ready

Riley sits at the bar, fresh-faced and bright, if still a little rumpled with sleep. She looks like Spring, like the first day of sapphire skies; like new flowers with blushing, velvet leaves; like anticipation; like hope sitting right there on a bench in my kitchen., and it’s striking to me because it’s the opposite of how I feel. I read somewhere that hope faithfully, actively waits, and this morning I look at her and that’s exactly what I see: She sits poised to receive anticipated blessing; she sits ready for love. Josh is coming over today. Love will walk right in, and Riley’s faith in that fact changes everything.

Meanwhile, here I sit dredged from sleep and nursing a cup of coffee, thinking ugh, Monday, thinking of life as an endless series of repetitive routines. I prepare to slog; she beams. But God, who by grace never leaves me to my own devices, gently touches my eyes and reorients my view until I see her. And then carefully He asks me what it looks like to see life as a series of opportunities to love Him and others wildly, generously. Doesn’t it look more like this? He asks me if loving in constant ways–the giving of daily bread, matters less than the loving that interrupts and changes a moment. He asks me what will be different if I anticipate receiving His love all day, because He knows that for me, receiving is often harder. Do I believe that what I give I will receive even more fully from Him until, more than supplied, I overflow with more love to give?

Riley always wakes up pleasant and loving, talking as though she never really was asleep, but even so, she and mornings don’t usually blend very smoothly. Early mornings mean time commitments, and those create the perfect storm for frustration because she feels compelled to check off boxes on at least four different compulsive checklists, checking and re-checking, and she hates to feel rushed. I get it: I’m less obsessive, but really not all that different. I’m compulsive about tasks and deadlines too; I also hate to feel rushed. So I had not actually expected Riley to wake up early enough to go with me to meet Josh and his mom, but last night she made her intentions quite clear: She is unwilling to miss even a moment of her time with Josh. Nothing trumps love, especially not her own comfort. Nevermind that this would be the first day of Spring Break and the first opportunity to hang out a little longer in her pajamas. She’d blinked at me like I was being unbelievably obtuse. She would get up early, she said; she would be ready.

I hear that word, ready, and I think of the armor of God, those feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. The language suggests supernatural shoes of the sort that assure firm footing no matter the terrain. Step aside, Dorothy, because this is the real glitter; these are the real treads. That readiness, or preparation, sourced by the victorious declaration of peace won by Jesus between God and man, helps us stand and keep on standing. That love came down; that love walks right in; that love stays; that love returns; that we have and continue to receive the unconquerable love of God; the truth of a love that never fails; our faith in that fact makes us sure-footed even when we feel unsteady on our feet. Do I anticipate receiving his love all day? He asked me. Are you wearing the shoes?

The laces on Riley’s shoes tap against the bar stool where she sits swinging her legs. I notice because I can’t even count the number of school days she’s run out of the house carrying her shoes in her hand. It’s early yet, the light outside my window looks creamy and soft, and I have to admit she pegged it right. She’s wearing the shoes. She’s ready. Today, in anticipation of love, she has found it unusually easy to set aside her compulsions. This morning at least, she’s free. I walked past her room on the way downstairs and glimpsed the sheets still flipped back, the impression of her body still wrinkling them at the center. Today she has even allowed herself some grace, some imperfection, some freedom from legalism.

We have worked on this for a while, trying to help Riley develop the maturity to choose necessary things first, to forgo the deceptive urgency of the secondary, but our progress on that front has been slow and haphazard. We often measure success and failure by the repetition, by tears counted when things go wrong. I mentioned this to a friend, self-chastising, and she reminded me that for love God repeats Himself again and again to us, too. She said we need look no further than Spring and all the shoots splitting the soil to know that breakthroughs don’t come without a struggle, that these things have their season. Do first what you need to do to be ready, I’m always saying to Riley, like a mantra, like a trowel pushing through to fertility, and today, she did. She got up at the sound of her alarm; she put on the right clothes; she loosed and brushed her hair, gathering hairbands for the braid she prefers when she has plans, when she wants to be able to think. She put on her shoes. She came downstairs and sat down to eat her breakfast, and all this sounds predictable, maybe. You will be thinking, well, of course. But you must imagine what has happened before in order to understand.

Most days, everyday days, Riley gets up at the sound of her alarm and plods down to the bathroom where she turns on the light and the fan, always the fan (we don’t know why). After she washes her hands, she dries them a certain number of times. When I pay attention, I can count the squeaks of the towel ring against its base. She flips off the lights, and sometimes, just to be sure, she flips them on and back off again and again and again and again, until that moment when I nearly launch myself toward the door to make her stop. Slowly, tentatively, barefoot and pajama clad, she takes the stairs. She sits down in the chair–always the same chair–and waits until we have said the ritual things in greeting. Her half she says exactly, and I mean exactly, the same way every day; and should we try to skirt the routine, she sits and waits and waits and waits until we say our part. She walks over to the bar, her “office” I call it, where she keeps her lists, and she moves all the way to the left side, a foot or so too far, leaning left and right as though exaggerating her attention toward the lists, and then she walks along the bar, noting we-don’t-know-what, bobbing forward and whispering under her breath. Mostly we–Kevin and I–ignore this ritual, except for those days when some taunting thing grips our heads and wiggles its fingers in our minds and makes us watch, and on those days, we look over our reading glasses at each other and sigh and sometimes silently say things with our eyes.

You feel as though that’s happening to you now, I imagine, like I’ve grabbed you by the head, and so I’ll leave it at that, though on our ordinary-not-ordinary days this goes on in different iterations for most of the two hours it takes Riley to get ready to go somewhere. These compulsions are fairly typical for autism and usually worse in young adulthood, so we pray and we try things; we work to help her break free without weakening her wings. So to see her ready already today, it moves me to celebration and also to hope, because although I’m less obsessive, I’m really not so different. God keeps pointing me to first things, but when I’m not anticipating, not planning, not actually intending to live love, I also end up doing life as a series of meaningless routines. I go through the motions and give overexaggerated attention to my to do list. And although because of me progress is slow and haphazard, God keeps training me toward fruitfulness. He turns my head; He gives me eyes that really see. He shows me my daughter sitting ready at the bar, swinging her legs, erupting in joyous anticipation.