improved by being made softer than it needed to be. The Holy Spirit is the one who values clear over comfortable, and it is written that the plainness is so that a running man can read it.

And notice the whole context. Habakkuk has just asked God a hard question and is standing on a tower waiting for an answer.

The answer, when it comes, is: write it down. Writing is what God chose in a moment that mattered.

You were never using a second best method, and no message God gave in that chapter has ever once been given any other way. The Spirit of God is the one who chose writing in a moment that mattered, and Scripture puts the instruction in God's own mouth without a word of apology.

Wisdom, and the one small piece of the other

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not settle a question a woman has argued with herself about for years.

Here is the wisdom part, and it is most of it.

A note gives somebody time. It gets read when there is room for it, it gets thought about before it is answered, and nobody is put on the spot in a doorway. It is also permanent, so nothing is misremembered and nothing has to be held in anybody's head. And it does not use up a conversation two people were enjoying.

Every one of those is a real advantage and not one of them is avoidance.

You are using a method with four real advantages, and no written question has ever once been the coward's version of a spoken one. The Spirit of God is the one who honors a method rather than suspecting it, and Habakkuk 2:2 has God choosing writing when it mattered.

Now the small piece of the other, and it is not the writing.

It is the leaving.

The note is good. Putting it down and walking out of the room is where the small unresolved thing lives, because it means nobody ever sees you ask, including you.

And a woman who never sees herself ask never finds out that asking is survivable.

That is a gap in the teaching and it is not a fault in the woman. Nobody ever separates the two halves.

You have been leaving rather than writing, and no piece of paper has ever once been the part of this that anybody was avoiding. The written word puts the writing in God's own instruction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates a good method from the one small habit attached to it.

Hand it over

Now the small thing, and it changes nothing about the note.

I am not going to ask you to say it out loud. The note is good, the note stays, and nobody here is taking away a method that works.

Write the note as usual, and hand it to them instead of leaving it.

You are able to put a piece of paper into somebody's hand, and one handed note has never once been more exposing than a spoken sentence. Habakkuk 2:2 has the writing commanded and the plainness commanded with it, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a woman stays in the room for four seconds.

Write it exactly as you always do. Same words, same paper, same everything. Then find them, and hold it out, and say something ordinary. Here, this is the thing I was going to leave by the kettle.

And then stay for about four seconds while they take it. That is the whole exercise. Not while they read it. While they take it.

Because those four seconds are the part that has been missing for years, and they are the part that teaches a woman that asking is survivable.

You are staying in the room for four seconds and no longer, and handing something over has never once obliged anybody to read it in front of you. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in four seconds a person has always walked out of, and it is written that the writing was for somebody who reads it as they go.