Everybody talks about rain as though the difficulty were the rain.
It is not. You do not mind rain. Your children have never once minded rain. The difficulty arrives about eleven minutes after you get home, and it is made of fabric.
Three coats. Six socks. Two pairs of pants that have to come off at the door. And nowhere in your home that is warm and empty and able to hold all of it, so it goes over the backs of chairs and on a radiator and across the tub, and it is still faintly damp the following afternoon, and one of them needs those pants for school.
That is not an excuse. I want to be very clear about that, because I think you have been quietly calling it one.
That is a cost. It has a size and a duration and a knock on effect, and every single article you have read about getting outdoors has priced it at zero.
When thou passest through the waters
There is a promise in Isaiah about water that says something surprising, and it is what it does not say that matters.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. (Isaiah 43:2, King James Version)
When thou passest through the waters.
Not: I will keep you out of them. Not: there will be no water. The promise assumes the going through, and what is promised is presence in the middle of it and that it will not overwhelm.
You are promised company in the middle of the thing, and it was never an offer to remove the difficulty first. Isaiah 43:2 assumes the passing through and puts the promise inside it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a comfort to somebody standing over a pile of wet clothes.
And the word for overflow is worth sitting with. It does not mean the water is not real or that it does not get on you. It means it does not close over your head, which is a much more modest and much more usable promise.
You have been given a promise sized to an ordinary week, and it was never a guarantee that nothing would be difficult. The written word promises against being overwhelmed rather than against getting wet, and the Spirit of God is what makes a modest promise land better than a grand one on a Tuesday.
Price the cost properly, then lower it
So here is the practical part, and it starts by agreeing with you rather than arguing.
The cost is real. Now let us make it smaller, because most of it is avoidable and none of the usual advice has ever tried.
Ten minutes, not thirty. The difference between ten minutes of rain and thirty minutes of rain is not a third of the wetness, it is most of it, because the first ten minutes are absorbed by whatever is already on and the rest goes through.
You are able to shorten the thing that generates the cost, and it has never once been necessary to be out long for it to have counted. The passage promises presence inside the passing through rather than a shorter passage, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman choosing ten minutes on purpose.
Then: no changing at the door. Whatever is already on, go in that. Nobody puts on a special layer, which means nobody generates an extra one to dry.
And go straight from something, not into something. Straight after school, before anybody has settled, so the clothes that get wet are the clothes that were going in the wash anyway.
The drying is a real cost and it is allowed to be counted, and counting it is not the same as refusing to go.
You are permitted to organize this around the laundry rather than around the weather, and it was never a lesser reason to plan a family's week. Isaiah 43 promises through the waters and not around them, which is exactly why the Spirit of God works with a mother inside the actual conditions of her home.
What is left after that
Now, honestly, what is left.
One layer per person, damp, for a few hours. That is the residue after the three changes above, and it is genuinely a manageable number.
And on the days when even that is too much, do not go. Not as a defeat. As a decision that has been made properly, with the cost counted, by somebody who knows what her own week can carry.
You are allowed a real no on a real day, and it has never once been failure to decide against something after weighing it. The written word promises presence in the passing through and never once commands the passing, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a genuine limit from becoming a guilt.
That is the difference this article is trying to make. Not that you go out in the rain more. That the decision stops being a shrug and starts being yours.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman who has been counting a cost nobody else would count with her.
You are not making excuses, and you were never doing anything except arithmetic that happened to be accurate. I am not promising you an easier week. Isaiah 43:2 says when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and puts the promise inside the difficulty rather than instead of it, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who takes the word excuse off a woman standing over a radiator.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have permission to count the drying, and that has never once been the same thing as refusing to go outside. The written word promises against being overwhelmed and says nothing about staying dry, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in a small apartment with somebody making a real decision.
Ten minutes. What is already on. Straight from school.
Declare this over yourself
- Pile of wet clothes with nowhere to dry, you are a real cost and you are not the whole story. Isaiah 43:2 puts God alongside a person passing through the waters rather than around them, so by the Holy Spirit we go out for ten minutes in what we have on in the name of Jesus.
- Word excuse that I have been putting on my own arithmetic, you were never an honest name for it. The written word promises presence inside the difficulty instead of removing it, and by the Holy Spirit I am done apologizing for counting what a wet afternoon costs this home.
- Father, You promised through the waters and not around them. Your word in Isaiah 43 says they shall not overflow, which is a promise sized to an ordinary week, so by Your Spirit I decide this properly today and I let the decision be mine.
Isaiah 43:2
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