Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Love in the Little Things

Sometimes love is in the big things—gem-studded jewelry, exotic trips, big promises, grandiose gestures. But more often, as I was reminded the other day, it’s the little, everyday actions that string together to make up this thing we call love.

It was a Friday, and I’d just met a big deadline at work, so when I got home, Daniel suggested we go out to dinner to celebrate. We decided to try a new Thai place to replace “our” Thai restaurant that bit the economic dust (you can read the sad story here). When our food arrived, Daniel surprised me by pulling something out of his bag.

“A plate?” I asked.

When I looked more closely, things started to make more sense. The “Your Special Day” plate!

When I was a kid, Mom had a special red plate she pulled out on significant occasions—not just on birthdays, but also on days we accomplished something worth celebrating. A piano recital. A satisfactory report card. A basketball win. Shortly after I moved out on my own, my sister made me a plate like it, and now Daniel has been swept along in the tradition too.

But I certainly wasn’t expecting to have the plate show up in the middle of Tusk Thai restaurant. It was a little thing, perhaps, but it meant something big to me.

The next day I got a card in the mail—an expected burst of yellow amid the junk mail and bills. What’s this? I wondered. Christmas is over, it’s not my birthday…

I tore open the envelope to find a card from my friend Sarah that said, “Thanks for being you. I’m looking forward to another year of being your friend.” A card for no reason at all, just to tell me I meant something to her. It was a series of little things, really…she picked out just the right card, she wrote words with real pen and ink, she put a stamp in the corner so it would make its way to my mailbox. Little things; big love.

How often am I looking to God for grand gestures to prove his love—the impossible miracle, the big answer to prayer, the parting of a proverbial sea? And to be certain, God does offer those large-scale proofs of love at times. But he also gives us undeniable bread-crumb trails of his love through the smaller things too. A ray of sunshine bursting through the cloudy sky. The provision of daily bread. The innocent laughter of a child. An unlikely burst of joy that surges despite all evidence to the contrary.

May my eyes ever be open to those little acts of love. Because who knows—maybe those little things are big things after all.

***

Epilogue: Daniel and I noticed throughout dinner that we seemed to be getting more attention than the other customers. The waiter was extra friendly, and the owner kept walking by our table—not saying anything, but obviously observing us. When we’d finished our meals and were waiting for the check, we were surprised to see the waiter coming out with a plate of sumptuous coconut custard. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if this sweet treat was missing its intended mark. But no, the waiter’s eyes landed straight on me, eagerly awaiting my reaction.

I fumbled out something appreciative, but I was baffled.

“It’s not my birthday!” I whispered to Daniel after the waiter left. And then it hit me. Of course! The plate. He must have assumed “Your Special Day” meant birthday. Hence the free dessert.

I certainly wasn’t going to complain. As I looked at the last bite of custard, which Daniel had saved for me, as usual, it felt for all the world like another little piece of love, right there on my plate.plate

Mishearing God

Have you ever felt like you heard something so clearly, but the message must have gotten garbled somehow along the way?

I have voice recognition software at work that translates phone messages into text, but let’s just say the technology still has a ways to go. Case in point: yesterday it translated “Stephanie” as “Brian” and interpreted “just going to” as “jazz orchestra.”

It’s rather entertaining when communication breakdowns are of the lighthearted, technical variety. But when it comes to spiritual messages, the stakes are a bit higher.

A while ago I felt prompted to buy a Bible, and not just any Bible—one of those big, classic, leather-bound numbers. I didn’t know why or who it was for, but the message was undeniable: Buy this Bible. And so, despite feeling rather foolish, I made the purchase, wondering when I’d get my next set of instructions.

Not long after, my husband and I were packing for a nine-hour train ride to visit his family. We were carrying everything on with us, and our bags were stuffed. Just as I was wrestling with the zipper on my bloated carry-on, another prompting came out of nowhere: Take the Bible with you.

I was pretty sure I’d misunderstood, and I haggled with God over it. Surely he didn’t mean I’d have to take it with me on the train! Couldn’t I compromise and take a smaller Bible, one that wouldn’t cause permanent spinal damage? Or once I met the person I was supposed to give the Bible to, couldn’t I just write down their address and mail it to them? But the directions felt unambiguous, so I obliged.

All through the trip my eyes were peeled, searching for the person in need of a Bible. Maybe it would be someone sitting in the aisle across from us or a fellow passenger we met in the dining car. Maybe it would be one of Daniel’s relatives or his parents’ neighbors. Perhaps it would be a stranger we encountered at some point on the trip. As silly as I felt, I was eager to see what God would do, to have a testimony about how I’d carried that Bible around and then God had led me to just the right person at the precise moment.

It never happened.

I lugged that big Bible home again—all nine hours—and never got another nudge about what to do with it. Did I miss the person I was supposed to give it to? I wondered as our train pulled into the station. Or did I miss the instructions in the first place?

I’ve been pondering this mystery ever since—not just the Bible carry-on, but other times I’ve apparently misheard God over the course of my faith journey, times that have left more significant damage than a sore back. What am I supposed to make of those times I’ve stepped out in faith and everything dead-ended unceremoniously…or blew up in my face?

Then I came across this story, taken from Elisabeth Elliot’s book These Strange Ashes:

One day Jesus said to his disciples: “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.” He didn’t give any explanation.

So the disciples looked around for a stone to carry, and Peter, being the practical sort, sought out the smallest stone he could possibly find. After all, Jesus didn’t give any regulation for weight and size! So he put it in his pocket.

Jesus then said: “Follow Me.” He led them on a journey.

About noontime Jesus had everyone sit down. He waved his hands and all the stones turned to bread. He said, “Now it’s time for lunch.”

In a few seconds, Peter’s lunch was over. When lunch was done Jesus told them to stand up.

He said again, “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.”

This time Peter said, “Aha! Now I get it!” So he looked around and saw a small boulder. He hoisted it on his back and it was painful, it made him stagger. But he said, “I can’t wait for supper.”

Jesus then said: “Follow Me.” He led them on a journey, with Peter barely being able to keep up.

Around supper time Jesus led them to the side of a river. He said, “Now everyone throw your stones into the water.” They did.

Then he said, “Follow Me,” and began to walk.

Peter and the others looked at him dumbfounded.

Jesus sighed and said, “Don’t you remember what I asked you to do? Who were you carrying the stone for?”

The story got me to wondering: maybe it wasn’t that I’d misheard after all. Maybe the truth is that obedience is a reward in itself. Maybe I was supposed to carry this load for Jesus, even if I never understand why. Just because he asked me to.

What if sometimes God just wants to see if I’m willing to say yes?

What burden are you carrying right now?

What would it look like to be obedient, even when you don’t know why you have to carry such a heavy load?

 

 

Book of the Month Club: Announcing February’s Selection

meaning-of-marriageFirst of all, congratulations to Diane for winning the free book for January’s book discussion! (You can check out our lively conversation about twins and ghosts and mistaken identities here.}

And the book of the month for February is…The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller!

I’ve already started the book (thanks to Nancy and Kim for the Christmas present), and I’ve been highlighting so profusely that by now the white part is starting to stand out.

Here’s the blurb about this book:

Modern culture would have you believe that everyone has a soul mate; that romance is the most important part of a successful marriage; that marriage does not mean till death do us part, but merely for as long as my needs are being met; and that when serious differences arise, divorce is the best solution.

According to the Bible, all of these modern-day assumptions miss what marriage is all about. In The Meaning of Marriage, Timothy Keller, along with Kathy, his wife of thirty-six years, draws a profound portrait of marriage from the pages of Scripture that neither idealizes nor rejects the institution but points us back to the relationship between God and man. The result is a vision for marriage that is refreshingly frank and unsentimental, yet hopeful and beautiful. This book is for anyone from singles, to couples considering marriage, to those who have been married recently or for a long time.

 If you’d like to hear more, check out the interview of the authors sharing about the book here.

We’ll be discussing the book at the end of February (and again, there will be a free book giveaway for one lucky commenter). Please join us!

 

Book of the Month Club: The Thirteenth Tale

the_thirteenth_taleThanks to everyone who participated in our virtual book club (which I introduced here). January’s selection was The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

Here’s how it works: I’m going to throw out some discussion topics, and you can feel free to post your comments—about these topics or other things you want to talk about.

Discussion #1: Story vs. Truth
The initial letter Vida Winter sends to Margaret includes an interesting commentary about the power of story compared to the power of truth:

My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?…When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie. (p. 5)

Meanwhile, Margaret agrees to be Vida Winter’s biographer only on the condition that Vida Winter tells her the truth. She even manages to squeeze a few verifiable facts out of the writer before she begins.

Over the course of the book, do you think Vida Winter’s stance on truth and story changes? Clearly, at the end of her life, the “plump comforts of a story” aren’t enough to soothe her. And Margaret seems to so lose herself in Vida Winter’s story that she no longer seems quite so consumed with the facts.

Which do you prefer: a story or the truth?

Discussion #2: Twins
One of the central themes of the book is twins. Vida Winter is haunted by twins who kept her outside their circle; Margaret is haunted by her twin who died as an infant—the sister whose absence still gapes.

Do you think there’s a special twin connection?

Discussion #3: Margaret
What do you think of Margaret as a character? Is her story compelling, or is she just a vehicle for Vida Winter to tell her story?

I enjoyed having two stories—the parallels between Margaret’s and Vida’s lives add depth and mystery to the book. But I wished I could have gotten more about Margaret’s story. When Margaret protests that she doesn’t have a story, Vida Winter tells her, “Of course you have. Everybody has a story.” But while we get glimmers of Margaret’s story, it feels flat in the shadow of Vida’s narrative.

In an interview shortly after the book’s release, Diane Setterfield shared this comment about the early process of writing The Thirteenth Tale: “The biographer, Margaret, was very quiet and reserved and she was very difficult and withdrawn, I could tell she was hiding something from me, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I got very annoyed with the book and the characters, and didn’t do anything for a year. After that I took a deep breath and sat down with it again. I couldn’t leave it alone—I just felt these characters deserved to have their stories told.”

What do you think? Did she do justice to Margaret’s character?

Discussion #4: One Lingering Mystery
In a book full of twists and turns, we uncover yet another surprise when Emmeline’s identity is called into question near the end of the book. Vida Winter recounts the scene after she saved Emmeline from the fire:

I look at her face and cannot find my beloved in it.
“Emmeline?” I whisper. “Emmeline?”
She does not reply.
I feel my heart die. What have I done? Have I…? Is it possible that…?
I cannot bear to know.
I cannot bear not to know. (p. 379)

And so Vida Winter cares for her half-sister for the rest of her life, not knowing if it’s her beloved Emmeline or the deranged Adeline. What do you think? Was it Emmeline or Adeline? And what would it say about Vida Winter if it was the latter?

Wrap-Up
For more about the author, you can visit this page. I was astonished to find that this was Diane Setterfield’s first novel—her previous publications were all academic works about nineteenth and twentieth century French literature. Not bad for her first try.

I’d give this book four stars for its engaging characters, the intriguing plotline, and the value it places on books and book lovers everywhere.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

How many stars would you give this book?

{Reminder: I will give away a free book to one randomly selected commenter!}

Imago Dei

With all due respect to the pastors and professors I’ve been privileged to learn from over the years, some of my best lessons in theology have come from children (see these ponderings) or those with childlike hearts.

Not long ago I was having lunch at my friend Luann’s house with our friends Cheryl and Heather. Cheryl has faith of the purest variety, and she radiates joy in a way I can only dream of. She also happens to have Down syndrome. (For more about Cheryl, read this story.)

Cheryl was especially full of joy at lunch that day because she got to meet Heather’s twin babies for the first time. I’m not sure Cheryl understood what a double miracle these babies are (check out the amazing story here), but she was doubly taken with the idea of not just one but two babies.

The moment Heather brought little Claire inside from the cold and unzipped her carrier, Cheryl rushed over to take a look. She leaned in close to gaze at Claire’s big-eyed smile before planting a kiss right on Claire’s cheek. And then, lifting her face to the ceiling, Cheryl whispered, “The face of God.”

Heather and Luann and I just stared at each other. It was truer than anything we could have said ourselves.

The face of God.

Luann finally broke the spell with her trademark humor. “What about me, Cheryl?” she asked, pointing to her own face. “Don’t you think the same thing when you look at me?”

Cheryl broke into a grin. “Yeah, you too,” she said. “Everybody shows us the face of God.”

She’s right, I know. But how often I forget it.

The Bible opens with a statement every bit as radical as Cheryl’s, right from the first chapter of the first book:

God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them.

—Genesis 1:27

Imago Dei: the idea that human beings have inherent value because they’re made in the image of God. Not because of what they can accomplish or contribute, but simply because they reflect their Creator.

What would it look like, I wonder, if I could start seeing people that way? The way Cheryl does?

The person who just cut me off in traffic.

Imago Dei.

The person who is socially awkward or less than beautiful by the world’s standards.

Imago Dei.

The person who is just downright difficult to love.

Imago Dei.

The man without a home, the woman with the mental illness, the leader who broke his promise, the coworker who burns the popcorn.

All of them, Imago Dei.

I once heard a lovely legend about God’s creation of human beings. According the story, God looked into a mirror, and the mirror shattered into millions of pieces. The pieces fell to the earth below, and each one became a unique individual. Now each person reflects a different part of God’s face, and we can’t get the full picture of what he looks like until we seek him in the faces of all those around us.

So thank you for the reminder, Cheryl. When we gaze into the face of a human being, it is no small thing. For in a real way, we are getting a glimpse into the very face of God.

How would it change the way you saw yourself if you knew you were Imago Dei?

How would it change the way you saw other people if you knew they were Imago Dei?

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On the Lookout for Treasure

Daniel and I are currently on an American Pickers kick. In case you’ve never seen this History Channel series, the basic premise is that two guys, Mike and Frank, hit the road in a big van, traveling the U.S. looking for treasures amid people’s hoarded junk.

For me it’s part horror, part cautionary tale to see the piles of stuff people have collected over the span of years, decades, even generations. I find myself hyperventilating when they open the door to people’s barns or garages to find them stuffed wall to wall, floor to ceiling with junk. Rusty, grimy, decaying junk. I usually vow on the spot to clean out all my closets. And then I suggest to the guys on the screen, rather forcefully, that they might be better off getting a bottle of lighter fluid and torching the place.

But the pickers are more patient than I am, and they can see something I can’t: there just may be pieces of treasure tucked in with the trash. They have different eyes than I do—eyes that can see below the surface and take in the underlying value of something.

One of the fascinating parts about the show is watching the price haggling being played out on the screen. How do they know what something is worth? I wondered at first. Then we watched an episode where Mike and Frank sold some of their wares to an interested buyer—a collector with moola to spare. And suddenly this realization hit me, obvious as it was: The value of something is determined by what someone will pay for it.

And so it is for the likes of us. We may look like junk. We may be surrounded by trash. We may feel rusty, dirty, washed-up. But God traveled great distances to seek us out, combing the earth to and rescue us from the trash heap. If you ever question your worth, wondering if you have any value, know that someone—the God of the universe, no less—was willing to pay the ultimate price for you. The life of his own Son.

I have swept away your sins like a cloud.
I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.
Oh, return to me,
for I have paid the price to set you free.
—Isaiah 44:22

{For more musings on this topic, see my post Trashed.}

 

 

Sweet Sundays, Part 1

sweet_sundays_artworkWhen my grandmother was a girl, Sunday was a day for taking the team of horses to her little white country church in North Dakota. Her father did the bare minimum of chores around the farm—like milking the cows before the sun came up—but all other work ceased. Even knitting was a borderline activity, since some people argued the creative aspect of it constituted work.

When my mom was growing up, most stores and restaurants were closed on Sundays, and on the rare occasion when her family had to go to the drugstore to pick up an emergency item, her father would apologize to the cashier for making him work on the Sabbath.

A generation later, when I was a kid, Sundays were family day at my house. We’d have brunch together after church, and then we’d go on a walk in the woods or play games together. No getting together with friends, no organized sports.

Now that I have a home of my own, I’m shocked to find how much our culture (and me with it) has changed in its attitude toward the Sabbath. Work has now infiltrated every part of life—it’s on our laptops, on our phones, at our very fingertips. While previous generations had to physically go out to the field or in to the office, work now finds us. We have to go to great lengths if we want to avoid it.

For the most part I’ve looked at God’s instructions about the setting aside a day of rest as something of an anachronism—rules that were meant for people in the Old Testament but didn’t really apply to us today. In fact, somewhere along the way I even got the idea that it was more righteous to have a strong work ethic, to be productive—even on Sundays. But the more I’ve looked at what the Bible says about the holiness of rest, the more trouble I’m having rationalizing away those commands. And the more I’m realizing, to my surprise, how much the instructions smack of delight rather than duty.

Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day. —Isaiah 58:13

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” —Matthew 11:28

I’m also recognizing that while Jesus was criticized by the religious leaders of his day for breaking the Sabbath, he wasn’t throwing out the concept altogether. When he did things that enraged the religious leaders—most often healing the blind and the lame and the deaf—he wasn’t disregarding the Sabbath; he was rejecting the legalism of the manmade rules surrounding it (see here for an example). He was getting at the heart of the day of rest—setting aside time to slow down so we can honor the Lord, catch our spiritual breath, refocus on what’s really important.

So what does a grace-based view of a day of rest look like? I’m not entirely sure, but I want to find out.

With my bent toward legalism, I’m not sure the best idea would be to make a bunch of Pharisaical rules for Sundays. And I don’t want it to be a day focused on the negative—what I can’t do. I want it to be about what I can do—what brings life and freedom and closeness with God.

So here are the two litmus-test questions I plan to use to determine if something is a worthy activity for a Sunday:

  1.  Does it feel like work?
  2. Is it life-giving?

24/6_coverI don’t know exactly what this adventure will look like, but I invite you to join me in reserving a weekly day of rest. I invite you to explore what it might look like for us to cease work and discover things that fill us with life and peace.

I’d love to have your feedback and help as I embark on this quest.

  1. What do you need to turn off or stop doing to allow yourself to rest?
  2. What feels like true rest for you?

Recommended reading: Matthew Sleeth’s book 24/6 was instrumental for me in kick-starting this journey toward rest. I highly recommend it—it’s an easy, engaging, grace-filled read.

 “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in Thee.” —Augustine of Hippo

48 Pieces of Fried Chicken

When Daniel and I walked into the grocery store the other night, we were just expecting to pick up a few things for dinner. We weren’t anticipating so much drama.

When we checked out, the couple in front of us had two huge tubs of fried chicken, the aroma of which wafted through the checkout area, setting our stomachs to rumbling. After all our items had been scanned and bagged, we noticed that the couple remained standing there, apparently still waiting for their chicken.

“Where did you put their bags?” the cashier asked the guy doing the bagging, a gangly teenager with a mop of blue-streaked hair.

He gave her a look of befuddlement. “You mean the chicken? I gave it to the woman in front of them.”

“Well, go to the parking lot!” she barked. “You’d better find her before she drives away.”

As the bagger dashed out of the store, Daniel and I looked at each other, trying our best not to split at the seams. We couldn’t decide what was funnier—the fact that the couple had patiently waited all this time for their fried chicken, which by now was probably halfway across town in an unidentified SUV, or the fact that at this very moment some woman was driving away wondering why her car smelled like KFC. I wished I could have seen her face when she arrived at home to find precisely 48 pieces of hot chicken in with the rest of her groceries.

But our laughter evaporated the moment we exited the store. There was the bagger, standing in his shirtsleeves despite the freezing temperatures. He was shouting into the night air and throwing punches at the concrete post outside the store.

Daniel, who possesses the handy skillset of being able to strike up conversations with strangers and being able to calm potentially volatile situations, didn’t hesitate. “Hey,” he said to the boy. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just about ready to sack this job.” The kid swung another fist into the air.

As the conversation progressed, we found out the store was understaffed that day and the bagger felt like he couldn’t keep up. “And when I’m under pressure,” he said, “I do stupid things like this. I might as well quit before they fire me.”

Fortunately, among his other talents, Daniel also has the gift of encouragement. “You know, they need you in there. If you leave, what will they do without you? I know you can go in there and finish well tonight. It’ll work out.”

Before long, our bagger friend had calmed down and was ready to face the disgruntled cashier. I don’t know if he ended up quitting or not, but before he headed back in the store, he managed a small smile. “Thanks,” he said, nodding in Daniel’s direction.

As we made our way to our car, I couldn’t help but wonder how different that guy’s evening might have been if we’d just avoided the awkwardness and headed straight to our car.

To encourage literally means to pour courage into someone, and that’s exactly what Daniel did: he gave that boy the courage to turn around and go back into the store. But something I’d never considered much before was that encouragement also tends to require courage on the part of the one doing the encouraging. Daniel was only able to pour courage into this guy because he was courageous enough to enter his world.

Sometimes courage-pouring means stepping right into the middle of awkwardness when it would be easier to go our own way.

In his essay “The Weight of Glory,” C. S. Lewis extends this sobering charge about the way we treat the people we come into contact with each day—at work, at home, even at the grocery store. Since people are made in the image of God, he claims, they are no mere mortals. They deserve courage-pouring—all of them.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

I confess that as Daniel and I drove away, we shamelessly peered into the window to find out what happened with the chicken. The last we saw, the couple was going back for two new buckets of fried chicken. We can only assume the other woman called a bunch of her friends over and had a party.

Encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

—1 Thessalonians 5:11

Up Close to Greatness

Thanks to a generous friend and a friend-of-a-friend who has season tickets to the Bulls games, Daniel and I were the recipients of an experience we never would have splurged on ourselves: eighth-row seats to a real-live NBA game.

I’ll never forget the moment the players stepped onto the court to warm up. I sucked in my breath as they walked toward us. “They’re not this tall on TV!” I kept whispering to Daniel. I’m sure it got old after I repeated myself for the eighth time, but I couldn’t get over how goliath they were in close proximity. “I think I come up to the waistband on number 13’s shorts!”

I’ve been a basketball fan for years, but being at a game in person—and in row 8, no less—was like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after years of merely looking at photographs. Everything was bigger, faster, louder without a screen separating us. I could hear Nate Robinson announcing the plays, I could see the look in Luol Deng’s face when he was calling for the ball, I could hear the players’ yammerings with the refs, I could see just how fast Taj Gibson moved his feet to deke his defender.

Shoot, we were so close I could practically smell the players’ sweat.

At halftime I found myself considering how much easier it is to take in a game secondhand. You don’t have to fight the traffic, you don’t have to find parking, you don’t have to fork over any hard-earned cash. You just turn on your TV and watch the game from the comfort of your couch. But that ease comes at a price—you also lose the grandness of the firsthand experience.

I wonder how often I try to take the shortcut in other areas of my life too. It’s more effort, more time to get together with a friend, so I take the easy route and send a message or post a quick note on her wall. There’s nothing wrong with those convenient methods of communication, of course—as long as they don’t creep in to become a cheap replacement of the real thing.

And what about my relationship with God? How often do I settle for a secondhand relationship with him, content to hear about him through a sermon or a book or a friend without taking the extra effort to go deep myself?

“Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth….[Christ] waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.”

—A. W. Tozer

The Bulls, by the way, experienced a rather ugly loss to a team they should have beaten soundly. But it didn’t matter all that much. Just being eight rows from greatness was gift in itself.

In what areas of your life are you settling for a secondhand experience?

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The Gift of Pain

The other day started out with one of those crazy mornings. I had to switch the cars to get mine out of the garage, then I had to do some interesting maneuvers to back the cars—both of them—around our neighbor’s SUV on one side and the recycling bins on the other. To add insult to injury, half the world was cozy in bed, still on winter break, while I was scraping off the car in the icy darkness. And to top it all off, I was running late.

It was in the midst of these mental distractions that I slammed my car door. With my finger still in it.

It was strange because I didn’t feel a thing at first…and that’s what made me most nervous. Surely the top of my finger had been severed at the knuckle.

My pain-free bliss lasted about ten minutes into my commute, when suddenly I felt the most intense throbbing I’ve experienced since dropping a jumbo-sized bottle of hot sauce on my big toe in the third grade. Yep, my finger was still there all right. It was also bleeding profusely into my mitten.

But in the midst of my grumbling and complaining, this thought struck me with such force that I felt compelled to say it aloud: “The pain means my finger is still there. The pain means I’m very much alive.”

In his brilliant book The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Pain as God’s megaphone.

In the past year there have indeed been moments when my heart felt like it had been slammed hard in the car door, and it throbbed like the dickens (for more on that, take a look here). For the most part I nursed my wounds, grumbling and complaining, scheming about how to anesthetize the pain as quickly as possible.

But what if Lewis was right? What if those times when we experience pain are actually God’s way of getting our attention? What if the pain is an indication not only that we are indeed alive, but also that something may be off kilter in our lives?

Without pain, we keep going through life on autopilot, utterly distracted. But pain snaps us into focus, helps us reprioritize.

We don’t have much choice about when the pain comes, but we do have a choice about what we’ll do with it. Will we numb out as quickly as possible, thereby missing what God may be trying to tell us through the pain?

Next time I get slammed in the proverbial car door, I pray I’ll listen. I pray the megaphone will get my attention.