I Complained About It For Years

You have been complaining about it since about the third year.

The noise. The thing it does on the final spin. The fact that it walks about two inches across the floor every time and has to be pushed back. The door that has to be lifted slightly.

Every single one of those is true. It has been a difficult machine and everybody who has been in this kitchen knows it, because it has been mentioned to all of them.

And it is going on Friday, and you are standing beside it with your hand on it, and there is a feeling that has arrived that you did not expect.

It is something like shame.

Because it did the work. For eleven years, badly and loudly and walking across the floor, it did the work, and everything in this house got washed, and the thing you did about that was complain.

And now it is going and there is no way to take any of it back.

You are a woman who complained about a machine and not a woman who was ungrateful, and years of remarks about a noise have never once canceled the work that machine did.

Whatsoever things are true

There is a list in Philippians of what to put the mind on, and it is usually preached as a rule about being positive, and it is more precise than that.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8, King James Version)

Whatsoever things are true.

That is the first item and everything else in the list sits under it. True comes before lovely, before pure, before of good report. The list does not begin with pleasant.

Which means the complaining was not a failure of that verse. The noise was real. The walking across the floor was real. Those were true things and thinking about true things is the first instruction on the list.

You were thinking on something true for eleven years, and an accurate complaint about a machine has never once been the thing that verse was warning against. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman standing in a kitchen with her hand on a lid, and Philippians 4:8 puts true at the head of the list.

And notice that it is an instruction about where to put the attention now.

Think on these things. Present tense. It is an instruction about the direction of a mind from here, and there is no audit attached to it anywhere. It does not say review the last eleven years and see how you did.

You are being handed an instruction about today rather than a verdict about eleven years, and a list of what to think on has never once come with an inspection of what was thought before. The written word aims forward at where the attention goes, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps an instruction from turning into an accusation.

And one more thing, which is that the list is long and it is a list of kinds.

True, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report. Six categories, and a thing can be in one of them and not the others. A machine can be genuinely annoying and genuinely faithful at the same time, and both facts belong on the list because both are true.

You are able to hold two true things about one machine, and a thing that was both difficult and dependable has never once required a person to pick one. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets both facts stand in a kitchen at the same time, and Philippians 4:8 lists six kinds rather than one.

Name what it did

Something practical, and it is one sentence rather than a reckoning.

Do not apologize. That is the first half, and it is important, because the instinct right now is to say something that makes up for eleven years, and there is nothing to make up for and the apology would be to a machine.

Instead, name what it did. Out loud, once, in the kitchen.

It washed everything in this house for eleven years. That is the sentence. True, specific, and it takes four seconds.

You have four seconds and one true sentence available, and naming what a thing did has never once required an apology for anything that was said about it. The written word puts true at the head of the list and asks for no reckoning, and the Spirit of God is the one in the kitchen while a plain sentence gets said.

And here is why the shame arrived, because it is worth understanding rather than just being told it is unnecessary.

It arrived because two true things came into contact for the first time. The difficulty was one true thing and it has been said many times. The faithfulness was the other true thing and it has never once been said out loud.

The imbalance is not in the past. It is in what got spoken and what did not.

You have been holding one true thing in your mouth and one in silence, and a fact that went unsaid for eleven years has never once been a fact anybody denied. The Holy Spirit is the one who moves a woman to say the other half out loud, and Philippians 4:8 asks for the whole list rather than one item off it.

So say it. Once, plainly, on Friday morning before it goes. And then go on complaining about the next one, because that one will have something wrong with it too, and complaining about a machine is not a sin.