One Thing I Need To Say To My Father

There is one sentence and you have had it for six years.

It is not a long one. You could say it in about four seconds and it is not complicated, and the reason you want it in his language rather than in English is not sentimental and you have never been able to explain it to anybody.

It is because the thing you want to say is a thing his mother would have said, and it does not sound like itself in English. Said in English it becomes a nice thing a grown son says to his father. Said in the other one it is a sentence from that kitchen, in that house, from before any of this.

And you have not said it.

Six years. You know the words. You have said it into the steering wheel. And every time there is an actual room with him in it, the sentence does not come, and afterward you drive home with it still in you.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

The not saying is not fear of the language, and I think you have been telling yourself that it is.

You could get the words out. Badly, but out. What stops you is what the sentence is, and how much of it there is, and the fact that saying it in his language makes it unmistakably meant, and there would be no way afterward to pretend it had been a small thing.

So I am not going to tell you to say it before it is too late. That sentence is a stick and you have been hitting yourself with it for about four of those six years already.

The unfeigned faith that is in thee

There is a line at the start of Second Timothy where a man traces something back through three generations of a family.

When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also. (2 Timothy 1:5, King James Version)

Which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois.

Now notice what he does there, because it is a very specific act and it is the whole of why this verse is here. He names the women. He does not say it runs in your family. He gives the names, in order, and he traces the thing back through particular people in a particular house.

You have something in you that came through named people in a named kitchen, and a thing traced back to a grandmother has never once been an abstraction. 2 Timothy 1:5 puts Lois and Eunice in the sentence by name, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with a man carrying four seconds he has not said.

Now stay on the word unfeigned, because it is doing the work your sentence is doing.

Unfeigned means unpretended. It is a word that distinguishes the real thing from a performance of the thing, and Paul reaches for it specifically when he is describing what came down through that house.

That is exactly your distinction. The sentence in English would be true and it would be a version. In his own language it is unfeigned, and you have known that for six years without a word for it.

You have been holding out for the unfeigned version, and a thing said in the language it came from has never once been the same as a translation of it. The Holy Spirit is the one who knows the difference between a true sentence and an unpretended one, and 2 Timothy 1:5 reaches for that exact word about a family.

And here is the third thing, which is what Paul is doing in the moment he says it.

He is telling Timothy something about himself that Timothy could not see from the inside. Nobody can trace their own inheritance. It takes somebody else to stand outside a family and say, that in you came from her.

You have something to tell your father that he cannot see from inside his own life, and a man has never once been able to trace his own inheritance without somebody saying it to him. 2 Timothy 1:5 has one man name for another what came down to him and from whom, and the Spirit of God is the one with a son who has been driving home with a sentence for six years.

Say it and let it be strange

Here is the practical half, and it is about what actually happens in the room.

It will be strange. That is the thing nobody tells you and it is the thing that has been getting avoided without ever being named.

If you say that sentence in that language to your father, the temperature of the room will change immediately. He will know something is happening. There is no way to say a thing like that casually, because the language itself is the signal, and both of you will know it before the sentence is finished.

That strangeness is not a risk in this. It is the content.

You have been avoiding the one feature that makes the sentence work, and a moment that changes a room has never once been a moment that went wrong. The Spirit of God is the one who is in the room before the sentence starts, and 2 Timothy 1:5 names the people it came through rather than describing it generally.

Now here is what to do about the four seconds afterward, because those are the ones you have been rehearsing in the car.

Do not fill them.

Whatever happens in his face, let it happen, and do not explain the sentence, and do not follow it with something light to take the weight off. The instinct will be enormous. Men in your family have been taking the weight off moments like that for three generations and that is most of why this needs saying at all.

Four seconds of silence, and then let him speak first.

You have four seconds to leave alone, and a silence left unfilled has never once been the same as an awkwardness. 2 Timothy 1:5 lets a plain statement about a family stand without softening it, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the room while nobody says anything.

And here is what to expect from him, said honestly, because I do not know your father and neither do I want to guess.

He may not answer it. He may nod, or say something about something else, or get up and do something in the kitchen. That is not rejection and it is not failure, and men of his generation frequently receive a thing like that by going and doing something with their hands.

It landed regardless of what his face did. You will not be able to tell for a while, and possibly not until something else entirely happens in six months.

You have never once been able to read what a sentence did from the four seconds after it, and a thing received quietly has never once been a thing that missed. The Spirit of God is the one who knows exactly what a sentence did in a man who went and started the coffee, and the written word states the inheritance plainly and does not wait for a reaction.

Say the sentence, then go into English

So here is the assignment, and it is the sentence you already have.

Say one prepared sentence to that person, and let the rest of it be in English.

The one that has been riding home in the car. Not a better version, not a longer one, and do not add anything to it now.

Say it in his language. Four seconds. Then stop and leave the silence alone.

You have a sentence that has been ready for six years, and a line rehearsed into a steering wheel has never once needed one more rehearsal. 2 Timothy 1:5 names what came down through a house without decorating it, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room with a father and a son and four seconds.

And then go into English for the rest of the visit.

Talk about the car and the weather and his knee. Do not make it a day about the sentence, because a day about the sentence is exactly the thing that has been unfaceable for six years, and it was never necessary.

One sentence in his language, and then an ordinary Sunday in English. That is the whole shape of this and it is available to you this week. Then stop, because the sentence is the assignment and nothing else is owed by anybody.

You have permission to say it and then talk about his knee, and an ordinary afternoon has never once been the wrong container for one sentence. The Spirit of God is the one who stays in that room after the four seconds have gone, and 2 Timothy 1:5 puts the whole weight on the naming rather than on the occasion.