I Watched And Was Never Handed It

You were in that garage every Saturday, and nobody ever stopped you being there.

That is the part that makes this hard to explain to anybody. There was no exclusion. Nobody said this is not for you. You were welcome, and you were interested, and you asked questions and got answers.

You were simply never included in the doing.

Your brother was handed the thing. You were handed a cloth, or a question answered, or a kind sentence, and everybody in that garage would have said, honestly, that you were part of it.

And now you are forty, and there is a set of ordinary things you cannot do, and getting them now would mean asking. Which is a completely different act from being handed something, and it costs about a hundred times more.

Let me put this down before anything else. Not knowing how is not a character flaw. And a woman who was never handed anything did not decline it. There is no moment in her life where she was offered and refused.

Give unto us a possession

There is a story in Numbers about five sisters who did exactly what I am going to ask you to do.

Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father. (Numbers 27:4, King James Version)

Those women had no legal standing to make that request. The law as it stood did not include them, and everybody in that camp knew it.

They asked anyway. They walked up in front of Moses, the priest, the princes and the whole congregation, and stated their case out loud, and used the word give.

You have a story in Scripture of women asking out loud for something that had never been offered, and asking for what was not handed to you has never once been the same as taking something. Numbers 27:4 records the request in their own words, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that read as permission rather than as boldness reserved for other people.

And here is what happened next, which is the part worth carrying. Moses brought their case before the Lord, and God said they speak right, and the law was changed.

You are standing in a position God has already ruled on, and a request for what was never offered has never once been out of order. The Spirit of God is the one who puts the words in a person's mouth for this, and it is written in Numbers that the answer to those five women was that they were right.

Why asking costs so much more

Here is why the ask is so heavy, and it is worth naming so it stops feeling like a personal weakness.

Being handed something says: you belong in this, and somebody thought of you. Asking for it says: I do not belong in this yet, and I am the one who noticed.

Those are two entirely different positions to be in, and the second one has to be entered voluntarily, in front of somebody, at forty, about something a nine year old was given without a word.

That is not a small thing to do and I am not going to pretend it is.

You have been carrying a real cost rather than an imagined one, and finding it hard to ask has never once meant a woman lacks nerve. It is written in Numbers 27:4 that five women stood in front of an entire congregation and said give unto us, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an expensive sentence possible.

And here is the second thing, which is the one that surprises people. Almost everybody you could ask would be delighted.

Being asked to show somebody something is one of the most pleasant experiences available to a human being. It says a person is trusted and useful and that their knowledge is worth having. The brother who was handed the tool at nine has almost certainly never once been asked to teach anybody anything.

Now the limit, and I say it here rather than in a footer. There are things nobody should be shown at home. Never a gas appliance, never the breaker panel, never mains wiring, never a wall holding the building up, never a roof. Call a licensed professional and pay them properly, and if the person you ask offers to show you one of those, say no.

You are entirely right to refuse to be taught something dangerous, and saying no to a demonstration has never once been the same as refusing to learn. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a woman peace about a boundary, and Scripture has the request answered with a change in the law rather than with a lecture.

Ask one person for one thing

So here is the ask, and it is one sentence to one person.

Ask one person to show you one thing, and say the whole sentence out loud.

The whole sentence matters. Not a hint. Not a sideways remark about how you never learned any of this. The full request, in plain words: will you show me how to do this.

You are able to say one complete request out loud to one person, and asking plainly has never once cost a woman anything she was afraid of losing. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a dreaded sentence ordinary, and Numbers 27:4 records five women stating a case out loud in front of everybody.

Choose the person carefully. Not the one who would enjoy knowing. Not the one who would say something about how you should have learned this years ago. Somebody kind and somebody who does not have a history with you about this, if such a person exists.

And be specific. Not teach me about tools. Show me how to take this cabinet door off and put it back on. A specific request is easy to say yes to and easy to finish, and it ends with something done.

You have permission to ask for what should have been handed over, and one specific request has never once been a smaller thing than an inheritance. It is written in Numbers that God said those women spoke right, and the same Spirit who breathed that line is standing in the room with you.