The Aisle I Had To Leave

Are you all right there, love?

That is what the girl said. Nineteen, maybe. Stacking tins of tomatoes into a pyramid, kind as anything, and she says it in the ordinary way you say it to somebody who has been standing very still in front of the pasta for a long time.

Fine. Yes. Thanks.

And then out. Past the freezers, past the bread, past the queue, hands doing that pins and needles thing, the lights suddenly too much and the tannoy suddenly too loud and the air in there thin as paper. Trolley left where it stood, three quarters full. Milk in it. The good coffee. A bag of oranges on top.

She got to the car and sat with her hands at ten and two and did not start the engine for eleven minutes.

Here is the part nobody tells you about. It is not the eleven minutes. It is the drive home, when the body has finished doing whatever it was doing and the mind takes over the job. You left a full trolley. Somebody has to put all that back. You are forty three years old. What is wrong with you.

And then the worst one, the one that comes in quietly wearing the clothes of faith: If I actually trusted God, my chest would not do this.

Listen to me. I want to take that sentence out of your hands and put it down where it cannot reach you.

Your body sounded an alarm in a shop. That is what happened. An alarm went off in a building where there was no fire, and you did the sensible thing an animal does when the alarm goes: you got out of the building. That is not a spiritual failure. That is not a small faith. That is a nervous system doing its job too well, in the wrong place, on a Tuesday.

Nobody is angry about the trolley. Not the girl with the tomatoes. Certainly not God.

One held hand is a whole dose

If you are hearing this at three in the morning, keep your eyes closed. You do not need to read anything. You do not need to write anything down. You do not need to be able to pray a long prayer, and you do not need to feel anything in particular for what follows to be true.

Here is the smallest true thing I know, and it is enough for tonight.

For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, do not be afraid. I am the one who helps you.Isaiah 41:13

Notice what God does not do in that verse.

He does not explain the fear. He does not go through the incident with you. He does not ask why the chest went tight in a shop and not at the funeral, or why it was Tuesday and not Monday, or what the trigger was, because there is not always one and He knows that better than anybody.

He takes the hand.

That is the whole of it. A hand held. And then, from inside the holding, He says the thing. Do not be afraid. Not shouted from the other end of the aisle. Said close, by somebody who already has hold of you.

I keep the fourth watch, three until six, so I know what your hour is like. The house is quiet in a way it never is in daylight. Everything you have decided in the daytime comes back for a second hearing. And at that hour the panic does not need a shop or a crowd or a reason. It just comes, and it brings its friend, the one who says this will be the rest of your life.

So take a small thing tonight. A small true thing is not a lesser thing.

God has your right hand. Right now, in this bed, in this dark, at this hour. Not because you got your breathing right. Not because you had a good week. He has it the way a father has the hand of a child in a car park, without discussion, without conditions, and without letting go when the child pulls.

You are not holding on to Him tonight. He is holding on to you. That is the difference between a dose and a demand.

And say the plain thing with me: if this is happening often, tell somebody who can actually help. Your doctor. One person who loves you. There is no shame in either of those doors and this is not a substitute for them. If tonight is darker than panic, if part of you is thinking about not being here at all, please reach a human being now. In the United States you can call or text 988, and anywhere else your local emergency number or crisis line will do. Ring them, and ring somebody who could sit with you. You are worth waking somebody up for.