I Am Honestly Frightened Of It

You took the smaller one again.

You have done that for years. The drawer opens, and there is a knife in there that would do the job properly, and you take the one that is too small instead, and then you spend twice as long doing a worse version of the work.

And nobody has ever said anything, because from the outside it looks like nothing at all.

But you know. You know the exact size of the knife you will not pick up, and you know the feeling that arrives in your forearms when somebody hands you one, and you know that you have arranged a great many small things in your life so that this does not come up.

It is not squeamishness and it is not silliness. It is a straightforward fear of a sharp object in your own hand, and you have had it for as long as you can remember, and you have never once said the sentence out loud.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

This is a real fear and nothing here is going to laugh at it.

A knife is genuinely dangerous. It is the one thing in that kitchen designed to do damage, and a body that does not want to hold it is not broken. Nobody here is going to tell you it is irrational, and nobody is going to teach you a grip, because there is no technique anywhere in this article and technique was never what was missing.

I will hold thy right hand

There is a line in Isaiah about a hand being held, and it is worth noticing which hand.

For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. (Isaiah 41:13, King James Version)

I will hold thy right hand.

The right hand is the working hand. It is not the one somebody takes to comfort you, it is the one you do things with, and that is the one being held in the verse.

Which is a strange and specific image if you sit with it. Not an arm around a shoulder. Not a hand on the back. The working hand, held, while the work happens.

You are being held by the hand that does the work rather than comforted at a distance from it, and a fear of what is in that hand has never once meant the hand was alone in it. Isaiah 41:13 puts the holding on the right hand specifically, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who took the smaller one again tonight.

And read the order of what follows.

I will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not. The holding comes first and the fear not comes second, and it is said while the holding is going on rather than as an instruction issued beforehand.

Nobody is told to stop being afraid and then get held. The hand is taken, and then the words are spoken into that.

You have the holding before the instruction rather than after it, and being told fear not has never once been the thing you were expected to manage on your own. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been waiting to feel differently before she could begin, and Isaiah 41:13 takes the hand first and speaks second.

Avoidance is what kept it this size

Here is the practical half, and it is one correction. The fear has not been growing because the knife got sharper. It has been growing because it has never once been met.

Here is how that works. Every time your hand goes to the smaller one, a small transaction happens: relief arrives immediately, and the price is that the fear is confirmed as correct. Relief now, slightly larger fear later, and neither half of that is visible while it is happening.

Run that a few thousand times over a couple of decades and you get precisely where you are, which is a proportionate fear that has been fed daily on nothing but avoidance.

You were feeding it every time you reached past it, and relief taken in a drawer has never once been the same thing as the fear getting smaller. Isaiah 41:13 holds a working hand rather than removing the work from it, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman who has run that transaction for years.

And here is the second half, which is the whole difference tonight. Nobody is asking you to feel brave, and nobody is asking you to be quick. What is being asked is one slow act, and slow is not the frightened version of this. Slow is how anybody who handles a blade properly actually works, and the thing your fear has been asking for all along is care rather than avoidance, and it has only ever been offered the drawer.

You have a fear that was asking for care, and going slowly has never once been the timid version of doing something. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with somebody about to move at a speed she chooses, and Isaiah 41:13 speaks the fear not into a hand already being held.

What tonight is, with that knife

So here is the assignment, and it is deliberately small. Pick up the knife, cut one thing slowly, and put it away.

Tonight. One thing. One cut is enough, and a full minute for it is fine. Put the board flat, put the thing on it, keep the other hand well back, and go slowly enough that your attention stays on your fingers the whole time. Do not chop, and do not try to do it the way it is done by people who do it all day, because that is not what tonight is for.

It may be uncomfortable. That is expected, and discomfort is not danger, and every bit of it is allowed to be there while your hands do the thing anyway.

You are meeting it rather than managing it, and one slow cut has never once been a smaller act than a fast one. Isaiah 41:13 holds the right hand while it works, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that board with a woman holding the bigger one for the first time.

Then the second half, which is the one that does the work. Put it away yourself. Wash it, dry it, and return it to the drawer, so that your hand goes to that handle a second time when there is nothing to cut and no reason at all to be holding it. The first time can be explained as necessity. The second time is a choice, and the choice is what changes the transaction.

You are choosing it the second time rather than surviving it the first, and a knife put away by the hand that used it has never once been the same event as one left on a board. The Spirit of God is the one at that drawer with a clean knife going back in, and Isaiah 41:13 says I will help thee at the end of a sentence that began with a hand being taken.