A Regular Stopped Coming In

Six years, and then nothing.

He came in most weeks. Not a friend exactly. But six years of the same thing at roughly the same hour, and he had opinions about the weather, and he once brought you something when your father died.

And then the whole business happened, and he stopped.

No conversation. No complaint. He did not come in and say anything, and he did not write anything, and he did not tell anybody in your hearing.

He just stopped.

You know it is not about you. You were not consulted about any of it, you found out when everybody else did, and there is nothing you could have done differently in your building.

But he does not know that, or he knows it and it did not matter, and either way there is a hole in a Tuesday morning that used to have a man in it.

Here is the specific thing.

You never got thirty seconds. Not one. If he had come in angry you could have said something. If he had written you could have replied. There has been no opportunity anywhere.

And you have started rehearsing what you would say if you saw him, which is a bad sign in a man and you know it.

There is a psalm that says the exact sentence, and it does not correct anybody for saying it.

Forgotten as a dead man out of mind

David says something that is startling to find in a book.

I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel. (Psalm 31:12, King James Version)

He does not soften it. He does not add a but.

Forgotten as a dead man out of mind. That is a man saying that he has been dropped out of somebody's world entirely, and the psalm lets the sentence stand as it is.

You have a sentence in Scripture that says the thing you have not been able to say out loud, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put that in the book. Psalm 31:12 lets it stand rather than correcting it, and He put it there for men who lose people without a conversation.

That is worth more than a comfort, so let me stay with it.

This has not been said to anybody, because on the face of it a man who lost a customer has nothing to complain about. Customers come and go, that is the trade, and saying it hurt sounds absurd out loud.

The psalm does not think it is absurd. It gives it a line, and a strong one, and it does not add any qualification about being reasonable.

You are not being unreasonable, and it is written as a plain sentence rather than as a complaint that needed correcting. The Spirit of God is the one who allows a thing like that to be said out loud, and Psalm 31 is where He allows it.

Now the part of the psalm that is doing the work under that verse.

Read the line before it and the one after. He is surrounded by people who have withdrawn, and in the middle of it he says: but I trusted in thee, O LORD.

He does not resolve the withdrawal. Nobody comes back in that psalm. What changes is who he is looking at.

You have somewhere to look that is not the door he stopped coming through, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does that in a man. Scripture puts the trusting right next to the being forgotten rather than after it, and Psalm 31:12 sits inside exactly that arrangement.

The rehearsing is the thing to deal with

Let me name the practical problem, because the man is not coming back this week and the rehearsing is happening every day.

There is a speech being built in that truck. It has grown. It probably has three parts now and one of them is slightly sharp.

That is what an unspoken thing does when it has no address. It gets better and longer and eventually it gets an edge, and then one day a person actually appears and the speech is far too large for the moment.

And it will be a moment. If you see him it will be in a parking lot or across a street and it will last about nine seconds.

You have been preparing something that will not fit the actual occasion, and it is written that the psalm says the sentence and turns to God rather than to the people who left. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a speech out of a man, and He does it before the moment rather than during it.

So the speech has to go, and something much smaller has to take its place.

If you see him, say hello. First. Before he decides anything. And then say nothing at all about any of it unless he raises it.

You are able to hand him a hello rather than an account, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes nine seconds enough. Scripture puts the being forgotten and the trusting in the same breath, and Psalm 31 is why nothing has to be settled in them.

Say hello first

So here is the thing to do, and it may be next week or it may be next year.

If you see him, say hello first. Use his name.

Then say nothing about the business, the incident, the six years, or the Tuesdays. Not one word, unless he opens it himself.

You are giving him something rather than getting something back, and Psalm 31:12 says the sentence out loud and then turns toward God. The Spirit of God is the one who is in that parking lot, and He will be there whether or not the man says anything back.

The reason nothing else can be said is that anything else is a request. Any mention of it, however gentle, asks him to explain or to reassure or to come back, and he will feel the request and it will end whatever was still there.

A hello asks for nothing. And a man who is handed a hello with nothing attached is being told something true about the person who handed it to him.

You have been given a way to say the whole thing in one word, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries that hello. The written word puts the trusting alongside the loss rather than beyond it, and Psalm 31:12 is where the loss is allowed to be named without being fixed.

Then open in the morning and stand at the counter the way you always do.