beaming
It can be easy, in a whisper, to thank the gift without thanking the Giver. It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud, but in the evening, sitting cozy while the darkness gathers outside, we admit this to each other. I fold my legs up in the chair, thinking of the way my gratitude sometimes diffuses over a feeling, an object. I am like a hunter with a dead fish in my hands, thanking the fish for feeding me.
Beside me, Riley flickers like a flame; I can feel the warmth of her. Suddenly, leaning forward, she testifies with a strength that surprises me. “But the giver is God,” she says, somewhat incredulously. I had not realized she was following the conversation.
“Yes,” I say, smiling wide, thinking that I prayed for sustaining faith, and God gave me Riley. In so many ways, she’s vulnerable, and yet, in the most important things, she’s one of the most powerful people I know.
“I’m so glad God gives me everything I need,” she says, continuing, and laughter escapes, with relief. “I appreciate so much that he does that.”
I turn to look at her face, because I love the openness in her expression when she tells the truth; I love the way wonder glints in her eyes, the way affection deepens the color of her cheeks. I love the way her voice sounds when she can’t quite believe God is so good to us. We have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us, Paul wrote (2 Corinthians 4:7). But I have never really wanted to be a clay jar, and sometimes when I look at my children, I focus on the clay, thinking about how easily it crumbles. Right now, seeing the treasure, I shake my head over my own doubt. Lord I believe; help my unbelief.
Just this afternoon, I sat alone, turning open hands down in a posture of release, telling God everything I don’t know about Riley’s future. She is hard pressed on every side, I told him; she is afflicted; she is perplexed. But not crushed, not abandoned, not in despair. The Spirit of God nudges me; I can feel his holy smile. Do you see? The life of Jesus is revealed in her. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they will see God. Blessed and not lacking, because of whom she will always see.
In His way, God has been answering my prayers for Riley through Riley for many months. I have seen this expression on her face before; I have heard her testimony. The last time, we were on our way to school.
“I’m not really sure what I’ll do next,” Riley’s friend had said that day. I could see her in the rearview mirror, biting her lip on one side, watching the road roll by.
This being their graduation year, Riley and her friend often talk about the things we don’t yet know, whether they should just get jobs (and what kind?) or go to college, where they hope to live, what might be the next stage in important relationships.
“I know one thing: I want to live on my own,” her friend continued, absently twisting a length of her hair with one finger. “I need my own place so I can do my own thing. I need some space.” She said that word, space, percussively, on a downbeat. “You know?”
“Mmmhmm, I know you do,” Riley had said, agreeing, half listening as she bent over her phone to thumb through a text thread. I hummed along to Lauren Daigle—When I am a wasteland/You are the water–trying, as we moms do, not to be overly present or distracting. I thought about how all their lives, these two young women have courageously set out on unmarked paths. Next steps after high school exist for exceptional people, but they’re often overgrown or half-buried. And the innocence of our children, which is both a gift and a burden, makes us “special needs” parents somewhat hypervigilant about where we encourage them to go, what we encourage them to do. Though countless others have gone before us, though God always goes before, we feel like trailblazers.
“I’m trying to figure out who’s going to cry first when we graduate,” Riley’s friend had said with a sigh, trying again to draw Riley deeper into conversation, though that day Riley seemed more captivated by the people she could love through text than the unknown days ahead. I knew her apparent lack of interest was a coping mechanism, just a different one than her friend had chosen that morning.
Meanwhile, sun flashed on the roadway, and I kept humming,
When I am a desert
You are the river that turns
to find me
Lauren Daigle, “Love Like This”
At every transition we reach with our kids, I imagine a stretch of pilgrim land with nothing but blind curves. In so many ways, Autism has robbed us all of any eloquence about the future. We don’t know; we don’t know; we don’t know. Over the years I’ve learned to admit this without apology when someone asks what’s next, but I used to feel that not knowing made me out a failure, as though successful mothering meant always knowing my way into the future. Were I any sort of good navigator, I would always explore years in advance; I would always have pre-drawn maps. But I accept my imperfection more now than before; I have relinquished the illusive idea that I am the one with the capacity to know the lay of the land. Instead, I pray and I listen.
“You know they’re gonna cry when we graduate,” Riley’s friend had prompted. “You know they are.”
Your voice like a whisper/breaking the silence
“Riley?”
“Mmm?”
“What do you think you’ll do next? After this?”
Riley looked up from her phone, clicked the button on the side so the screen went black, turned it over in her lap. She looked ahead a moment, squinting at the road, the line of cars, the leaves already starting to fall from the trees.
“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. And then each word came a little more quickly, like she’d gathered her momentum. “But we’re praying about it. My mom and dad are praying with me about it.” She smiled then, in my peripheral vision I saw her turn to look over her shoulder a little, toward her friend. And then she testified, the truth escaping with certainty and unhindered joy, “God will tell us what’s next.”
I remember that now, feeling her flicker, watching the knowledge of God light her face, and she looks at me as though she knows what I’m thinking, shifts her body a little closer to mine, and says, “I just love how God does that.”
I can’t help but return her smile, still shaking my head a little. And taking up a trace of memory, I start to hum again.
What have I done to deserve a love like this?
