The Woman Who Asked Her Seems More Together Than She Is

The woman who asked her runs things.

That is the first fact and it is the one that has made the whole thing impossible to process. She runs two things, actually, and she runs them well, and she is the sort of person whose messages arrive on time and whose car is clean and who has never in living memory been late for anything.

And on a Sunday about two weeks ago she sat down next to her with a coffee and asked her, very directly, whether they could talk about something.

She said yes because you say yes.

And she has been in a low grade panic ever since, because she cannot make it make sense.

She is not the together one. She has an entire mental list of who in that building she would go to, and there are at least six names on it, and every one of those women is more capable than her.

Her own week is held together with tape. She was crying in a car park in March for reasons that are still not fully resolved. Her house is not tidy. She has a whole area of her life that she is quietly ashamed of and does not raise with anybody.

So there has been a mistake. That is the only explanation she has been able to construct, and she has constructed it about forty times in a fortnight.

Either the woman meant a different kind of talk. Or she picked her because she was standing nearest. Or, and this is the version that arrives at three in the morning, the woman asked her because she thinks she is somebody she is not, and the conversation will be the moment that comes apart.

And the meeting is on Thursday.

And you have been asked by somebody who looks more capable than you. And you have not spent one minute wondering what they saw. You have spent all of it working out how the mistake happened.

The foremost, and that was exactly the point

There is a sentence in First Timothy where a man describes himself in the worst terms available and then gives the reason God used him anyway.

He calls himself the foremost of sinners, present tense, not as a memory of what he used to be.

And then this.

But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.1 Timothy 1:16

For this reason.

He is not saying God used him despite it. He is saying the fact that it was him is the point of the exhibit, because if it works on the foremost then nobody afterward can rule themselves out.

That is a stated purpose, not a consolation.

You are useful in the specific place where you are least impressive, and Scripture names that as a design rather than an accident. It is written that I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example (1 Timothy 1:16), and it is the Holy Spirit who arranges the exhibit, which means the selection was never about capability.

Now the list of six names, because it deserves examining rather than believing.

You have six women in that building you would go to. Every one more capable.

She did not go to any of them. She had the same list available and better information than you do about most of them, and she came and sat down with a coffee next to the one whose week is held together with tape.

That is a choice, made by a person who runs two things well and does not do anything accidentally.

You were chosen by somebody with excellent judgment and you have spent a fortnight assuming she made an error. Scripture says the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and it is the Holy Spirit who moves a person toward the right one, which He does constantly and which almost never matches anybody's list.

And the three in the morning version.

She asked you because she thinks you are somebody you are not, and Thursday will be where that comes apart.

Look at what that assumes: that your competence is what she is after, and that a discovery of your ordinary life would end the conversation.

The opposite is far more likely. A woman who runs two things and is never late is very often a woman who has nobody she can be a mess in front of, and the person she picks will not be the most capable one. It will be the one she believes will not be shocked.

You may have been chosen precisely because you are not the polished one, and that is not an insult, it is the whole reason. It is written that God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27), and it is His Spirit who guides a capable and lonely woman toward the person who will not perform back at her.

And the area you are quietly ashamed of.

You are not being asked to tell her about it. Nobody on this page is suggesting that, and Thursday is not a confession session and you owe her nothing of the kind.

But the existence of it in you is part of what makes you safe, and she has probably sensed it without knowing what she was sensing, because people can tell.

You are safe to talk to and the reason is the thing you have been counting against yourself. Scripture says a bruised reed He will not break (Isaiah 42:3), and it is the Holy Spirit who has kept you tender through a March you have not resolved, which is what a frightened capable woman is walking toward on Thursday.