The schedule went out in September and she looked at it the way anybody looks at a schedule, which is quickly, and then she looked at it again.
The eleventh. She is on the eleventh. Both services.
Her husband died on the eleventh of that month last year. He was thirty nine. It was on a Sunday then too, which is a detail she has told nobody, because it sounds like something out of a film and it is simply what happened.
She could get out of it. That is the thing that has made this harder rather than easier. One message to the worship pastor and she would be off it in about four minutes and he would move somebody and nobody would ever ask why.
She has not sent it.
Partly because sending it means saying the date out loud in a message to somebody, and she has not been able to type that sentence. Partly because if she is off the eleventh, then she is at home on the eleventh, and she has thought about that and it is not better.
And partly because of something she cannot really explain, which is that she wants to be there. She just cannot picture being there.
Those two things have been sitting in her for six weeks and they have not resolved into anything.
What she can picture, in detail, is the specific moment: the second song, the third line of the second song, where the band drops out, and she is on her own with a room full of people looking at her.
If that is a schedule anybody has looked at twice, stay here. There is a command in Joshua that has one clause in it that almost nobody quotes, and it is the clause you need.
The clause nobody quotes
Here is the verse. Everybody knows the first half. Read the last nine words.
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.Joshua 1:9
For the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
That is the reason clause. Everything in front of it is a command, and the command sits entirely on that last sentence. Be strong, because. Do not be dismayed, because.
The strength is not being demanded out of Joshua's own supply. It is being commanded on the basis of a presence, and the presence is the thing that is being asserted, and it is asserted about wherever he goes rather than about how well he does when he gets there.
You are commanded on the basis of company rather than out of your own reserves, and you were never asked to generate anything. Joshua 1:9 attaches the whole command to the presence in the last clause, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the reason at the end of the sentence where it holds everything else up.
That matters for the second song. Because the fear about the third line is a fear about supply: whether there will be enough of her, at that exact moment, to get through to the chorus.
And that verse is not about supply. It is about who is standing there.
You have not been asked to be strong on your own account, and you were never the source of what happens up there. Joshua 1:9 puts the ground of the command in a presence rather than in a capacity, and the Spirit of God is not scheduled to arrive on the eleventh; He is already on it.
Nobody is going to grade the eleventh
Now let me take something off you that nobody else will, because everybody else is going to be kind in a way that adds weight.
If you lead and it goes fine, that is not a testimony and you do not owe anybody one afterward.
If you lead and your voice goes on the third line and the band comes back in early and somebody in the front row starts crying, that is not a failure and it is not a moment God used and it is not anything at all except a woman having a hard morning in public.
If you send the message this week and take yourself off, that is not a lack of faith. And if you take yourself off and then spend the eleventh at home doing nothing, that is not a lack of faith either.
There is no verse in the Bible about this. There is nothing in Scripture that governs how a person marks the anniversary of a death, and every single piece of advice you will get, including from people who love you, is somebody's experience being handed over as a rule.
You are not on trial on the eleventh, and you were never given a right way to spend it. Nothing in the written word prescribes how a grief marks a date, and the Holy Spirit is not standing at the side of that stage with a verdict.
The two things that will actually help
Here is what I would ask, and neither of them is about the decision.
The first: whatever you decide about leading, plan one small thing for that day that is only yours. Fifteen minutes somewhere before the first service. A particular coffee. Sitting in the car in the lot before you go in. Decide it now, this week, so that the eleventh is not a day you spend improvising.
The second, and this is the one: tell one person the date.
Not the worship pastor as an administrative matter. One person, told plainly, in advance: the eleventh is a year and I am on that morning.
Because the entire weight of the last six weeks has been the weight of holding a date by yourself in a building full of people who would carry it with you if a single one of them knew.
You are allowed to hand somebody the date, and you were never meant to stand on a platform holding a calendar in private. Joshua 1:9 puts the whole command on the fact of company rather than on solitary strength, and the Spirit is at work in a sentence said to one person in advance.
So here is where this leaves you, on a stage, six weeks out.
He is already on the eleventh. He was on it last year. He was in the room where it happened and He is in the room where you will be standing, and He does not need the schedule to be changed to be either place.
That is the thing the last clause of Joshua 1:9 is doing: it is not conditional on the assignment. Whithersoever thou goest. On the platform, in the car, at home with the curtains shut. It does not distinguish.
And when He came in person, He did not spare Himself the date. He knew it was coming, He said so out loud repeatedly, and He went into Jerusalem for it, and on the night before He asked friends to stay awake with Him and they did not manage it, and He went ahead anyway.
You are accompanied toward the eleventh by that same Christ, and you were accompanied on it last year in real time. Joshua 1:9 says the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been in that building for six weeks with a schedule on the wall.
And I am not going to tell you the morning goes well. Comfort is His to give, in His own way and His own timing, and an eleventh that goes badly in public is not a report on your faith or on your ministry.
But there is a second weight and it comes off today. You have carried an accusation that was never true, that a woman who cannot picture leading on that date has something wrong with her walk. Joshua 1 stands in the written word as the permanent answer to it, and the Holy Spirit is not standing at the side of that stage waiting to see how you do.
If any of it ever turns dangerous, and staying safe genuinely comes into question for you, call or text a crisis line where you live, 988 in the United States, and tell a doctor or a counselor the plain truth about it. Getting another human being physically near you is not a failure of faith and it is not a failure of leadership. It is the same nearness Joshua 1:9 promises, arriving in a body.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud in the car, in the lot, before you go in. The authority to speak to what has been sitting on you since September was given to you in Christ, and it does not rise or fall with how strong you feel today. Scripture is the ground under every line and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries it. And whatever He does with the ache afterward is His to decide, in His own way and His own timing.
- Sunday that landed on the date, you are not mine to get through alone. Joshua 1:9 commands strength on the ground that the Lord my God is with me whithersoever I go, and I stop treating the eleventh as a test of my own supply.
- Fear about the third line of the second song, get out in the name of Jesus. The written word puts the reason clause at the end of that command and rests the whole thing on a presence, and the Comforter is not scheduled to arrive on the eleventh, He is already on it.
- Lord, You knew Your own date and You went into the city for it, as Luke 9:51 says of setting Your face. I thank You that You are with me whithersoever I go, and I am telling one person and planning one small thing.
Joshua 1:9
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