I Stopped Correcting Things

There is a habit that forms in people who were once the ones who said something, and almost none of them can date it.

Picture the woman. Six years ago she was the person in that team who said when a thing was wrong. Not in a difficult way. She would say, quietly and once, that the figure on the third page did not match the appendix, or that the process being described was not the process anybody actually used.

She was right most of the time. That is worth saying.

And each time it cost her something small. A pause in the room. A slight adjustment in how she was regarded. Twice, a private conversation about how she came across.

So she stopped, gradually, over about two years, and could not tell you when.

And here is what is in her now that nobody in that building can see. She sits in meetings where something is described inaccurately and she says nothing, and afterward she feels a specific kind of tiredness that has no name, and she goes home and is short with her family for reasons she cannot explain to them.

That is the cost that never appears anywhere. It is not that the wrong thing went unchallenged, although it did. It is that a person who used to be one kind of person at work is now a different kind, and she did not decide, and she cannot even locate the moment.

And there is a sentence she has started saying to herself, which is the most dangerous part. It is: nothing I say makes any difference here.

That sentence is doing more work than any of the meetings.

The sentence said to a woman with everything to lose

There is a moment in Esther where somebody sends a message to a woman in an extremely dangerous position, and the wording of it matters enormously.

Her situation is precarious. Speaking could cost her life and there is no exaggeration in that.

For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14, King James Version)

Notice the first thing it does. It says deliverance will arise from another place. Her speaking is not the only hope anybody has. The weight of the whole outcome is explicitly taken off her.

And then, only after that, comes the question. Who knows whether you came to the kingdom for such a time as this.

It is a question, not an instruction. Nobody tells her what to do.

You are not the only hope anybody has, and Esther 4 says deliverance will arise from another place before it says anything else (Esther 4:14), and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the weight of an outcome off somebody so that they can act freely rather than from pressure.

And notice the shape of what she does next.

I will go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. (Esther 4:16)

She names the risk out loud. She does not pretend it is safe. She does not receive a promise that it will go well.

You are allowed to act without being promised the outcome, and Esther 4:16 has her naming the risk plainly rather than being reassured out of it (Esther 4:16), and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody in a room where nothing has been guaranteed.

Open thy mouth for the dumb

There is a proverb about speaking that is quite specific about who it is for.

Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. (Proverbs 31:8)

For the dumb. For the ones who cannot speak for themselves.

Which is a useful filter, because it separates two different things that get confused. There is speaking up because something is wrong and somebody will be harmed, and there is correcting things because being right is satisfying. The proverb is about the first.

And that filter is a mercy for a woman who has stopped, because it means she does not have to go back to correcting everything. She has to pick up one specific kind of speaking, which is much smaller and much more possible.

You have a specific kind of speaking to pick up rather than a whole habit to restore, and Proverbs 31 names the cause of those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31:8), and it is the Holy Spirit who shows a person which of the things in a week is actually that.

You are not required to correct everything, and Proverbs 31:8 narrows it to one cause rather than to a general policy of accuracy (Proverbs 31:8), and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies the discernment about which one.

What this is not

Let me be plain, because this could get somebody into real trouble.

This is not telling her to start speaking up in every meeting. That is not what stopped and it is not what needs to restart.

It is also not saying she was wrong to go quiet. She was responding to real consequences that actually happened to her, twice, in private conversations about how she came across. That was not cowardice, it was learning.

And it is not saying the outcome depends on her. It explicitly does not, and that is the first thing Esther was told.

And plainly: if that place has gone past this, if you are being asked to stay silent about something unsafe or harmful, that needs somebody qualified rather than an article. And if you cannot get out of bed, or some part of you wants it all to stop, call or text the 988 crisis line and say the true version to a doctor or a counselor or a pastor you trust.

You are not being handed responsibility for the whole outcome, and Esther 4:14 removes that before asking anything (Esther 4:14), and the Holy Spirit is the one who can move somebody without using pressure to do it.