the good news
The sky, like the soft skin of a plum, ripens from the bottom, hinting at some sweet, fleshy truth beyond its careful covering. I rock back and forth in a rocker on the porch, relishing the chance to savor the change, wondering how it would be to peel back that top layer of rich cloud. Unhurried moments like these are my favorites, as are Saturday mornings, crisp and slow and simmering with possibility. I take a sip of my coffee and breathe, cradling the mug in my hands, and then the door of my mama heart squeaks open with the porch door, and Riley stands on the threshold, sleep still lining her pinked cheeks.
“Mom Jones?”
“Good morning, Riley.”
“Oh good morning, Mom Jones,” she says, with that practiced exuberance she reserves for greetings, and then, after a requisite pause, “I really hope I don’t have another migraine tomorrow and miss lunch with our Connect group.”
“I hope that too,” I say, not entirely surprised that this should be her morning greeting. Riley’s anxieties seem to be born of the dawn, and nearly always as significant. Most Sundays, we spend time with a small group of close friends who do life with us as extended family. We gather in colorful, jumbled reunion, sometimes carrying food, but always carrying our real lives–triumphs, messes, hopes, fears. For obvious reasons, our church family calls these gatherings Connect groups. Riley doesn’t like to miss the time with friends; and after last week’s pain, it’s no wonder she’s concerned.
“I think I’m going to ask everyone to pray about it,” she says, glancing down at the phone she holds lightly in her fingers. All week, our Connect group prays, popping in and out of a Messenger group to post requests, responses, sometimes even written prayers and blessings.
“That’s a perfect idea,” I say, grinning and turning back to gaze once again at the sky. Riley disappears into the house and her morning routine, only returning sometime later to read us the note she has composed for our Connect group’s Messenger channel. She can be very eloquent, especially when her communication departs from ritual and rehearsal, but autism leaves her always looking for reassurance about her original compositions.
This is what she posted, what she read to us standing on the threshold poised for a speech: Hi everybody! I would like to ask for prayers that I don’t get dizzy and have migraine headaches at church tomorrow. So that I would be able to have lunch with you tomorrow. I would appreciate it if you guys can pray for me not to have these issues ever again. She reads this, reiterating the sentiments with a punctuating finger, jabbing the air in front of her. “That’s what I wrote to our group.”
“Sounds great. Well said, Riley Jones,” I reassure. Makes my mama heart soar to hear my children rest their hearts in the hands of God, to hear them express confidence in the love of God’s people and the effective power of prayer. This grace moves me to thanks-giving, and I imagine getting up from my peaceful rocking to scrawl the gift across today, right below the mention of that ripening sky, this morning I’ve savored. We must still find time to see vibrant, everyday glimpses of God; we must still find time to hear His voice, especially in the voices of our children.
I stand to go, to dive into the day with eyes now seeing, when Riley, having posted her request, refreshes the screen on the chat group. A watched pot, I think. “No one has responded yet,” Riley says, glancing up at me, “but one person has seen it,” she reports. We’re all this way, really. We crack open our hearts, grabbing like vulnerable climbers before we fall, and then hope someone else holds the other end of the rope. Two are better than one, Word says, so better yet an entire community of friends. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up (Ecclesiastes 4:10). Riley‘s waiting now for her help, embodied in the collective force of our friends, to peek over the cliff and show His face.
“Well, no need to watch and wait, sweet girl. They’ll respond. Better yet, they’ll pray.”
“Yes, they will!” Riley readily agrees, tapping the button on the side of her phone to snooze the screen. “And Mom Jones?”
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow I get to tell them the good news!”
Admittedly, I flounder, momentarily lost. The good news? Riley grins triumphantly, nearly giddy with excitement, her voice bouncing with her body. Tomorrow I get to tell them the good news. Nine words that look ahead to the privilege of happy testimony, and in a moment, I see: The river’s flooding and she’s just walked in, confident that God will open up the way across (Joshua 3: 8-17). And when we witness the flood-moving power of God, even in the mind’s eye, we consider it an urgent privilege to share the good news. No sooner has Riley’s message flown on cyber winds to tapping thumbs and flying fingers than she has believed with certainty in the answer to come. Tomorrow I get to tell them the good news. Already she imagines typing the words; already she composes the sentences. My daughter keeps Watchman Nee’s faith watch, having come to the place whereby she claims God has already answered her prayer. “True faith knows ‘it is done’ already,” Nee wrote in A Living Sacrifice (91-92). God has said that He will do this. “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear (Isaiah 65:24).” God has shown that He does this, even since the time of Abraham (Genesis 24:15), and yet I nearly always still stand at the river’s edge waiting to see the tide curl back and the ground dry before I take my steps of faith. I think maybe it takes us hours, standing in the very center of the river on dry ground, before we finally recognize that no matter what God’s answer happens to be, it’s always good news we get to tell.
Riley, she teaches me. And now, I have one more grace gift to scrawl across the day.
