The Woman at Church Who Knows

There are two doors into that building and Charlene has been using the side one since 2021, which everybody assumes is because of the parking.

It is not the parking.

Sister Verna sits third row, aisle side, has done for thirty years, and Sister Verna was the one who found her. Not metaphorically. Found her, physically, in a place and a state Charlene will not describe here, and got her home, and told nobody, and has never in four years said one word about it to anybody including Charlene.

Verna hugs her every single Sunday. Verna asks about her mother. Verna made food when Charlene's aunt died.

And Charlene comes in the side door and sits at the back on the left and leaves during the last song, and it has been four years, and the reason is not shame about God, because that has been settled and settled properly and she could tell you the date.

It is that there is one woman in that room who has the whole picture, and Charlene cannot be in a room with the picture.

You know that pew. It might be a church, an office, a family, a street. One person holds the full version. They have been decent about it. They have never used it and they never will. And you have rearranged your entire route through a building because of what is in somebody else's head.

You are dealing with sins thrown into the sea and you were never carrying them in the third row, and He chose that place on purpose. Micah says thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea, and the sea in that world was the one place a thing went and did not come back; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that geography real for a woman using a side door.

Into the depths of the sea

Let me say what is actually happening, because it will not be what a person expects.

This is not about your standing before God. You settled that. You know the date, and it holds, and you are not one of the people who needs to be persuaded of it.

What is happening is that you are trying to manage a witness. Not an accuser, a witness, and the difference matters and is exactly why nothing has worked: you cannot answer a person who has not said anything. There is no conversation to have and no defense to make, and so the only lever available has been the route you take through a building, and you have been pulling that lever for four years.

And I am not going to tell you to go and speak to Verna. She has chosen silence and there is a real chance her silence is a gift she has been giving you every Sunday for four years. That decision is yours, with people who know you both. It is not a condition of anything here.

Here is where God put it.

He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.Micah 7:19

Consider the choice of location. He could have said He buries them. He could have said He burns them. Micah was written to people who knew that a buried thing is dug up and a burned field grows back the next spring.

The sea, in that world, was the one place with no recovery in it. Nobody dived. Nothing was salvaged. What went into the deep was gone in a way that nothing on land was ever gone, and the depths is specified, which is the part of the sea that no fisherman ever touched.

You have your sins in the one location with no recovery from it, and you were never going to be able to reach down and get them back either. That is what stands written in Micah 7, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a real address for a woman coming in a side door.

And look at the verb before it: he will subdue our iniquities. Subdue is a word for putting something under your foot, for mastering a thing that was stronger than you. He does not merely pardon; He conquers. The thing that had you is described as being overpowered by somebody else.

You are on the other side of something that got overpowered, and you were never expected to win it yourself. Scripture puts subdue immediately before cast, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that order matter to a woman four years on.

And cast is a throwing word. It has force in it. It is not a quiet setting down of something at a distance; it is a deliberate, forceful, decisive act by somebody who intends it to go a long way. God is not described as tidying your history away. He is described as throwing it, hard, into water that has no bottom anybody has found.

You are living downstream of a deliberate throw, and you were never dealing with something quietly filed. The written word uses a verb with force in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person feel the difference between tidied and thrown.

And the plain thing, said the way this site says it every time. Four years of side doors is worth telling somebody about, and a counselor is a good person to tell. So is a friend outside that congregation. That is God's kindness with a face on it. And whatever you decide about Verna, decide it with people who actually know you both.