It is not a sad thought and that is why you have never mentioned it.
You are not depressed. You would know; you have seen it in other people and you have had a bad stretch yourself years ago and this is not that. You sleep, you eat, you laugh at things, you look forward to Thursday.
You are not in despair. There is nothing dramatic in this at all.
It is simply that at some point in the last two or three years you became quietly certain that the part of your life which was going to be the good part has already happened.
Not that nothing good is coming. Small things are coming and you will enjoy them.
But the thing itself, the stretch that the rest of it will turn out to have been arranged around, is behind you, and you can more or less say when it was, and you did not know at the time that it was that.
You have never said this to anybody. There is no way to. Anybody you told would hear it as sadness and would immediately start reassuring you, and it is not sadness and you would spend the next twenty minutes explaining that.
And you cannot look it up. You have tried, once or twice, and what comes back is about midlife and about depression, and it is neither, and there is no other category.
What this page will not do
I am not going to tell you that your best years are ahead of you. You would put the page down, and you would be right to, because it would be a stranger making a promise about your life that he cannot keep.
I am not going to tell you this is depression. I have not met you and you have described it carefully and it does not sound like it. If it changes, if the sleeping goes or nothing lands any more, that is a doctor's, and that is a different thing. Scripture put that in writing long before you read it here, in Psalm 71:17-18, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes written words land.
I am not going to give it a name, because I do not have one and neither does anybody else.
And I am not going to argue with the thought. That is what everybody would do and it is why you have never said it, and being argued with is not the same as being heard.
You are not being ungrateful by having noticed this. Scripture says the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, Psalm 34:18, and it does not require the heart to be dramatically broken or able to say what is wrong with it, and the Holy Spirit is in that hall with somebody who has been carrying a quiet certainty for three years.
The verse is somebody asking about the part that is left
There is a passage in Psalm 71 written by an old man, and the thing worth noticing is what he asks for.
O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.Psalm 71:17-18
He is not asking for another good part. He does not ask for the return of anything, and he does not claim that the best is ahead.
He is entirely realistic about where he is: old, greyheaded, with a great deal behind him that he refers to as hitherto.
And what he asks for is a use. Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation. Not a repeat of what he had. Something for the part that is left, addressed to people who were not there for the first part.
That is a different request from the one everybody would urge on you, and it does not contradict anything you have concluded. He agrees with your premise and asks for something else.
You are not without something to ask for. Scripture says now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not, Psalm 71:18, and the request is for company and usefulness in the part that remains rather than for the return of the part that has gone, and the Holy Spirit is at work in a person who has stopped expecting a second version of what they had.
Why nothing describes it
Our categories for this are two, and you are in neither. I have no authority to say that by myself. Scripture carries it in Psalm 71:17-18, and the Holy Spirit carries it to you.
One is decline, which is about loss of function and is medical, and you are not describing that. That is Scripture's sentence and not mine, Psalm 71:17-18, and it is the Holy Spirit and not this page who makes it true where you are.
The other is the crisis, the one that gets written about endlessly, where somebody is dissatisfied and wants something different and does something rash. You do not want anything different. You are not dissatisfied. That is the strangest part of your situation and it is why every article fails. Scripture stands under that in Psalm 71:17-18, and the Holy Spirit does the part no sentence can do.
What you have is a settled and unresentful conclusion about the shape of your own life, arrived at quietly, and there is no literature about that because it does not generate a problem that anybody can sell a solution to. It is written, in Psalm 71:17-18, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes what is written off a page and into a life.
So there is no word, and no page, and no way to raise it at a table.
You are not the only person who has ever thought this. Scripture says there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, 1 Corinthians 10:13, and the word is about what is common to human beings rather than about what has been named, and the Holy Spirit is not treating a widely felt and never-discussed thing as an eccentricity.
What is available
Not a rebuttal.
It can be said out loud, exactly as it is, without softening.
I think the good part has already happened.
Say it to God. Do not add but I know that is not true, because you do not know that and the addition would make it a performance.
That is the whole of what is available tonight and it is more than three years of not saying it.
And if you want one thing beyond that, it is the psalm's request rather than the reassurance everybody would offer. Not give me another good part. Something more like: there are people here who were not there for the first part; show me what I have got for them.
That is a request you can make honestly without pretending to believe something you do not.
You are not required to argue yourself out of it first. Scripture says pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us, Psalm 62:8, and pouring out has no requirement that the contents be corrected before they are brought, and the Holy Spirit is not waiting for a more hopeful version.
There is not one, and this is the category where I am not going to invent one at the end.
What is available tonight is that a thing you have carried for three years gets said out loud once, to somebody who will not argue with it. Scripture settles that in Psalm 71:17-18, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries it rather than these words.
Say it plainly. Do not soften it. Do not append a correction.
Then, if you can, make the old man's request instead of the one you have been avoiding: not for a second good part, but for a use in the part that is left, aimed at people who were not there for the first. I am not putting my own idea over you; Scripture says it in Psalm 71:17-18, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it live.
And if there is one person who would not immediately reassure you, tell them. There may not be. If there is not, that is all right; it has been said to God, which is the one hearer who does not need managing.
You are not further from Him for having concluded something quiet about your own life. Scripture says O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works, Psalm 71:17, and the Holy Spirit has been present through three years of a thought that has never been said in a room.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, sitting, unsoftened. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the standing to speak was given to you and a quiet conclusion has not withdrawn it. Scripture carries every line here and the Holy Spirit brings them the distance. Nothing here promises anything about the years ahead; He answers in His own way and the outcome is His, and however He answers, none of it is a verdict on you.
- Conclusion I reached without ever deciding it, that the good part is behind me, you have never once been said out loud. The Word of God has an old man say hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works, and in the name of Jesus I say the thing plainly instead of managing it.
- Habit of adding a correction, get out of this house. Scripture says pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us, Psalm 62:8, and the Holy Spirit has never once required a more hopeful version before He would take it.
- Lord, the old man did not ask for another good part and he was not rebuked for it, and You have been here through three years of my not saying this. It has been said out loud, and I am asking for a use in the part that is left.
Psalm 71:17-18
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