what she sows
All the way to school, Riley reads me her birthday messages, one after another, turning down the music as she clears her throat. All of this affectionate acknowledgement adds up as evidence to one solid truth that right now glows on Riley’s cheeks: I am loved. It’s the one thing we all need to know–I.am.loved, and in this moment, I watch each message build her from the inside. I see how she beams as she reads, how suddenly it feels so much easier for her to hold herself upright, and I wonder, Why don’t we do this for each other every day?
Of course, some people do. I tap the steering wheel with my fingers, thinking of my journal at home, the pages thick with taped-in cards, with sticky notes my friends have left on little gifts on my front porch. I have learned to collect up the good words, to save them safe because they tend to slip away from me. They melt from my mind, briefly sweet, like candy melting on my tongue. Meanwhile, the hard words, the harsh ones, mark me like a brand, and the silences can carve out caverns.
God has recently moved me to start slotting encouragement in my planner as an appointment. For me, that seems to be the only way to keep margin for spreading the Truth: you are loved, you.are.LOVED.
Right now, God uses Riley to say something more, to show me how to celebrate the truth and how to expect it. Having exhausted the reading thus far, she drops her phone in her lap. We ease to a stop at a light and I glance over, grinning to find her sitting carefully, her hands flat and straight, lined up on her knees and waiting. If a posture could speak, hers screams ready. She trains her eyes on the stoplight, the road, the path curving and rising in front of us, but she’s actively waiting. She feels me looking at her and gushes joy before rearranging her expression and resuming watchfulness. Scripture urges us, be watchful and thankful, and as usual, Riley has made a literal example of it. She will not miss the streams God carves into the wasteland; she will not miss nor fail to receive any of the love He has for her.
The light turns and I drive on, and Riley’s phone dings. She reaches to turn the music volume down again, brightly says, “Ohp, I have more birthday messages,” in an I-knew-it kind of way, and then starts reading aloud again. This began early this morning–her head bent toward her phone, her face aglow–while I still sipped my coffee and new light slipped in through the windows. Right now, as she did then, she announces each person, treasuring them one-by-one as the gifts they are, sometimes explaining to me how she knows them, because these days not every friend Riley has is one she made through me. I smile wild and shake my head, not saying a word. The professionals said she’d always struggle to make connections; they said she might never know how to be a friend. This morning when this started, I glanced at Kevin in wonder, shot glances across the room, as Riley read her messages. Kevin shrugged, said simply, “It’s what she sows.”
I look out the window now, gathering blooms in my mind, hoping the tears in my eyes will not distract Riley. I am, as always, blown away by God’s grace, which He gives us on top of grace already given. In His hands, my once wordless, frustrated child has become a master planter. Birthdays have only become her harvest days. Listening to her now feels like walking the rows with her as she points to love, love, love, this kind and that, as she cups her hands beneath the buds she’s cultivated, as she runs her thumbs over the delicate petals. And I, knowing the grief that fertilized this ground, can only watch the road roll by as my own joy spills. Riley doesn’t have to slot time for love; it’s just what she sows. She loves and is loved, and in this, her life bears much fruit. How, I wonder, except for the grace of God, has she always known what I have just begun to receive in my soul, that love really is the greatest of these? And if it delights my soul so much to see her love and be loved, how much does God delight to see me truly love another?
“…and she says,” Riley goes on, “‘I love that you make absolutely everyone feel special. That’s quite a gift.'” She glances over, grinning. “That’s so nice of her,” she says, and it sounds like, oh, wow, that’s exactly what I wanted.
