How it got there, I don’t know, but it was definitely the hair elastic I had been missing for several days—the one with the decorative ivory cap. Had my cleaning staff found it and placed it on the window sill? Had I done it myself and retained no recollection of finding it? If the latter, why had I put it in my son’s bathroom instead of my own? None of it made sense.

I know, we’re talking about a cheap little hair accessory, not a diamond ring, but its absence had irked me whenever I reached for it and it wasn’t there.

The day the hair elastic went missing I had just put earrings on that matched the elastic’s cuff. The pieces of my outfit all went together and now I’d have to move to Plan B, which included pieces that didn’t. Was anybody going to even notice? I don’t think so. But I would know that something about me was a little “off.”

I’m the kind of person who likes to plan events and activities, organize physical spaces, and align my thoughts if possible (blogging helps).

As I give the matter further thought, I realize that my life runs on a simple equation: order = security. When things are the least bit out of order, I feel unsafe. This is especially true at night, when I’m running through a list of preparations I make for the next day. If I miss a step, or get to it later than I usually do, I feel unnerved. Forgetting to make the thermos of tea I keep by my bedside is tantamount to missing a train. Now there’s plenty of tea in my house that I could make hours later, but that would require me to function a little less efficiently the next day. I freely admit that I am not a morning person and need every bit of efficiency I can get.

And it’s not just me I have to worry about, both in the morning and the evening—my twelve year old, autistic son needs way more help than his chronological peers to get to bed at night and get ready for the bus the next morning. Someone has to brush his teeth, choose his clothing, make and feed him his meals, pack his backpack, and make sure he’s got socks and shoes on his feet. The fact that my near non-verbal child has no sense of urgency about any of this and cannot be navigated through his routine with language presents its own problems. For instance, some mornings he doesn’t want to sit down to eat his breakfast until he has located the book or toy he has in his mind, which he cannot name. It’s nerve-wracking, and raising my voice doesn’t spur him one bit.

I often ask why God decided to give me the child that He did. One answer is that He knew my husband and I would never give up on that child, but always strive to give him the best life we can. Another answer that hits closer to home is that my son constantly challenges me to turn to God to get things sorted, because autism is a far more elaborate knot than I can untie. Some days it feels like the strands of it get pulled tighter and tighter. I need to be reminded that I cannot prepare for everything. Something will always pop up that will upset the apple cart I’m trying to push along with my kid. I need to develop a head that automatically swivels towards heaven and says, “Now what?” It seems like most days I try to tackle autism-related problems by myself. Talk about unsafe! That’s like walking on a tightrope with no safety net below – for either my son or for me.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells two parables about people searching for lost things. The first is a shepherd, who notices that one of his hundred sheep has gone missing. Jesus asks, “[What man] …does not leave the ninety-nine in open country and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4).

Jesus then moves on to a similar story featuring a woman who cannot locate one of ten coins she owns. “[What woman]… does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?” (Luke 15:8)

In both scenarios, Jesus describes the “finders” inviting others to rejoice in their successful recoveries, a pointed message to the religious leaders of the day who were criticizing him for spending time with “sinners.” Jesus wanted to underscore the point that every human heart that turns to God—especially the wayward heart—is cause for great celebration, not judgment.

What leaves me squirming when I read these stories is that the things I am usually looking for could hardly be compared to lost lambs or coins. What I seek rarely has much inherent value. What launches me into search mode is the control those items represent, the ability to exert influence over a situation so that it goes precisely my way. The fact that I cannot easily switch to Plan B tells me that I am hanging onto Plan A way too tightly. In this, I resemble my son, who can be very rigid in terms of his expectations being met.

Maybe that’s another reason God gave him to me: because he knew that I would understand the driving force within that insists on its own way. Much anxiety ensues if things don’t go to plan.

Over the years I’ve learned that the best way to help my son navigate his way through unanticipated situations is by remaining calm and showing compassion when he melts down. (This can be especially hard to do when his meltdowns occur in public. People can be quick to judge.) I have to remind myself that he is not trying to be difficult. In fact, he is trying to cope with something that has triggered extreme confusion and distress in his world. In his panic, he cannot see how things will work out by any other means than what he has known before. His inability to verbally describe what he needs in the moment makes it harder still to soothe him.

Thank God we are made in His image and are equipped with intuition – the ability to sense what is needed and imagine something new providing it. A few years ago my son had a gear toy that spun little plastic gears around on its surface. As we started our day he seemed to be looking for the orange gear. Easy, I thought, knowing he had near-identical gear toys with orange gears that would fit the toy he was holding. Nothing doing. For some reason, he rejected these substitute gears though I could see no difference between one set of gears and another.

And then the idea hit me. I went onto eBay and found the exact toy he was playing with for very little money. I showed him the picture of the toy to ask him if this was what he wanted.  He immediately calmed down. I made the purchase and printed out the picture, which he walked around with until the toy arrived in the mail. Cased closed.

Now I know I cannot go through life buying my son whatever he wants to fix a problem. But that day, that was the right answer. I was able to assuage my son’s anxiety by showing him that I understood his problem and stood ready to help him solve it. God put that idea in my head for both our sakes, to show us what being in the presence of a resourceful parent looks like. I needed the lesson as much as my son did.

Last night my son was playing with another toy and actually said the words “monkey gears.” Once again, he was looking for missing gears that similar toys could not provide. I was tempted to go on eBay again, but resisted it. After a while, my son moved onto something else.

This leaves me with the question: next time I cannot find the exact thing I want, be it an actual object or a remedy to a certain situation, can I move onto something else, trusting God to provide what I need? Can I speak words of request and thanksgiving to Him rather than quietly melting down?

Next time I feel the teeth of anxiety biting into me over some wrong that can’t be righted to my satisfaction, what will I do? Can I learn to be content with what I have or will I insist on my own way?

Lord, please turn my wayward heart toward you and let me see You celebrate my decision to let You find me. Because, in the end, that is what I really want most, even if I don’t always know it at the time. I want to be found by You, in You, fighting with You to overcome my difficulty rather than against You.

And, Lord, every now and again, can we go the eBay route? Would be nice.

Amen.