It Used To Be Her Room

It used to be her room, and you have never once asked her about it.

Not her bedroom. The small room at the back where she did her homework, because the kitchen was noisy and her brother was in the other one. She had a desk in there and a lamp and a chair that did not match anything.

And then you needed somewhere for the stock, and it was the obvious room, and you said she could use the kitchen table, and she said fine.

That was two years ago. She does her homework on her bed now, with the door shut, which you have noticed and have not said anything about.

I am not going to tell you to get premises, or that a growing business needs space, because that is advice and there is none of it here. I am going to talk about a room made for somebody in the Bible, and about who decided it.

A little chamber on the wall

There is a story in 2 Kings about a woman who decides to build a room for somebody, and the detail of it is the thing.

She and her husband talk about it and she makes the suggestion, and the suggestion is strikingly specific.

Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick. (2 Kings 4:10, King James Version)

You are living in a house where rooms can be given, and that has never once been only a matter of space. 2 Kings 4:10 has a room made on purpose for a particular person with the furniture named one item at a time, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a narrow doorway with a lamp on in the corner.

Look at the list. A bed, a table, a stool, a candlestick. She names the furniture, which means she has imagined the person in it.

That is what making a room for somebody is. Not allocating a space. Picturing a particular person in a particular corner and putting the things there that they will need.

You have the power to make a room for somebody, and you have done it before in this house. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an old story about hospitality reach a woman standing in a doorway looking at shelves, and 2 Kings 4:10 has a room made for one named person with four pieces of furniture listed out.

She said fine

Let me say something about fine, because fine is the word that let this happen.

She was thirteen. An adult asked her a question that was not really a question, in a house where a new thing was starting and everybody was hopeful about it, and she said the word that keeps everybody comfortable.

You were not refused, and fine has never once been the same as asked and answered. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what a thirteen year old's fine actually was, and the written word has a room planned out for a person item by item in 2 Kings 4:10.

And there is something in this that is worth saying clearly, because it is not guilt. You did not take the room from her. You took it with her cooperation, which she gave, and which she was in no position to withhold.

That difference is the whole reason this is worth picking up now. Nobody did anything wrong. Something simply happened that was never actually discussed.

You are able to open the conversation yourself, and opening it has never once been an apology for the work. His Spirit is the one who makes a real question askable two years late, and 2 Kings 4:10 shows a room being planned in conversation rather than assumed.

Ask her, and hear the answer

So here is the exercise, and the hard part is the second half of it.

Ask her how she feels about the room. Not whether it is all right. How she feels about it, which is a different question and the one that has never been asked.

You are able to ask a real question, and asking it has never once handed anything away. 2 Kings 4:10 has a room discussed before it is made, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that conversation possible in a doorway two years after the fact.

Then listen to the whole answer. All of it, including the part that comes after the pause, which is usually the real part. Do not explain the stock while she is talking.

And then give her one space back. Not the room, necessarily. A corner, a desk somewhere, two shelves cleared, the table between four and six with nothing on it. One actual thing, today.

You were never required to choose between the work and this girl, and you are not being asked to now. The Spirit of God carries a woman past the fear that one conversation will cost her everything, and the written word has a room made for somebody by a person who thought about what they would need in 2 Kings 4:10.