the simple life
“I met a new friend today,” Riley says, and it’s the first thing she wants to tell me about her first day back at school, the first thing she gushes, beaming as she walks through the door and out of the thick August afternoon heat.
“Oh yea?”
“Mmmhmm,” she singsongs, dropping her book bag into a basket by the door, happily mentioning her new friend’s name, making a few joyful observations, and then bubbling on about how she hasn’t yet met her friend’s parents in person, but she hopes to. And I smile, because of all the firsts that could be exciting, Riley latches on to the only one that really matters for good: a new friend. Sometimes God holds me by the shoulders and turns me carefully so I’ll see: Riley may not ever be able to do so many of the things this world labels as success, but she excels effortlessly at God’s favorite thing: loving people.
I turn away from the door and follow Riley into the house, treasuring up the lesson: Meeting someone new is cause for celebration! And, anyone can be my friend. Most of her life, Riley has been my teacher, and I the grateful pupil. Following Jesus is a matter of the heart, and Riley’s heart is genuine and generous. She doesn’t know that God uses her to teach me; she just lives a simple life of love, and I get to watch and learn.
Just days ago, in fact, Riley made me laugh as she and the other Dynamic Opportunities students logged on to Zoom for a virtual tour of their new space. Tiny windows blinked open all over her computer screen, and Riley giggled with glee, giddy over every single friendly face. In view of efficiency and social conventions, most of us would maybe have said, “Hello all,” or something awkward and semi-apologetic and self-conscious, but Riley, who loves every person much, chose to say hello to each one by name, and did so unapologetically and with enthusiasm. She sat at the end of our kitchen table waving, making her repetitive hellos, smile wide, joy sparking in her eyes. Her greetings went on for several minutes, and her loud, glad voice carried not just sound but love–love that acknowledges every single one, love that leaves the ninety-nine for the one–through all the rooms in our house. I bubbled over with laughter, overflowing with Riley’s contagious joy, thinking about how our efficiency and social conventions inevitably leave someone feeling invisible. I felt God’s hands on my shoulders again, as He gently showed me that while Riley will never impress a soul on this earth with her IQ score or her smooth social ability, she possesses the wisdom of heaven. In weakness, Riley lives the true, good story of God, who knows each of us by name and even counts the hairs on our heads.
In my lifetime, I’ve sought after and valued so many things that will ultimately fade away, things Jesus calls earthly treasure, among them beauty, physical strength, human influence, and achievement. Foolishly, I’ve searched for bigger mountains to climb and elevated popularity over obscurity. I’ve bought a thousand lies about what makes me valuable, even knowing what God says about who I am. But because of His great mercy, God gave me Riley, a daughter who neither values nor seeks after any of those things, a person who, in the kingdoms of this world, has no notable resume. She fails all our cultural assessments of worth, and through her, God teaches me. God uses the weak things of this world to shame the strong.
I follow Riley into the kitchen now, watching as she unpacks her bags, answering softly as she asks about my day. She pushes her hair away from her ears, pink-cheeked, and beautiful, though not in the usual ways. Riley is lit from within by a love and peace that don’t belong to this world. Suddenly I see, as though God has just dropped scales from my eyes, that Riley belongs to the company of those of whom this world isn’t worthy, the strongest ones of all. For in her many weaknesses, Christ’s power rests.
