Her niece is twenty two and does not want to talk about God with her, and it took a long time for anybody to say why.
Her sister said it, eventually, in a kitchen, gently, and it took about four seconds and has not stopped ringing since.
Everything you say to her is about it now.
She protested. She listed conversations that were about other things. She could name a whole afternoon of shopping and a conversation about a job interview.
And then she went home and sat in the car and did the honest version, which is that every one of those conversations had a moment in it. A sentence at the end. A gentle bridge. A thing that seemed natural at the time and would have looked, to a twenty two year old, exactly like what it was.
She has been doing this for four years and she has loved that girl since the day she was born.
Here is the sentence she has never said out loud.
Her longing was real and it has turned into pressure somewhere along the way, and she does not know how to want something that much and not push it.
Read where Paul sends his longing
There is an opening line in Romans 10 where Paul says exactly how much he wants something and then says where he takes it.
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.Romans 10:1
My heart's desire and prayer to God.
Notice the direction. The desire is enormous, and he has just said in the chapter before that he would be willing to be cut off himself for their sake, which is the strongest thing anybody in the New Testament says about wanting somebody else saved.
And the destination of all that force is God. Prayer to God for Israel. Not pressure on Israel. Not a bridge in every conversation. He argues with them elsewhere, openly and at length, and he keeps the enormous private longing pointed upward rather than horizontally at them.
The longing does not get reduced. It gets aimed.
Your longing is meant to be aimed at God rather than applied to her, and Romans 10:1 sends the strongest desire in the letters upward. That is what the word actually does with it, not a restriction I am placing on you, and the Holy Spirit is the One who takes the weight of a four year longing off a twenty two year old.
Wanting it was never the problem
Now the plain thing, and I want your sister's sentence handled properly rather than used as a stick.
Do not conclude that you love her wrongly. You love her exactly right and the size of the wanting is not the fault. If you wanted it less, this article would be about something else and it would be worse.
What has happened is a matter of direction. All that force has been going sideways, into a relationship that cannot carry it, and a twenty two year old can feel the weight of being wanted for something even when every individual sentence is kind.
And the cost is visible now. She has started managing you, slightly. That is what the not wanting to talk is: a young woman putting a hand up because a conversation has become a place where something is expected.
And nothing about four years of pressure has ever put her out of God's reach. Scripture takes the fiercest longing in the letters and points it at God rather than at the people, and the Holy Spirit is not limited by an aunt who has pushed too hard.
Say it upward and say nothing sideways
Here is the practical piece, and the second half is the difficult one.
Say the desire to God this week, out loud, in the strongest words you've got. Do not moderate it. Tell Him exactly how much you want this, including the part that is about your own fear.
And then say nothing about it to her. Not for a season. No bridge at the end of the shopping. No sentence that seems natural. No forwarded thing.
That is not withdrawal and it is not sulking, and if she asks whether you've gone quiet on purpose, tell her the truth, which is that you noticed you had been pushing and you love her and you would rather have her than a conversation.
You are able to want this fiercely and stop pushing, and the two were never the same thing. Romans 10:1 makes it his heart's desire and prayer to God rather than a campaign on the people, and the Holy Spirit is the One who works in a room where nobody is being persuaded.
So here is the turn, and it is this week, in the car and then in her front room.
Send it upward.
Not because your desire is embarrassing. It is the best thing about this whole situation, and it is why you are reading an article at your age about how to stop doing something you meant well.
Send it upward because sideways has had four years, and because there is a woman of twenty two who currently has to manage her aunt, and because the strongest longing in the letters went to God and not to the people it was about.
You are able to redirect this today, and the wanting was never the fault. Romans 10:1 makes the desire a prayer to God and keeps the pressure off the people, and the Holy Spirit is with a woman who has loved a girl since the day she was born.
Now the honest half. Nothing here promises she comes to anything, this year or ever, and I am not going to invent a promise about somebody else's soul to make you feel better tonight. However He answers, the outcome is His and not ours to sell, and four years of pushing are never evidence against you. What is settled is which direction the longing goes.
Four years and every conversation carrying something. Go and send it upward.
Declare this over yourself
Say them out loud. The standing to speak them is yours because you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the authority is not your own: it is His, delegated and carried in His Name, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes the word live in a loving woman's mouth. However He answers, the outcome is His and not ours to sell. These lines are spoken over yourself and never over your niece, because her life is her own and no word of mine is laid across another person's will.
- Pressure my longing turned into, you are not love and everybody in that house can feel you. Romans 10:1 makes the fiercest desire in the letters a prayer to God rather than a campaign on people. You are not faithfulness, and you are four years of force going sideways.
- Fear that going quiet means giving up on her, get out in the name of Jesus. You have made a twenty two year old manage her own aunt, and God has never once needed anybody to push a person toward Him. Paul kept the longing enormous and pointed it upward.
- Lord, my heart's desire and prayer to You for her is written the way Paul wrote his. Scripture puts that desire in Your hands rather than on her shoulders, and the Holy Spirit is working in rooms where nobody is being persuaded. I am telling You how much I want this, and I am saying nothing about it to her.
Romans 10:1
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