cleaving

Here we sit, Josh’s mom–my friend Camille–and me, two sisters, on a velvet sofa in a coffee shop called Lucky Tree, twisting cups in our open hands, talking, as mothers do, of life-giving.

Oddly, it strikes me that when we get up and leave this place, an impression of our bodies will remain, lightening the upholstery. Still more, that we can leave behind the impression of Christ, like a fragrance sweetening the air, or, an inexplicable peace, though perhaps, as He has chosen, no one here will immediately recognize Him in it.

Camille is saying, and it’s not only the words so much as it is also her eyes, how they light, that she wants our people, our Josh and Riley, to know, more certainly than they know anything else, that they can go to God with all their longing, that He hears.  Increasingly, in acknowledging the oneness they’ve chosen, we speak of them as one—Josh and Riley, letting them cleave, of how God seems to be shaping their future together.

Do you know this, that in English, the word cleave is a contronym, or a word with two meanings that contradict each another; two that are the same, and yet also completely different? In fact, in cleave we have two distinct words from different linguistic roots that look exactly alike, a cleave that means to adhere firmly and unwaveringly, the way Josh and Riley have done to each other, and a cleave that means to split or divide, in the way that they have each begun to move away from their individual and separate family units toward each other, until our choice has been easily made to cleave to each other the first way too, as one big, new family.  There can be no real cleaving union without cleaving from whatever went before.  And so, as the apostle Paul pointed out long ago, marriage tells the mysterious story of Christ and the church.  This is the union we—Camille and Ray and Kevin and I—move toward for our Riley and Josh, not only the cleaving of two souls but two families, and all of us together cleaving to Christ.

“…because if we know that,” Camille is saying, her face all peace, “that He hears and answers our prayers, that’s pretty much all we need to know about how to approach the future.”  My sister Camille has received a generous gift of faith, and so, she wants to urge in our couple’s training for marriage what Paul urged the church in Ephesus, that they would pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  I sit across from her nodding in agreement, thinking we would do well, even those of us who have been couples for years, to spend more time talking to God together.

Meanwhile, I have also recently returned to repeating to the Lord the request of His first disciples, teach me, Lord, to pray, acknowledging in prayer that this joy of coming to God, of confidently approaching His throne of grace to receive mercy and grace to meet my need, must be renewed, must be re-learned with greater dependence, as part of an active and continual apprenticeship to Jesus.  My preoccupation with self-reliance shows when mulling, strategizing, planning and worry take up a much greater percentage of my time than prayer.

So, it feels fitting now, that here we are asking Him also, teach them to pray, because maybe we sip our coffee at the lucky tree, but we believe in partaking of the Tree of Life, in God’s provision, more, in perissos, that is, superabounding, or receiving in excess according to the generosity of God.  We believe that God is able, as Paul penned in another of his letters on life in Christ, to make all grace overflow to [us], so that, in all things and at all times, having all [we] need, [we might] overflow in every kind of good work.  This is our prayer over our young adults, and because we love them, we want to train them to have an intentionally prayer-fueled, prayer-full marriage, dwelling as one with Christ, practicing active faith in just this promise, because we cannot say that we believe in such a guarantee and be too busy or distracted to pray.

But how to make this reality more tangible for young adults whose memories get interrupted by seizures, who struggle to put their reality into words, and who, through no fault of their own, could over-structure prayer as a task and miss the reality of an abiding relationship? Not that they alone experience such hurdles, or that epilepsy or autism can be held responsible. For whom among us has not known at least one of these symptoms of human frailty?  We all have exceptional needs, even if some of us keep them carefully hidden.

So, maybe this isn’t just an exceptional needs mama talk Camille and I are having, but the sort of discussion that naturally flows, by the grace of God, from the devoted fellowship of those who have been made one in His family, all of us needing to stretch beyond convention and our own capacity into the kind of reliance that is built through prayer, as we humbly acknowledge that spiritual formation, even this life of prayer, is chiefly the work of God and not merely a product of human determination.

“I’m praying that God will help Josh–and help me to help him—make a connection between what he prays and the evidence that God hears and answers.”  Camille says, taking another sip of her coffee.

We pray to grow in prayer; we pray to train them to pray.  This conversation is, in as much as we have it before God and with Him, a prayer about prayer.  How is prayer in fact continual except that prayer means more, within an abiding relationship with God, than we ever imagined?

For the last few years, Camille and I have collaborated on helping our couple learn to “do life” together and adopt rhythms for ordinary days and daily responsibilities, recognizing that consistency of routine comes with its own dangers for the flourishing of the soul, and that the only help for this is constantly practicing the presence of God as part of “normal” life.  So, for a while, I included prayer time on the agenda for Josh and Riley’s date days at our house, and Camille included a shared quiet time.  Now, as we sisters hand clasp and jump into the Lord together, from the Lucky Tree feet-first into His river, I feel us returning, as we must so often do, to practices that literally move us and our people toward God, devoting our time and fixing our attention not on a task to be completed but on a relationship in which we all get to participate.  Prayer is more like climbing up into the lap of God to chatter as children than it is giving an eloquent classroom presentation, so our prayer practices must never be misconstrued, like so many of the things we plan to do, as the end unto themselves.

“What if we help them get back to spending some of their time together praying each week?” I ask her, remembering the sight of our couple sitting knee to knee, their voices stridently asking how do you want me to pray, their knitted hearts reaching tenderly toward God.  I have often been taught by their faith, how easily and honestly they ask after good, after healing, after peace, how courageously they inspire trust in each other.

“We could encourage them to make it visual?  Maybe actually writing their requests on sticky notes and literally moving answered prayer to another place?”  There’s something delightful to God about embodying faith, which is of course its work, the movement from belief to trusting action.

Camille nods, considering.  “Yes.  I’ll get some supplies.”

Supplies, yes, for making a home in the shelter of God, for living a quiet, ordinary life of trust, because Camille and I know that the greatest blessing, greater even than any mighty yes our Josh and Riley long to hear, is the relationship—He in them, and they, in Him—that leads them, as one, to take their dreams to Him.