God Is Not Unrighteous To Forget

She wants somebody to say thank you and she would rather you did not know that.

It is not a large want. She is not waiting for a speech. One sentence from one person who understood what it took would do it, and she is aware, saying that, of how small a thing she is describing and how long she has been describing it to herself.

Three years, roughly, since the thing she is proudest of.

She has told nobody, because the wanting embarrasses her far more than the not getting. In her own head there is a rule, and the rule says that a person who does good work for the right reasons does not need to be thanked, and that needing it means the reasons were not the right ones after all.

So there are two things running at once. The wish, which is quiet and persistent. And the shame about the wish, which is louder and does most of the damage.

She has prayed about it and the praying tends to become an apology.

And she cannot work out whether she is asking God to give her the thanks, or to remove the wanting, and she suspects the second is what a better person would ask for, and she does not want it removed, and that is another thing to feel bad about.

You may know that cup and that rule. Something you did that nobody ever remarked on, a quiet wish that somebody would, and a much louder voice telling you the wish itself is the problem.

He is not unrighteous to forget

Here is a sentence written to tired people, and the wording of it is careful in a way that matters.

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.Hebrews 6:10

Not unrighteous to forget.

That is a strange construction and it is deliberate. He does not say God is kind enough to remember. He says forgetting would be unjust, which puts your work into the category of things that are owed acknowledgement rather than things that might receive it as a favor.

That is a much higher claim than most people notice, and it is worth sitting with.

You are inside a remembering that would be an injustice to withhold, and it has already happened. Hebrews 6:10 makes forgetting your work a thing God will not do because it would be unrighteous, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman receive that as an acknowledgement rather than as a consolation.

Now let me deal with the shame, because that is doing more harm than the silence is.

The wish to be seen is not a defect. It is not a symptom of impure motives and it is not vanity dressed up. Being known and having what you did registered by somebody is a basic human need and God built it in, and the evidence for that is a verse which takes the trouble to say that He does not forget.

If wanting to be remembered were a fault, that sentence would not be there.

You are allowed to want acknowledgement, and the wanting was placed in you rather than picked up. The written word treats the remembering of work as a matter of justice, and the Holy Spirit is not the one who has been telling you the wish disqualifies the work.

Here is the honest half. The person is not going to say it. Three years is a long time and the moment for it has passed and it was probably never going to occur to them, and I am not going to promise you an evening where somebody finally does.

And I am not going to tell you that the acknowledgement from God is exactly the same as the sentence you wanted from that person. It is not. It is better in one direction and it is not audible in the way you wanted, and pretending those are identical would be a kindness that lies.

There is a part only you can do, and it is precise. You say the sentence you wished somebody had said. Out loud, in their words. And then you say who has already registered it. Two sentences, in that order.