My Hands Do Not Do It Like They Did

They were different hands when this started.

Not in a sentimental way. In a practical way, which is the only way that matters here. Two years ago a session was an hour and a half and the hour and a half was not remarkable. Now twenty minutes is what there is, and the twenty minutes costs something the hour and a half did not.

And the middle of a project is where that lands hardest, because the middle is the long stretch that needs many sessions rather than a few, and many sessions is precisely the thing that has become expensive.

Here is what has gone wrong, and it is not in your hands.

Somewhere in the last two years the accounting stayed the same while the body changed. The job is still being measured in hours, because it was planned in hours, and every session is now measured against a standard set by a woman who had more in her arms than you do.

So a genuinely good twenty minutes comes back as a failure. Not because anything went badly. Because it is being compared with something that is no longer available.

You are a woman working with the hands she has now, and twenty minutes has never once been a smaller amount of work than an hour was.

Though our outward man perish

There is a sentence in the second letter to Corinth that holds two things at once and refuses to let go of either.

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16, King James Version)

Though our outward man perish.

The first thing to notice is that it is granted. Not softened, not disputed, not reframed. The outward man perishes, and that is stated as a fact by somebody who evidently knew what he was talking about.

Nobody in that sentence is told they are imagining it, or that with the right attitude it would not be happening. It is simply true and it is said plainly.

You have a change that scripture states as a plain fact, and a body that does less than it did has never once been something anybody was asked to deny. Second Corinthians 4:16 grants the outward perishing without one word of argument, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that honesty a kindness.

And then the word yet, which is doing the whole of the work in that sentence. Yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Not instead. Not so it does not matter. Two things, both true, running at the same time, neither one canceling the other.

You were never being asked to choose between two true things, and a renewed inward man has never once been offered as a replacement for a body that used to do more. The Spirit of God is the one doing the renewing day by day, and the written word holds both halves in one sentence with the word yet between them.

The standard is the thing that changed, not the work

So here is the practical claim, and it is about arithmetic rather than about courage.

The work has not got harder. The measuring stick has stayed the same while the arm holding it has changed, and that is a different problem with a different solution.

A session of twenty minutes today involves the same care, the same judgment and the same accumulated skill as an hour did two years ago. What it does not involve is as many minutes, and minutes are the one thing being counted.

You have skill in those hands that has never once been reduced by anything, and the only thing that has actually changed is the number of minutes available. Second Corinthians 4:16 holds the outward and the inward apart, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a person from letting one of them speak for the other.

And here is the second cost, and it is the more expensive one.

A run of sessions that all come back as failures teaches a person to stop starting sessions. Not because the work is hard. Because the reporting is wrong, and nobody keeps doing a thing that reports as a loss every single time.

You were never being told the truth by that accounting, and a good twenty minutes has never once become a failure by being compared with something gone. The Spirit of God is the one who corrects an account without correcting a person, and Second Corinthians 4:16 grants the change and then refuses to let it be the whole story.

And one more, and it is the practical half that nobody offers. A great deal of that work can be done sitting down.

You have a chair available for work that has always been done standing, and sitting down to a job has never once been a concession anybody had to make. Second Corinthians 4:16 is written by somebody perfectly clear about his own condition, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in twenty minutes done from a chair.

Twenty minutes, sitting down

Here is the assignment and both halves of it are deliberate.

Do twenty minutes of the work sitting down.

Bring a chair in. A kitchen chair, a stool, whatever is nearest. Set it where the work is and sit at it and work from there.

You have twenty minutes of real work available from a chair tonight, and a job done sitting has never once been a lesser piece of the same job. Second Corinthians 4:16 states the outward change and keeps working anyway, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room for the whole twenty minutes.

A surprising amount of most jobs can be done sitting. Low work obviously. Preparing, sorting, fixing, anything at bench height with the bench brought lower. The standing was mostly habit rather than necessity.

And then stop at twenty minutes. Stop while there is still something in your hands.

That is not a rule about pacing yourself and it is not about being careful. It is about what the session reports at the end. A session stopped by a timer reports as finished. A session stopped by an arm reports as a failure, and the reporting is the thing that decides whether there is another one.