The Room I Keep In Case

Nine years, and it has been slept in eleven nights.

She counted. That was the mistake, and it took about four minutes on the back of an envelope, and she has not been able to unknow it since.

The room is lovely. It gets the afternoon light. There is a bed made up with the good linen, and a chair, and a small desk under the window, and a lamp, and a shelf with books on it that somebody might want, and it is dusted every fortnight without fail.

The door is shut.

It has been held, for nine years, in case somebody comes. Her son, if things ever went wrong for him. Her sister, who talked about visiting for two years and then stopped talking about it. A friend from the old church who had a bad winter once and needed somewhere and stayed four nights, and that was six winters ago.

Eleven nights in nine years.

And in those nine years there has been a woman on her road doing a course with three children in a two bedroom house, and a man between places for a fortnight in the summer, and her niece needing somewhere quiet to sit exams, and she thought about it every single time, and every single time the room stayed shut.

Not because she is unkind. Because it is kept ready. That is the whole reason and it is the only reason and she has never said it out loud until she counted.

When it is in the power of thine hand to do it

Sit down on the edge of that made bed a minute, because there is a proverb about a hand that is already able, and the whole weight of it sits on that clause.

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.Proverbs 3:27

When it is in the power of thine hand.

The verse is not aimed at people with nothing. It has no interest in what you cannot do, and it does not ask you to find a room you do not have. It is written to a person whose hand is already able, and it names one risk for that person, and the risk is withholding.

Not refusing. Withholding, which is a much quieter word, and which can be done for nine years by a person who fully intends to say yes as soon as the right occasion turns up.

Hear this on the edge of the bed. You are not an inhospitable woman, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture speaks to the hand that is already able and never once asks anybody to give a room away, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has had that bed made up with good linen for nine years running.

Now let me name what the readiness is doing, because it is not selfishness and that would be a false word for a woman who dusts an empty room every fortnight.

Readiness is a form of holding.

The room is kept for a use that has not come, and every actual use that presents itself is measured against the imagined one and found to be the wrong sort, because the imagined one is an emergency involving her son and nothing else can compete with that.

So the room stays perfect and stays shut, and the woman doing the course carries on at the kitchen table with three children in the house, and nobody has done anything wrong at any point, and nine years have gone.

Hear this too, and let it land in that light. You have not been hoarding anything, and Scripture is what says so. What is written speaks about withholding good from a hand already able, and the Spirit of God has never asked you to be ready in advance for something He has not yet brought, and your son is not less loved because a niece sat exams at that desk in June.

And let me be plain, because this subject gets ruined and this site will not ruin it. Nobody is asking you for your room. Not this page, not any church, not anybody who teaches you anything, and the idea that a spare room belongs to an organization because you believe something is not in Scripture and is not welcome here. The room is yours. Somebody uses it for an afternoon and then you have it back and the door can shut again.