Half past six is the kettle. Quarter to seven is the bathroom. Ten past seven is the walk from the bedroom to the front door, and then the door, and then nothing until about six in the evening.
She could set her watch by the woman upstairs and has, more than once, when her phone was charging in the other room.
Three years of this. She knows the shape of that woman's week better than she knows her own sister's. She knows there is nobody else up there. She knows the Thursday nights when the television goes on very loud, and she has worked out, without ever wanting to, that loud television on a Thursday is how a person gets through a Thursday.
And once, in February, at about eleven at night, she heard her crying. Not loudly. Through a ceiling you do not hear loudly. But unmistakably, for about twenty minutes, and then it stopped and the flat went quiet.
She lay in the dark and did nothing, because what is there to do. You cannot knock on somebody's door at eleven at night and say I heard you through the floor.
That is your ceiling. That is your February. And I want to talk to you about that woman, because there is a sentence in the psalms about people in exactly her position, and it is a promise with a job attached.
God's own habit
There is a line in Psalm 68 that describes something God does as a matter of course, the way you might describe a person's habit.
God setteth the solitary in families.Psalm 68:6
Not God comforts the solitary, though He does. Not God notices the solitary. He sets them, which is a placing word, a deliberate arranging of somebody into the nearness of other people.
And here is the part worth sitting with. He does that placing through ordinary means, because there are no other means available. Families are made of people, and a household forms when somebody who was near becomes somebody who is known.
You have been placed underneath her on purpose. Not by the letting agent, or not only. The written word describes a God who arranges solitary people into nearness, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes that a live thought in a woman lying in the dark rather than a line in a psalm she has read past for years.
Now let me take the guilt off February, because you have been carrying it and you should not.
You did the right thing that night. There was no version of eleven o'clock in which knocking would have helped, and a woman crying alone at eleven has not consented to be heard. Staying in bed was not cowardice. It was respect, and you were right.
You have not failed her. The written word never asks you to burst through a ceiling. The Holy Spirit does not scold a woman for keeping a stranger's dignity intact at eleven at night, and He was in both flats that February.
But hear the other half, because there is one.
The reason February was so unbearable is that you had nothing to offer except an intrusion. You were not a person to her. You were a floor. And a floor cannot knock, but a woman who once said hello properly on the stairs in the daylight absolutely can, six months later, when it matters.
You are able to become a person to her. Not tonight, not in a crisis, not through a ceiling. In daylight, on the stairs, with a parcel or a bin bag or nothing at all in your hands. The written word puts God in the business of setting solitary people together, and the Holy Spirit does that setting through somebody who is willing to be known first.
The breakthrough is not going up there.
It is deciding to be someone she could call.
Nothing in this message is asking you to mention the crying, ever, or to raise February, or to let on that you know her routine. All of that stays exactly where it is, unspoken and respectful. It is not yours.
What is yours is the next time you both happen to be on the stairs at the same time, in daylight, with the light coming through the half-landing window. That is when you say your name.
You are free to do the daylight version. The written word gives you a God who sets solitary people into families, and He builds those out of ordinary introductions rather than dramatic interventions. The Holy Spirit gives courage for the small daylight thing, and the small daylight thing is the one that makes the large night thing possible later.
And if nothing ever comes of it, you will still have done something worth doing. A woman who lives alone and knows one neighbor's name is measurably less alone than a woman who knows none, and you can give her that this week without her ever having to ask.
You have a placing that God arranged. He setteth the solitary in families, and He has had the two of you in the same building for three years. The Holy Spirit has been at work in that arrangement the whole time, and He was not waiting for you to overhear something in February.
Declare this over yourself
You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the standing to speak over your own building was given to you and no awkwardness issues it or takes it back. Speak to the ceiling and to the guilt, never over that woman or her will; she belongs to God and not to your plans. What God does in that flat is His to decide, and however He answers it you are His today.
- Ceiling over this room, you carry her whole day to me and you have never carried one word between us. The Word of God says He sets the solitary in families, so the two of us being in this building was never an accident of paperwork.
- Guilt from that night in February, get out of this flat in the name of Jesus. I kept a stranger's dignity at eleven at night, and keeping it was the right thing and not a failure.
- God, You are in both these flats and You were in hers that February. Your written Word says You set the solitary in families, and the Holy Spirit gives courage for daylight and for stairs. I can be a person to her here, and it starts with a name.
Psalm 68:6
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