take heart

Gently, I lay a hand on Adam’s back, feeling the knobs of his spine, hard and round beneath my fingers.  Silently he watches as, with the other hand, I press a sticky note down on the desk in front of him. At the top, today’s date, scrawled quickly.  When matters; it anchors the whole thing.

I grabbed my glasses to write this note, padding in my soft socks and pajamas into my office, because sound wafts and eventually wanders away, but written words sink and settle.  I knew Adam would need something he can reference for a while.  I felt the crisp chill of early morning lingering in the bones of the floor, the walls, as I moved through the house, having paused mid-thought with my coffee still steaming on the table beside me.

I had been sitting with the prayer Jesus prayed over his disciples before their whole world went wonky.

“Father, it’s time,” He had said at first.

Before that prayer, Jesus had prepared the disciples for all kinds of trouble.  They would feel trapped and squeezed and threatened, and in my own context, I can relate.  Jesus loved them by telling them about it in advance.  I feel like He was telling me too, is still telling me, as He shepherds me.  All this I have told you so that you will not fall away…so that you will have joy.  He says this multiple times, to underline the point.   He wants us to know that hardship and joy can and do mark the same path.

Today will be a twisty day, that had been my tangential thought, as my finger meandered down the page and I considered how Jesus prepared his unknowing disciples for the cross and the resurrection and the early days of their multiplication as disciple-makers.  What could he tell them that would give them a full awareness of God’s grace, even as they struggled?

“Don’t let your hearts be agitated,” He said, which tells me I can choose something else; I can choose not to allow myself to remain troubled.  In the original language, that word translated troubled referred to something stirred up that should be still.   “Trust in me,” He said.

I shifted in my chair, feeling tender about Adam’s anxiety when he’s unprepared for changes to his routine.  Rigidity is one of the most common coping strategies for people with Autism, which means that most Autistic people cling to routines and schedules and plans and struggle when things change.  Change creates upheaval in their hearts.  It’s one of the few expressions of the condition that Adam and Riley have in common, although Adam doesn’t articulate his feelings the same way Riley does, not with words like her, or that warning hard in his voice—“I just don’t like change.”  Instead, fret knots the space between Adam’s eyes.  Silently he agonizes and endures, his gaze sliding sideways, like he’s afraid to look. 

I can’t bear it.

So, I got up and wandered into my office and pulled a sticky note from the holder on my desk.  The paper made a clean sound as it slid free.   Trouble is hard for people with Autism, but it’s also just a human problem.  What do we do with the life that makes us sigh and fret and draw our shoulders up around our ears?  What do we do with feeling trapped and squeezed and threatened by things beyond our control?  Life is hard for all of us.  Jesus had something to say about that.

Below the date, I wrote for Adam a loose outline of our day, noting all the dislodging details.  In this world, you will have trouble.  I stopped short of explaining everything, knowing that doing so would only distract his attention from more important things.  It will be good, I finished at the bottom—take heart, son, take courage from me–drawing a careful line below those four words with my pen.  I look into his eyes now as I place the note, adding in our silent language, trust me.

“My peace I give you,” Jesus had said to the disciples.  He talked at the table while they ate the Passover; He talked as they walked to the Mount.  It was important to Him that they understood: If you stay with me, you’ll have what you need.

For most of Adam’s life, I have been giving him my peace.

Adam doesn’t belong to this world, not really.  He lives like a refugee trying hard to figure out the language and the customs.  Because of this, most of the prayers I pray for Adam have something to do with asking for God’s protection over him.  I understand why Jesus keeps telling the disciples they’re not of the world; why He acknowledges that before God; why He asks God to protect them.

“All I have is yours, and all you have is mine,” Christ said to God in prayer.  The Spirit takes from what is His and gives to us, and we, often without realizing we have done it at all, give those gifts to others.  I have not been able to fix the disconnect Adam feels, nor can I take him out of world of constantly shifting schedules, constantly changing affections, but I can give him my peace, the peace God gives to me, through the touch of my life on his, my hands, resting lightly on his cheeks.  I prepare him as much as I can.  We go through stacks of sticky notes.

Over time, years of picture schedules and last minute changes, of us over-verbalizing plans as we run out the door, of Adam lapsing into emotional complaint, flicking his eyes nervously at his watch, we have discovered that most of his distress can be avoided with a written note and a little advance warning.   This is a way that we love him.

This morning, he bends over my note, his hair swinging off his forehead.  I feel his spine curl beneath my hand, then slide my fingers along his shoulder while he reads.  He finishes and glances at me, just quickly, assessing my emotions, focusing on my face to understand if any of the changes in our day have taken me by surprise or caused me some alarm.  Do not believe that Autistic people can’t read a face or a room; my children never miss a detail, especially as young adults experienced in avoiding potential shock to their overstimulated bodies.  I imagine the disciples watching Christ’s face for signs of distress, listening for subtle changes to his tone of voice.  Adam reminds me where to fix my eyes too.

This morning, reading those chapters all together in John’s gospel, I realized how concerned Jesus was about the disciples’ hearts, how concerned He is about mine.  He put the truth in front of them carefully, a note pressed into their memories for the twisty days ahead.  This is what you need to know.  I am telling you these things that you might have joy.  This is how He loved them to the end, how He loves me still.