She Tried to Help and I Humiliated Her

It was a Wednesday in November and it was on a doorstep, and there were three other people close enough to hear, which is the detail that has never gone away.

Sian had come round with a plant. That was all. A plant in a pot and a card, and she had rehearsed something and got about two sentences into it, standing on the step, in the rain, being kind.

And Rhiannon, who had been drinking since about two, said four sentences to her that she can still repeat word for word eleven years later, and every one of them was aimed at something Sian had told her in confidence.

Sian did not cry. She said, right, and put the plant down on the step, and went back down the path.

The plant died. Rhiannon has never planted anything since and she is aware that this is not a coincidence.

They have not spoken since. Sian moved to Cardiff in about 2017. Rhiannon knows this because she has looked, more than once, late at night.

She stopped drinking six years ago. She has done a great deal of work. She has a life she would not have believed in 2014. And there is a Wednesday in November that starts playing whenever she is tired, in her own voice, with the exact four sentences in it.

You know that doorstep. It might be a friend, a sister, a colleague, a person who came with a plant. They were being kind and you used the worst thing you had, and it landed, and you have never got over the accuracy of your own aim.

You have transgressions blotted out like a cloud, and you were never going to be able to gather those words back yourself. Isaiah says I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and a scattered cloud cannot be reassembled by anybody; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a live fact for a woman eleven years on from a doorstep in the rain.

Blotted out, as a thick cloud

Let me be careful and clear, the way this site always tries to be.

I am not telling you to contact Sian. Eleven years is a long time, she moved away, and a message from you would land in her life on a Tuesday she has not planned for, and only somebody who knows both of you can weigh that. It is a real question and it is not mine to answer. Nothing in this article is conditional on it.

What is available today is a different thing entirely, and it is the thing you have not done in eleven years, because you have been standing in the wrong direction.

I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.Isaiah 44:22

Look at the image, because the prophet chose it with care. A cloud. Not a rock rolled away, not a stain washed out, not a page torn from a book. A cloud, which is a thing that looks solid and permanent from underneath, and which cannot be put back together by anybody once it has gone. You cannot gather a cloud. You cannot find the pieces. There is no version of you clever or determined enough to reassemble one.

You are dealing with something nobody can reassemble, and you were never going to be able to gather those four sentences back into existence. That is what stands written in Isaiah 44, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that image land on a woman who has been holding an exact transcript for eleven years.

And then the instruction: return unto me. Not make it right first. Not go back and undo it. Return, which is a direction word, and it assumes that the person being spoken to is facing somewhere else.

That is the sentence that names your last eleven years. You have not been facing away from God in rebellion. You have been facing a doorstep in November, turned around, looking at a thing that has already been scattered, and calling that repentance. It is not repentance. It is rehearsal.

You are called to turn rather than to fix, and you were never asked to go back and repair a cloud. Scripture says return unto me, which is a matter of direction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a person's face who has been staring at the same November for over a decade.

And the reason given at the end, which is the order that makes the whole verse work: for I have redeemed thee. Not so that He will. Because He has. The redemption is stated in the past tense as the ground of the invitation, which means you are not turning around in the hope of being received; you are turning around because you already have been.

You are turning toward something already settled, and you were never approaching on approval. The written word puts the redemption before the returning, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that order right for a woman who is used to approaching everything on approval.

And the plain thing, said the way it is said in every article here. Eleven years of an exact transcript is worth telling somebody about, and this is precisely what a counselor is for. So is a friend, so is the room where people say true things out loud. That is God's kindness with a face on it, and it is a far better place than a late night search to decide anything about Sian.