Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

When God Interferes

I got a text from a friend the other day, giving me an update on something we’d been praying about. She meant to type “Because of God’s intervention . . .” but autocorrect stepped in and changed it to “Because of God’s interference.”

It made me laugh, as autocorrect tends to do, but then it occurred to me that there’s some truth in this typo. Isn’t that how I see God sometimes?

I present him with what I’m sure is the perfect plan, the ideal solution to a problem, the surefire answer to my prayer. And then I wait for things to unfold exactly as I’ve drawn them up.

Only it rarely happens this way. God interferes with my plans.

Here’s just a small sampling:

Ten years ago . . . I just knew Guy X was “the one” for me. I told God all the reasons this relationship was meant to be. But God interfered. The wedding bells were silent.

Two years ago . . . My husband (not Guy X!) applied for a job that seemed just right for him—a position he was perfectly qualified for and where he had a personal connection. But God interfered. Daniel didn’t get the job.

Two months ago . . . Daniel and I found a house we had our hearts set on, and we made an offer the next day. But just before the papers were signed, another buyer whisked in. God interfered. We were back to square one at Realtor.com.

In each scenario, I found myself miffed by God’s interference. If only he’d listened to me, surely things would have worked out perfectly!

But with enough space and time and perspective, I can often look back and see what I couldn’t see in the moment. And when I do, I thank God for interfering.

If things had worked out with Guy X, I never would have met Daniel, who is clearly the man God had in mind for me all along. Thank you, God for interfering.

And that job Daniel applied for a couple of years ago? The organization has since completely closed its doors. Thank you, God for interfering.

As for the house we didn’t get, that loss allowed us to find our home—the one that’s just right for us. Thank you, God for interfering.

And those are just the cases where I can get a glimpse of what God is up to behind the scenes. If only I could pull back the veil between heaven and earth, I’d see that he’s orchestrating so many things for good—and that his definition of good far surpasses what I can grasp.

So here’s what I want to remember the next time God interferes: His interference doesn’t mean he isn’t listening or he isn’t able to step in. It’s his way of saying, “Oh child, hold on. I can see things so much more clearly than you can. Do you trust me?”

Because sometimes God’s interference means he’s too kind to give us what we ask for.

Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins.
—Eric Liddell

***

Your turn . . .

Has God ever interfered with your plans? What happened? I’d love to hear your story.

How to Wait Well

alarm_clock_leftIn the course of any life, I think, there are seasons of waiting. As much as we want to fast-forward to that thing we’re anticipating, we find ourselves faced with factors we can’t control, leaving us helpless against a clock we can’t set or predict.

It’s a vulnerable place to find yourself at the mercy of a calendar that’s not your own.

Maybe you’ve been looking for a job for so long that the taste of rejection is more familiar than your morning coffee. You send yet another résumé into cyberspace, and you wait . . . and wait some more.

Or maybe you’ve watched as all your friends have found love, and you find yourself alone . . . still waiting to be chosen, pursued.

Maybe you’ve been longing for a child—one from your own body or one from across the globe. You’ve jumped through all the hoops, and now there’s nothing left to do but wait.

Or maybe there’s something else you’re waiting for: for your house to sell, for the medical test results to come in, for a relationship to be reconciled, for deliverance from whatever demon has been plaguing you.

We all wait—there’s no avoiding it, no matter our life stage. Even if we get the thing we’ve been waiting for, it only means graduating to a new phase of waiting we hadn’t anticipated. So the question isn’t if we will wait; it’s how we will wait.

As I look back on various seasons of waiting in my life, I realize my waiting style leaves something to be desired. I’ve waited like a child in line at the grocery store: impatient, antsy, so focused on the line that I couldn’t appreciate anything else around me. I’ve waited like a robot, deciding it was too painful to admit my desires and hopes, so I tried to shut down my heart.

But the psalmist provides another alterative when it comes to how to wait: We can wait on God the way a handmaiden waits on her mistress:

As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Psalm 123:2

What would it look like, I wonder, to be that attentive to God in my waiting? What if, instead of being so focused on my circumstances or my worries or my fears, I was focused on every little move God was making?

What if I was intent not just on what God would do for me during the waiting as on what I could do for God?

I don’t just want to wait for him. I want to wait on him.

***

The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people.
Charles Spurgeon

In the Middle of a Miracle

miracle

As one year comes to a close and another one begins, I always try to rewind the year and play it back as a highlight reel. It never ceases to amaze me how many significant things happened that barely registered while I was going through them.

As I’m watching my mental video, I find myself thinking, Oh yeah, we made it through that big scary thing! Or Wow, God totally answered that prayer!

The thing about miracles is that God doesn’t always perform them all at once. Yes, sometimes he snaps his fingers and—poof! Instant miracle. But more often I’ve found that his miracles tend to unfold in stages. And when you’re in the middle of one of these slow-cooked miracles, sometimes it feels more like confusion or hard work . . . or even terror. You don’t even realize you’re in the midst of something amazing. It’s not until afterward that you can look back and see where God has taken you.

I wonder if that’s how the Israelites felt when they crossed the Red Sea. They were in the middle of one of the biggest miracles in history, but when they were halfway across, with the sea walls looming on either side and the Egyptian soldiers breathing down their necks, it must not have felt like a miracle. I’d wager they were more riddled with fear than wonder at that point.

But when they took that final step onto dry land and the sea closed behind them on the Egyptian army, that’s when they looked back. That’s when they saw the miracle. And their response? They sang and danced for joy.

When the people of Israel saw the mighty power that the Lord had unleashed against the Egyptians, they were filled with awe before him. . . . Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord. . . . Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine and led all the women as they played their tambourines and danced.
Exodus 14:31; 15:1, 20

As 2015 begins, I invite you to look back with me on the past year. What has God done in your life—in you—this past year? Look back and sing. Look back and dance.

And as a new year unfolds, look forward to the wonder. Look forward to the miracle.

Because what you’re facing now, even today—this could be your Red Sea. This could be your very own miracle. Don’t forget what he’s done in the past, and don’t doubt that he can do it again.

It’s Going to Get Better

A few weeks ago, Daniel and I went out to dinner and got seated by a table of 20 or so kids celebrating homecoming. We sat there and just watched them for a while (not that we had much choice—we couldn’t have heard what the other person was saying above the teenage racket).

Now that we’re about two decades out from homecoming ourselves, we found the scene fascinating, like some kind of sociological study. The guys were all on one end of the table, jockeying to be the loudest or make the funniest joke. The girls were pulling out lip gloss at two-minute intervals, adjusting their teeny dresses and trying to get the attention of the guys, who had eyes only for their burgers.

After they left, Daniel and I looked at each other, slightly dazed, ears still ringing.

“So,” Daniel said finally. “If you could go back and say something to your 17-year-old self, what would you say?”

We laughed as we considered tips for our former selves:

To the former Stephanie: You know, those high-waisted, tight-rolled jeans are not really as flattering as you think they are.

To the former Daniel: Dude, you should really cut your hair.

But most of all, when I think about the 17-year-old me, I want to cup her face in my hands and say, It’s going to get better. Those things that seem to matter so much right now—the girls who are mean to you in the locker room, the boys who seem to think you’re invisible—it’s not going to matter that much someday. There is so much more to life than you can see right now, and those things that make you feel out of step with the rest of the world . . . you will recognize them as gifts one day. Yes, maybe you’ll get teased as the yearbook’s biggest bookworm, but someday you’ll get to read and write books for a living. And there’s going to be a really handsome man (he with the once-long hair) who will love you just the way God knows you need to be loved. And best of all, you’ll be comfortable in your own skin.

***

Last week a beautiful woman from our church was taken from us after the tumor in her brain gained too much ground. She was one of those people who was sunshine in human form—always offering warm hugs and greetings, beaming her genuine smile, making people feel loved and welcomed.

Daniel and I stood in a three-hour line at Kim’s visitation, surrounded by hundreds of other people whose lives had been touched by this woman of God. Story after story poured out about how her life had been marked by love and service—to God, to her family, to her church, and to anyone whose path she crossed.Kim McCart

As we looked at the photos around the room—the one of Kim with her husband’s arm around her, the one of her laughing with her children and grandchildren, the one of her hugging kids on a service trip in Ecuador—it struck me in a fresh way what really matters. I get so caught up in the things that seem urgent, the things that clamor for my attention and keep me buzzing from one item on the to-do list to the next.

I have to wonder if Kim would cup my face in her hands and say, “Things are going to get so much better. And those things that worry you, the things you think are so important? They’re not going to matter all that much one day.”

I’m not so different from those high school students, I’m afraid, so focused on the here and now. But I want to hang on to the legacy Kim leaves behind: Love God. Love people. This is what really matters.

I have no doubt that when Kim went home to her Father, she was greeted just as warmly as she’d greeted people on this side of eternity. And I’m confident these words echoed off the streets of gold: “Well done, Kim, my good and faithful servant.”

Forget the sequined dresses and the loud table talk. That’s the ultimate homecoming.

The First Word of Jesus’ Prayer

Jesus’ disciples wanted to pray, but they weren’t quite sure how to go about it. So Jesus gave them a lesson in prayer—a model that Christians all over the world still use thousands of years later (Matthew 6:9-13).

I’ve said the Lord’s Prayer countless times, heard sermons about it, read books about it. But there’s one word in the prayer that I’ve brushed right by in the past. It’s a small word, just three letters, but it’s a critical one.

How could I have missed it for so long? It’s the first word, for crying out loud. Our.

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name . . .

Why, I wonder, didn’t Jesus instruct his disciples to address their prayers to God individually? “My Father who art in heaven . . .”

But from the very first line of the prayer, it’s apparent that Jesus sees prayer as a communal activity. Certainly we are to spend time with the Father one-on-one, but our default should be to come to him remembering that we are part of a community. He didn’t create us to be lone-wolf Christians, howling our prayers from the isolation of our dens.

Jesus tells us to call God our Father, which means that fellow believers are our brothers and sisters. We have the privilege of linking arms with them as we talk to our Dad about the things that are close to our hearts. Together, we can share our burdens. We can cry out for healing, for peace, for a relationship to be restored, for a prodigal to come home. And together, we can share our joys. We can offer thanks to God for his faithfulness, his goodness, his answers to our prayers.

My friend has a twentysomething-year-old son who cut ties with his family several years ago, leaving no forwarding address. Ever since, she and her family have tried everything shy of hiring a private investigator to find him. She wants more than anything to let him know that he is loved, that he is wanted, that there is a spot reserved for him that no one else can fill. I’ve had the privilege of praying with my friend every Thursday, begging God to reunite them and to show her son how much he is loved—by God and by his mother.

Our Father . . . please.

In Matthew 18:19-20, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” I don’t know exactly what it is about praying to our Father with other people that makes it so sacred. Obviously God’s ears are just as attuned to the prayers we pray in solitude; it’s not as if we need to meet some kind of quorum for him to answer us.

But perhaps communal prayer is more for our sakes than for his. God knows how easily we lose hope, how quickly we get discouraged when we’re left on our own. But when our brothers and sisters stand united with us, they can believe and hope on our behalf when we grow weary.

On Mother’s Day weekend of this year, my friend received the best gift she could ever hope to receive: an unexpected reunion with her beloved son. As she held him in a long-awaited embrace, with tears streaming down both their faces, the hundreds of prayers that had been uttered on his behalf over the years seemed to swirl around them.

When my friend shared this news with me and the other friends who had been praying, I experienced another gift of communal prayer. Not only does it allow us to share our burdens; it also gives us the chance to multiply our joy and our gratitude.

Our Father . . . thank you.

So whatever we find ourselves up against this week, may we embrace the model Jesus gave us in his prayer. In our moments of need, we can come before him as our Father. In moments of rejoicing, we can come before him as our Father.

We can come to him together, as brothers and sisters. For that is exactly what we are.

Sojourners Here

A few weeks ago on a brilliant Sunday afternoon, my grandparents’ friends, a couple in their 80s, took their own lives. I didn’t know them personally, but I am grieving anyway. I’m grieving on behalf of their children, on behalf of their friends, on behalf of all those they left behind.

***

You were almost there, almost at the finish line. I know you wanted to end in a sprint, with triumph and vigor, arms lifted high. But somewhere along the way you forgot that finishing well sometimes just means finishing. Even if you have to limp across the line.

I wish you could have seen the crowd in the stands . . . all the people who were cheering you on, urging you forward. All the people who loved you.

I suppose you knew what King David knew—that we are but sojourners here on earth.

We are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. (1 Chronicles 29:15)

Life in these shadowlands is hard, it’s true. The losses take our breath away, the pain doubles us over, and it can be hard to see the finish line through the tears.

But with these encroaching shadows, we needed you all the more. We needed your light. We needed the conversations over Sunday brunch, the phone calls to check in, the recipes to swap. You reflected God’s light in a way no one else can, and now your unique brilliance has been snuffed out.

If you were still here, I would hug you first and then chastise you. Instead, I’m left with the secondary grief of mourning you on behalf of those I love.

“People needed you,” I would have said. “My grandparents needed you.”

You were afraid to be a burden, but this burden you leave behind is so much heavier.

All I have is words, and they come too late for you to hear. And so I write in the hope that someone else will read these words and it will not be too late for them.

I want you to know that you are irreplaceable.
That the world needs your light.
That you can make it to the finish line.

So please. Please, fellow sojourner. Do not end your sojourn too soon.

The One Prayer You Need

Have you ever hit the bottom of the prayer barrel?

You’ve been praying about the same thing day after day, month after month, year after year, yet nothing will budge.

You’ve been crying facedown before the Lord, your heart wrenching right in two, yet he seems deaf to your cries.

And now? Now you have no words left. Whenever you find yourself alone with God, the words stick in your throat. There are no eloquent petitions, no pronouncements of trust. Just the hollow beating of your heart. Even if you manage to squeeze out some words, they bounce off the ceiling, right back at you. You never wanted it to come to this, but you have no idea how to get on speaking terms with him again.

I know what it’s like to have parched lips, mute tongue. I know what it’s like to hear nothing at prayer time but the beating of my own heart. Yet the more I read Scripture, the more convinced I am that there’s only one prayer—indeed, one word—that really matters.

Abba. Daddy.

It was the first prayer the disciples learned to pray:

Our Abba in heaven . . . (Matthew 6:9)

It was the desperate cry of the prodigal son returning home to his father:

Abba, I have sinned against both heaven and you . . . (Luke 15:21)

It was the anguished cry of Jesus himself during that final week of his life on earth:

Abba, Father . . . please take this cup of suffering away from me. (Mark 14:36)

Abba, forgive them. . . . (Luke 23:34)

Abba, I entrust my spirit into your hands! (Luke 23:46)

When we cry out “Abba,” we’re not just picking one of God’s names at random; we’re claiming our special relationship to him. We’re saying we know who he is and we know who we are: his own beloved daughters and sons.

In that case, maybe it doesn’t matter so much how we pray; it’s who we’re praying to.

We don’t need to have all the right words—just the one word that makes all things right. Abba.

Into the Deep

ocean 2She said good-bye to her husband ten months ago. Well, that isn’t exactly right. She’d been saying good-bye to him for nine years . . . the slow good-bye of Alzheimer’s. He took his final breath on a blistering day last August, but he’d been slipping away from her, memory by memory, for some time before that.

She misses him. When she walks by his picture, she wags her finger at him. “You stinker!” she says, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Why did you leave first?”

We laugh, but we both feel the undertow of grief.

“I’m homesick for heaven,” she says. It’s barely more than a whisper.

“Do you ever ask God why?” I don’t even know which why I mean—why Bob’s memories were stolen from him, why she had to say a long good-bye to her beloved, why the Parkinson’s is now stripping her of the things she loves. But I need to know. It’s a question that burns in my own gut.

Ruth is many things to me—a mentor, the wife of my childhood pastor, a friend. But most of all, she’s a mirror of the woman I want to become someday. There’s a half-century between us, but our friendship is the richer for it. I want her wise wrinkles, her words that ooze grace, her ability to laugh at herself until tears run down her cheeks, her knack for making each guest who enters her home feel like British royalty.

And so I need to know how she does this. How does she wrestle with those prayers that go unanswered—or unanswered in the way she hoped? I’m dabbling in the shallow end of faith, and I need her to tell me how to do this when the shore is no longer in sight.

She smiles at my question—gentle, patient. “The older I get, the less I ask God why,” she says. “More and more, I’m in awe that he would entrust these wounds and difficulties to me.”

I stare at her, dumb. I’m more aware than ever that I have a single toe in the water while she’s out in the deep-blue sea. “You mean God works in spite of the wounds?”

She shakes her head ever so slightly. “The wounds are the gift.”

I’m not even Peter, sinking in the raging waves. I haven’t gotten out of the boat.

“I used to think we would bring our medals to God one day,” she says. “We’d get to heaven and show him all our successes, all the good things we’ve done. But I don’t think so anymore.”

I stare at her, wondering if she notices the waves crashing around her.

“God isn’t impressed by our achievements,” she says. “He wants our wounds. I have a feeling he’d tell us, ‘Look at my Son. He just came to me with his scars.’”

When it’s time to go, I hug her good-bye, surprised that someone so frail could squeeze so tight. As I make my way to the car, soul still reeling, I feel a question bubbling up inside me.

Why, Lord?

But this time the question is fueled by awe.

Of all the people in the world, why do I get to be her friend?

I don’t know why. But like Ruth, I’m starting to realize that maybe that’s not the most important question. Maybe it’s time to leave the shore behind and follow her into the deep.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep My faith will stand.
—From “Oceans” by Hillsong United

 

Getting a New Name

Shauna Niequist wrote a beautiful post a while back about the old stories we believe about ourselves. Even though God has been at work in us, transforming us and giving us new identities, we continue to buy into old versions of ourselves—or lies we’ve bought into for too long.

In her post “Change the Story” she says:

There are people and situations that take us back to old, old stories, and even though we’re moms now, not children, or even though we’re business owners now, not adolescents, we find ourselves acting out stories that haven’t been true for a long time, or stories that were never true to begin with.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I’ve been reminded of those famous words of Jesus: that the truth will set you free.

One of my friends sees herself as nonconfrontational, fearful of stepping into dangerous situations. But as I’ve watched her parent a son with severe allergies, I see how God is rewriting that story. I first witnessed this growing bravery when she discovered her son’s dairy allergy. She was miles from home and husband, but she confronted every obstacle in her way to find out what was happening to her baby and get him the help he needed. And as I watch her continue to advocate for her little guy at restaurants, at school, and on playdates, making sure he’s safe physically and not being left out, she is growing into many shades of brave.

Another friend holds on to an old version of herself—a story that she is slow to warm up with new people, that no would pursue her or connect with her without a long lead time. But over the years, I’ve seen her stepping out in her job, flourishing in her interactions with clients, stepping into new friendships, making herself rightly vulnerable in relationships new and old. And something amazing is happening: people are seeing her for the beautiful woman she is. God is rewriting her story.

For years I’ve believed that I was destined to live in fear. I worried about big things and little things, about the noise in my attic that was most likely a serial killer and about global warming and about losing the people I loved most. I decided that my condition was chronic—that I’d just have to figure out how to live with it. But somewhere along the way, God began to rewrite that script. Instead of keeping a running tally of my worries, I started to track all the ways I’d seen his faithfulness to me. And ever so subtly, I noticed that fear was no longer in the driver’s seat of my life.

One of the things I appreciate about God is that he loves us just the way we are but doesn’t leave us that way. The evidence is there all through Scripture as he discards old stories and gives people new names, new identities:

  • When God gave Abram a promise for generations to come, he told him, You are no longer Abram. From now on, you will be Abraham—the father of many nations (Genesis 17:5).
  • When Jacob had an encounter with God, God told him, You will no longer be called the deceiver. From now on, your name will be Israel—one who has struggled with God (Genesis 32:28).
  • When Jesus met Peter, he said, Your name is no longer Simon. From now on, you will be Peter, the rock (Matthew 16:18).

I hear God saying the same thing today:

  • You are no longer Timid. My daughter, your new name is Brave.
  • You are no longer Unseen. You are my daughter Beloved.
  • You are no longer Much-Afraid. You are my daughter Learning-to-Trust.

What about you? Is there a story that God has rewritten in your life—or one that he’s rewriting now? Has God given you a new name? I’d love to hear about it, I’d be honored to pray for you on this journey.

The Yoke’s on Him

I am weary. Is anyone with me?rest

The laundry is piling up. The sink is full of dirty dishes. The work deadlines are looming. My to-do list is spilling off the page. The technology that promised to make my life easier has just added more items to my list. Oh, and apparently dinner is a thing again today.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to Jesus’ words about how our souls can find rest in him:

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

—Matthew 11:29

As hopeful as that sounds—rest for my soul!—I don’t entirely get it. Isn’t a yoke a symbol of work, not rest? I picture the oxen working the field with that wooden bar across their backs. If I wanted to paint a picture of rest, I’d describe a hammock gently swinging between two trees or a lounge chair on a tropical beach. Somehow the image of oxen doing heavy plowing doesn’t seem to me like the picture of soul-rest.

But recently I attended a conference by Lysa TerKeurst, who described what Jesus’ audience would have understood when he described this scene. Apparently when Jesus said “learn from me” in this context, he was referring to the process where a young, untrained ox would learn to pull a load from a more experienced animal. They shared a yoke so the younger ox could get a feel for what it felt like to pull, but the entire burden was placed on the older ox. Then the two oxen would walk together, side by side, until the young animal gradually grew stronger.

And so it is for us. Soul rest doesn’t mean we escape our reality and our responsibilities. God doesn’t give us a free pass from the things we’ve been called to do. But it does mean he carries the weight for us—the burden is on him. Our job is to walk closely with him, right by his side. It means we are never alone as we carry out the big and small tasks he asks us to do.

There may not be fewer loads of laundry. The dirty dishes may not go away. But maybe I can do these tasks with joy, knowing he’s standing right beside me at the sink, in the laundry room. Maybe my to-do list will seem less daunting, knowing that he’s helping me task by task, day by day.

My burden may not be smaller. But someone stronger is walking through it right beside me. And he’s the one doing all the heavy lifting.