Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Archives for March 2016

Wasted Love

If you had been alive during that first Easter, who would you have been?

Would you have been Peter, bold and brash, defending Jesus in the only way you knew how?

Would you have been John, quiet and steadfast in your heartbreak?

Would you have been one of the women who wiped Jesus’ brow on his agonizing climb to Golgotha, showing love even as your hopes crumbled?

Would you have been Thomas, asking for proof yet keeping a sliver of belief alive?

I’m not sure who I would have been. I like to think I’d cling to hope even before I could see how everything unfolded, but I’m not sure. I’m much better at believing in miracles in retrospect, after I have the whole picture.

But it’s easy to identify the person I would like to be. I want to be Mary, who poured out her perfume on Jesus’ feet.

Just before he died, Jesus went to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. And there, Mary enacted a most extravagant gesture of love. Here’s the story:

Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.
John 12:3

You might think everyone around would have been impressed by Mary’s act of generosity. Instead, she was judged for being wasteful.

Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray [Jesus], said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”
John 12:4-5

According to some scholars, this jar of perfume was likely Mary’s dowry—what would have been given to a suitor to pay the bride price. The perfume was essentially her past and her future . . . and she lavished it on an uncredentialed rabbi from a backwoods town.

Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
John 12:7-8

Sometimes I find myself assuming that Jesus would have been ultra-practical—frugal, even. “Waste not; want not”—that’s in the Bible somewhere, right? Somewhere near “God helps those who help themselves”?

But to my surprise, Jesus didn’t chastise Mary over the apparent wastefulness of her act. He didn’t tell her she should have focused on her savings account or reserved some her retirement. He didn’t even criticize her for not giving to charity.

He told her that her lavish devotion, her extravagant love, was beautiful.

And this Holy Week I wonder: What am I willing to “waste” on God and the people he’s given me to love?

Am I so concerned about being careful and judicious and economical that I fail to shower my love in unpractical ways?

What would it look like for us to show extravagant, “wasteful” love this week?

  • Maybe extravagant love looks like scrapping our to-do list and doing some leisurely Bible reading instead.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like “wasting” the afternoon playing with your favorite little person, even if the proof isn’t captured on Facebook or Instagram.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like doing something for someone who will never be able to pay you back or properly thank you.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like “wasting” the morning by going on a walk and taking in the world God made.

Because here’s what I think—and I have a hunch Mary would agree: If it’s real love, it’s never wasted.

The Other Irish Saint

Top o’ the morning to you! I hope that you are wearing green or drinking a Shamrock Shake or eating corned beef or doing whatever it is you do on a day when everyone is Irish.

So most of us have heard of Saint Patrick, but today I’d like to introduce you to a lesser-known Irish hero: a monk named Saint Dallan. You’ve probably never heard his name, but you just might know his work: he’s the author of the hymn “Be Thou My Vision.”

In the sixth century, a hundred or so years after Patrick landed in Ireland, Dallan dedicated his life to the Lord and to the people of his country. His given name was Eochaid, but most people called him Dallan, which meant “little blind one.”

That’s right. The man who wrote “Be Thou My Vision” was blind.

For generations, the Old Irish version of “Be Thou My Vision” was used as a prayer and chanted by monks throughout Ireland. It wasn’t until 1905 that the words were translated into English. The poem was set to music several years later, in 1912.

The simple yet profound lyrics of this song are just as relevant today as they were when they were penned some fourteen centuries ago:

Be Thou my vision,
O Lord of my heart.
Naught be all else to me,
Save that Thou art.

Almost five years ago, I walked down an aisle on a dewy August morning toward Daniel, grinning like a schoolboy in his gray striped suit, while a handful of our closest family and friends sang these words:

Thou my best thought,
By day or by night,
Waking or sleeping,
Thy presence my light.

The words seemed more fitting than other song we could find. As we entered into this covenant, this promise that was bigger than either one of us, we couldn’t see what lay ahead. We knew God had a plan to knit our stories together into one, but there was so much we couldn’t see. We had to cling to the belief that he would see us through the days and years ahead—that he would be our vision when we couldn’t see.

Be Thou my wisdom,
And thou my true word,
Thou ever with me,
And I with Thee Lord.

The truth is, even if we have eyes, we lack vision. In those moments when our dreams blind us or our trials cloud our ability to see or the darkness makes us lose our step, we don’t just need better vision. We need the Lord himself to be our vision.

Thou my great Father,
And I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling,
And I with thee one.

Today I invite you to join me in praying the words of this blind monk:

Be Thou my vision at work.
Be Thou my vision at home.
Be Thou my vision in my relationships.
Be Thou my vision in my decisions.
Be Thou my vision in all I do today.
Amen.

And if you’re feeling especially festive, you can attempt the Old Irish version:

Rop tú mo baile, a Choimdiu cride:
ní ní nech aile acht Rí secht nime.

 

The Truth about “Arriving”

The moment of disillusionment came crashing down sometime in September during my freshman year of college. I was sitting outside doing some reading for one of my classes when the revelation hit me like a Biology 101 textbook falling from the sky: I will never be the girl on the cover of the catalog!

Before that moment, I don’t think I even realized I harbored any such dreams. Starting my junior year of high school, I’d get mailing after mailing of coeds sprawled on a blanket under pines or yellow aspens (never doing any homework—just smiling perfect, gleaming smiles).

My realization that I would never be the catalog girl wasn’t about the way I looked or about the fact that my outfit didn’t come off the hanger at Gap or even that such handsome guys never sat on my red plaid blanket.

It was that I’d thought I’d somehow feel different once I arrived and became a college student.

As it turned out, I was still me.

It’s a phenomenon that has followed me my whole life. I figured that once I got engaged, I would suddenly feel glamorous and confident and perhaps even a little diva-like. And that once I got married, I’d instantly acquire all manner of wifely abilities, like, for example, being able to whip together a timely, healthy, and delicious dinner, or scrubbing the toilets on a regular basis.

But once again, I was just me, with a diamond solitaire on my finger, or just me, with a Mrs. in front of my name. It was a bit of a letdown to discover there’s no magic spell to transform you into a particular life stage. Instead, it turns out you just have to figure out how the role fits you, particularly. You don’t become someone else.

I recently discovered that the same thing is true when it comes to being an author. When I got my first copy of my book, I was elated to hold it in my hands. But to my surprise, I didn’t transform me into the persona of an author in that moment. The day I got the book, I finished my work day, as usual; commuted home amid much construction, as usual; and arrived home to discover I had no ideas for dinner, as usual. I’m quite certain that Louisa May Alcott and Agatha Christie had no such pedestrian problems.

While it’s a bit of a disappointment at first to discover that a new role doesn’t equate to becoming a new person, it’s ultimately a huge relief. It means that God doesn’t expect me to fit some mold I was never meant to fit into. I never have to step into shoes I wasn’t created to fill. He has millions of patterns of what “college student” or “wife” or “author” looks like, not some one-size-fits-all formula. And that’s ever so much more creative and freeing, for all of us.

  • It means you don’t have to be the girl in the college catalog.
  • You don’t have to be the woman at church who seems to have it all together.
  • You don’t have to be a Pinterest-perfect mom.
  • You don’t have to be your neighbor or your sister or your mom or your best friend or your online nemesis.

You just get to be you. And you get to figure out along the way what it looks like to be you as a wife, you as a mom, you as an employee, you as a leader, you as a follower of Christ.

You aren’t defined by your roles. God made you to be you, and that is a good thing.

***

I’d love to hear your story! Are there any roles in your life that have surprised you? Did you expect to feel different when you arrived at any of those anticipated life stages?

We All Need an Editor

writing

When people hear I wrote a book after being an editor for over a dozen years, they often ask me: “So, since you’re an editor, you probably didn’t need much editing, right?”

WRONG.

Here’s the thing: I can be objective and incisive about other people’s stories, ruthlessly chopping out stories that need to be cut or pointing out the holes. But when it came to my own manuscript, my line of vision was clouded by blind spots. I was just too close to the content. It would have been bad enough if I were writing a novel, but the fact that I was writing about my life fuzzied my vision all the more.

What do you mean, I need to cut out that scene? It’s one of my favorite childhood memories! What do you mean, I have too many friends named Sarah, or that I’m the only person who thinks this is funny, or that this only makes sense within the confines of my own brain?

That’s why I’m so grateful for my wise and kindhearted editor, Kim. There came a point, after editing and re-editing my own manuscript ad nauseam, that I could no longer see what worked and what didn’t. She was able to see the potholes and road blocks in the manuscript, and she helped me pave the way so readers could ride through the pages smoothly. And she did it in such a nice way that the process wasn’t painful at all. It was—dare I say?—fun.

People tend to fear the editor’s red pen, but let’s be serious: Kim was making me look good. I’d rather get called out on my mistakes before the book goes to press and I find myself standing in my proverbial underwear. And there are also the unsung heroes of the editing process: the copyeditors. I’m so thankful for Sarah and Annette, who faithfully fixed my sloppy punctuation, noticed missing words, and identified my pet sayings (you mean I can’t use “just” four times in one paragraph?).

What I learned being on the other side of the editor’s pen is that writing is a lot like life. We strive away in our private world, trying to live out a life of faith. But as good as our intentions are, we all have glaring blind spots. There are areas we fall short, but we are so close to it that we don’t even recognize the problem. That’s where we need life-editors—people who will give us wise, kind accountability.

We were never meant to do life alone; we need friends who have our best interests at heart, friends who will gently and lovingly point out where we’re not living up to God’s best vision for us. And isn’t it much better to hear that news from someone who loves us than from the big, scary world?

And as much as we may fear the vulnerability required to open ourselves up to accountability, whether with our writing or with our lives, there’s something sacred about sharing that space with another person. When someone is invested enough to look over every word and comma you typed or listen to the details of your life, it’s kind of like stepping onto holy ground.

So I would like to encourage you to get your own editor today . . . to invite feedback into every area of your life, writing and otherwise. You will feel the burn, to be sure, but the end result is worth the fire.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:17

Bonus: Despite the stellar, meticulous eyes on my book, we are all human. If you can find the typo in my book, I will give you a Starbucks gift card!