The Shower Running So Nobody Hears

The extractor fan comes on with the light and it makes a noise like something being sanded, and Yvette has learned that the fan plus the shower is enough that nobody in the hallway can tell what is happening in here.

She is on the floor with her back against the side of the tub. The water has been running for eleven minutes and she has not been in it. Her hair is dry. Her robe is on. On the other side of the door the house is doing what the house does at seven: somebody is in the kitchen, a cupboard shuts, the radio goes on and then down.

She has done this before. She knows exactly how long she has. About twenty minutes before somebody needs the bathroom and the not being in the shower becomes a thing that has to be explained.

Last night happened. And what is going on in here is not really about last night, it is about the enormous machinery of hiding: the account she is building of the evening, the version she will hand out, the parts she will move, the tone of voice she will use, all of it being constructed at speed on a bathroom floor at seven in the morning with the water going.

That is what is exhausting. Not the night. The construction.

Somebody knocks and says her name and says are you okay and she says yes in a voice that is completely fine, and the footsteps go away, and she sits there with her hand over her mouth.

Let me speak to you now, if this is your morning and your floor.

I am not going to ask you how long it had been. Nobody is counting anything here and nobody ever will. I am not going to say one word about starting over. And I am not going to tell you what last night makes you, because it does not make you that, and there is not one ounce of extra weight coming from me this morning.

You are not required to construct anything today, and you were never being asked for an account before you could be met. The psalm has a man saying I acknowledged my sin unto thee and I did not hide it, and the forgiveness arrives in the same breath as the sentence; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a real transaction on a bathroom floor with an extractor fan going.

I acknowledged, and thou forgavest

Let me name the actual weight, because if you have never sat on a bathroom floor at seven in the morning you would name the wrong thing.

The weight is not the guilt. Guilt is honest and guilt is finite. The weight is the hiding, which has no bottom to it, because every hour it goes on it needs another story built on top: another detail managed, another face arranged, another version kept consistent with a version you told somebody last week. And you have been doing that since you woke up, on a floor, with the water running, and you are tired in a way that sleep does not touch.

David describes exactly this, and he describes it physically.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.Psalm 32:3-4

Bones aging. Roaring all day. Dried out like a field in August. That is not a description of somebody being punished for what they did. Read it again: it is a description of what keeping silence was doing to him. The exhaustion in that verse belongs to the silence, not to the sin.

You are being worn out by the hiding and not by the sin, and you were never carrying a punishment God had laid on you this morning. That is what stands written in Psalm 32, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates those two things for a woman who has had them fused together since about half past six.

And then the next verse, and I want you to notice the speed of it.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.Psalm 32:5

He says I said, I will confess, and before the sentence is even finished, and thou forgavest. The forgiveness lands in the middle of the intention. There is no interval. There is no period of proving, no waiting to see whether he means it, no penance served between the two clauses, and Hebrew poetry does not put things next to each other by accident.

You have forgiveness that arrives at the speaking, and you were never going to be kept waiting while somebody checked. Scripture puts thou forgavest in the same sentence as I will confess, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that immediate on a floor where a woman has her hand over her mouth.

And notice what the psalm does not ask for. It does not ask for a good performance of sorrow. It does not ask for a complete account, or for the right emotional temperature, or for a promise about the future. It asks for one thing, and the word is acknowledged, which is the plainest possible word: say the true thing to God, in the fewest words, without arranging it.

You are able to do the whole of what is being asked in one sentence, and you were never expected to produce anything more elaborate than the truth. The written word uses the word acknowledged, and the Holy Spirit is the one who receives a plain sentence said out loud over the sound of a fan and calls the transaction complete.

Now the plain and necessary thing, and I am putting it here where you cannot miss it. If your body is bad this morning, go and see a doctor today and tell them the truth. Do not decide anything about your body, or about stopping, on your own. That is not weak faith, it is basic care of a person God loves. And beyond that: the friend who already knows, the counselor, the helpline, the room with the circle of chairs, all of that is God's kindness with a face on it. Reaching for it today is one of the ways He has always brought people out from behind doors, and I would far rather you made a call than turned the shower on again.