Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

The Amazing Grace House

tcw_logoI’m over at Today’s Christian Woman today, writing about what an old bed-and-breakfast taught me about the hard, beautiful work of marriage.

When my husband and I went away for the weekend to mark our second anniversary, we were looking for a place that fit in our budget and could squeeze into the boxes on the already-full calendar. What we hadn’t anticipated was that we’d meet a house with a story—a house that served as a poignant metaphor of marriage. . . .

Click here to read the rest of the story.

On Grace and Ketchup

Forgive me for being sacrilegious, but every time I sing “Jesus Paid It All,” I can’t help but think about ketchup.

My husband played his bass at church last week, and we sang the lines of that old classic spiritual:

Jesus paid it all
All to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

While other people were no doubt musing about spiritual things like substitutionary atonement, I was instantly transported to the teenage version of myself. On a big yellow school bus, no less.

I was sixteen, and just a few months prior, I’d made the first major clothing purchase of my life: a beautiful brown suede leather jacket. I’d had my eye on it for a long time, and after saving up my heard-earned babysitting money, I finally made the purchase.

leathercoat

I felt pretty cool wearing it to high school (even if I was mortified to still be riding the bus). One morning I was minding my own business, doing some finishing touches on my homework on the way to school, when all of a sudden I heard a sickening splat. I looked down at the arm of my precious caramel-colored jacket. It was smeared with ketchup, the casualty of crossfire between two punky boys who were apparently having a post-breakfast food fight.

I was, in all the drama of teenagerdom, devastated.

Later Mom and I took the coat to the dry cleaner’s. The lady matter-of-factly told me they’d be able to get the ketchup out but the coat would never be the same. I was crushed. But I also knew I wouldn’t be able to stand smelling vaguely like McDonald’s for any length of time, so I handed over the jacket.

They were right. The coat was never the same again. It lost its velvety finish, and the discolored spot where the ketchup hit its mark never went away.

When I think about the stain of my sin, I have the same fear—that the stain will never come out. And that even if does, I’ll never be the same again. So I hold back from going to the only one who can make me clean again. I try in vain to mask the ketchupy stench that trails me wherever I go.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Jesus’ cleansing abilities are infinitely more effective than the dry cleaner’s. Sin has indeed left its crimson mark on us, but it’s no match for his forgiveness. He washes us white as snow, and leaves us better than he found us.

“Come now, let’s settle this,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
I will make them as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson,
I will make them as white as wool.”
—Isaiah 1:18

Whatever marred spot you are trying to hide, it’s time to come and settle this. There is no sin too great, no stain too deep, that he cannot wipe it out.

But even so, if you ever find yourself on the school bus with punky kids, I’d advise you to leave the leather jacket at home.

 

 

Where Is God?

This summer our small group is taking a break from our usual routine of studying and discussing and making our way through a book together. In an attempt to go deeper with each other, we decided that at each gathering we’d have two people share about what God has done in their lives.

 

All the stories are different—some of us grew up knowing about God; some of us didn’t meet him until later in life. Some of us went down such dark paths we probably shouldn’t be here to tell about it; some of us were more subtle in our sins of choice. But there’s one thing we all have in common: we’re all broken and in desperate need of grace.

 

As we started sharing our stories, we noticed a pattern woven throughout each one. As we looked back, the places we could see God at work most clearly were the lowest points in our lives—our most grievous sins, our darkest seasons of failure, our struggles through grief and loss and loneliness.

 

After one person finished her testimony, there was a moment of sacred silence. Finally Daniel broke in: “Isn’t it amazing to think how we’re hemmed in and held, even when make the wrong choice . . . even when we don’t do the right thing?”

 

I thought of the three men in the Old Testament who were thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3)—how if I’d been in their shoes, I’d no doubt have asked God to take me out of the fire. But as it turned out, God was right there in the midst of those flames.

fire2

And I thought of Peter walking on the water to Jesus as the storm raged around him (Matthew 14). Scaredy-cat that I am, I surely would have asked God to calm the storm. But Jesus surprised Peter with something even more profound: he was right there in the midst of the waves.

storm3

 

So what about my own life? I beg for the fire to be quenched, for the storm to be stilled. Sometimes he does just that. But other times Jesus is right there with me—in the midst of the flames, in the midst of the waves.

 

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me. . . .
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
—Psalm 139:1, 5

 

Even in the storms and the fire—maybe especially in the storms and the fire—we see the face of Jesus. It’s then that we are hemmed in, held.

 

God is here.

God as a Runner

One of the highlights of my week occurs at 9:02 each Sunday morning. That’s the moment five-year-old Grace gets to church, and before she even gets her coat off, she comes barreling down the aisle to throw her arms around Daniel and me. She squeals with delight the moment she spots us (most likely because she knows Daniel has some antic up his sleeve to make her laugh), and then she’s heading toward us in an all-out sprint, pink dress flying behind her.

There is something breathtaking about the love of a child—unchecked, unbridled, unselfconscious as it is. At five, Grace doesn’t know to be jaded or cynical; she’s never had her heart broken; she doesn’t love as a means to an end. She just extends loves with the openhearted generosity of a child.

“You know, I feel bad sometimes that Grace shows us so much love,” Daniel told me one Sunday as we headed home from church.

I shot him a sideways glance, utterly befuddled. “What?”

“Well, it’s just that we haven’t done anything to deserve her love.”

My initial thought was to list off all of Daniel’s qualities that endear him to every child he meets—his goofy sense of humor, his knack for asking good questions, his way of making people feel special and dignifying their feelings. But then it hit me: ultimately he’s right. We don’t deserve that kind of love.

Eventually a smile crept across my face. “I guess she’s pretty well named, huh?”

God’s grace in the form of a sprinting five-year-old.

***

The Bible depicts God with a number of metaphors that speak to his reverence and majesty: he is a just judge, a consuming fire, a sovereign King. But what a shock to see the one true God—whose holiness can’t be contained within the walls of even the most extravagant Temple—pictured as a father who loves his wayward child so much he literally runs to him.

While [his son] was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

—Luke 15:20

That image of a father running to a prodigal would be stunning enough on its own (see more in this post). But given the cultural context Jesus was speaking into, it’s even more breathtaking. As one Bible commentator puts it, the father’s action “breaks all Middle Eastern protocol; no father would greet a rebellious son this way.” It would have been degrading to his position, a blow to his pride, yet the father “drapes himself on his son’s neck,” as the Greek text is literally rendered. In other words, God is willing to make a fool of himself to show us his love.

Allow yourself to picture it now: our God as a runner.

He is running toward you, even now.

Will you let him throw his arms around you—those everlasting arms of grace?

grace cropped

Temptation in the Form of a Giant Cookie

I learned a valuable lesson about temptation this week…from a four-year-old, no less.

My brother and sister-in-law were having a few families over for a party, and Lyla, being the little social planner she is, had a vision for the party décor that afternoon. And it did not involve the pirate ship. You see, Mom and Dad had decided to put the play ship in the basement so all the kids could play in it during the party, but Lyla didn’t think it would quite jibe with the vision she had for the basement. (She’s really four. I kid you not.)

And when that girl gets an idea in her head, you can be assured she’ll put up a Captain Hook-worthy battle to try to get her way. Sure enough, she argued with Mom and Dad, landing her promptly in her bedroom to take a rest and think about it.

When it was time to get up, she said to my brother, “Daddy, during rest time I told myself, Think, think, think! And then I decided it was a bad choice to talk back about the pirate ship.”

After my brother picked his jaw up off the floor, he and Lyla made their way downstairs to find just the right spot for the pirate ship. He was pleasantly surprised that more was sinking in to this strong-willed girl’s heart than he’d realized.

But.

The thing about four-year-olds is that they remind us, not so gently, of our humanity.

Just a few hours after my niece’s epiphanic moment, my brother noticed that the basement was just a little too quiet, so he went downstairs to check on Lyla and her two-year-old brother. He arrived just in time to see the two of them scampering down from the tall chair Lyla had dragged across the basement floor. Then he looked up on the counter and saw the evidence.

The giant chocolate chip cookie my sister-in-law had made for the party had two sets of little fingerprints smeared all over it…not to mention some undeniable lick marks. (No doubt they thought they’d get away with it since they hadn’t taken a bite, after all…)

I couldn’t help but laugh (one of the perks of being the non-parental figure), but it wasn’t long before I started pondering how much Lyla sounded like me when it comes to dealing with temptation. How is it that in one situation I can tell myself, Think, think, think and overcome a bad choice, only to cave on something else just moments later, having apparently forgotten everything I’d just learned? And who do I think I’m fooling anyway, assuming God will never notice my fingerprints smeared all over a spot I had no business being in the first place?

If the Bible is any indication, Lyla and I aren’t alone in this. The apostle Paul puts it this way:

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. . . . And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

—Romans 7:15-19

Thankfully there is grace the likes of Paul, who wants to do right but can’t.

There is grace for the likes of me, even as I take two steps forward and one step back.

And yes, there is grace for the likes of strong-willed toddlers. Even those of the cookie-licking variety.pirates

The Night I Was Excommunicated from Youth Group

Not to brag, but I have a near-professional ability to sleep. I have been known to snore through alarm clocks, sonic booms, thunderstorms, even the rare earthquake. On one notable occasion I was sleeping on the couch in my friends’ living room, and apparently their two boys were up sick all night, just feet from my makeshift bed. But I didn’t make that discovery until the next morning, because sure enough, I’d remained blissfully unconscious through the whole ordeal.

Under normal circumstances my champion sleeping skills have served me well. But there was one time they got me into some real trouble.

I was an awkward freshman, trying to adjust to high school and break into the firmly established cliques in my youth group, when our church announced it was hosting an overnight retreat for a number of youth groups in the area. I was nervous since I didn’t know anyone well and I was mortified to display my nighttime braces headgear in public. But I talked myself into going, figuring it would be a good chance to get to know people.

Everything was going well…until roughly 3 a.m., when I awoke to fluorescent lights glaring and all the other girls out of their sleeping bags. As my heavy-lidded eyes adjusted to the brightness, I realized there were two clearly marked camps of girls shouting at each other from each side of the room. To my horror, I found that I was lying on the ground between the two groups, in some kind of battlefield no-man’s-land.

“Are you from this church?” one girl demanded.

I squinted up at her, utterly baffled as to what had transpired while I’d been sawing logs. Desperate to snuggle back inside my warm sleeping bag, I mumbled, “Uh…no…”

There was a pause, and for a moment I dared to believe my brilliant strategy had been successful.

Then a shout came from the back of the room. “Yes, you are! I know you go to this church.”

And before I knew it, my sleeping bag and I were unceremoniously thrown out of the carpeted room and into the cold tile hallway. But as soon as I got there, I faced another unexpected wrinkle.

“Hey, you said you weren’t with us.” Ten sets of beady eyes glared at me. Shoot. The girls from my church.

And I found myself in the midst of a 14-year-old nightmare: wandering the halls at 3:00 a.m., utterly friendless…and wearing dorky headgear.

I had denied my people, and they had rejected me.

Maybe that’s why I resonate with the biblical account of Peter’s denial of Jesus:

The woman asked Peter, “You’re not one of that man’s disciples, are you?”

“No,” he said, “I am not.”

—John 18:17

Twice more it happened: the same question, the same denial.

But Peter’s story didn’t end there. God, in his flair for redemption and a good dramatic arc, gave Peter another chance. Peter had denied Jesus three times, but then Jesus gave him an opportunity to proclaim his love three times.

A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”

—John 21:17

Jesus didn’t write Peter off or relegate him to the cold, lonely hallway after his denial; instead, he showed him mercy and restored the relationship.

In his grace, God does the same for us. Even when we fail him and deny him, he invites us to proclaim our love for him. He pulls us out of the warzone…and gives us another chance.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Grace Spotting: The Prodigal God

The story of the prodigal son is one of the most well-known parables Jesus told. So when my small group decided to read it and discuss The Prodigal God by Tim Keller, I admit to being a bit skeptical. Really? An entire book about twenty-some verses of the Bible?

But before I’d even navigated my way out of the introduction, I realized I had a whole lot to learn. Keller suggests that this parable told by Jesus in Luke 15 shouldn’t really be called the parable of the lost son; it should be the parable of the lost sons, because in fact, both sons are lost and separated from their father—the younger brother as a result of his rebellion, and the older brother as a result of his own self-righteousness.

Interestingly, Keller says that the true prodigal in the story is the Father himself. If prodigal is defined as “recklessly extravagant; having spent everything,” then our gracious God certainly fits the bill. “Jesus is showing us the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us, his children,” Keller points out. “God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope.”

Whether you are an older brother or a younger brother or somewhere in between, you will come away from this book with a fresh appreciation for our prodigal God. When we are reckless, he responds with reckless grace.

For more thoughts on this parable, take a look at my musings on dumpster diving.

Like Amish Peanut Butter

I have a weakness for peanut butter. On any given day, you’d likely find four jars of the stuff in our pantry: generic creamy, chunky, the brand-name “good stuff”… and a backup.

So when I received homemade Amish peanut butter from one of the authors my company works with, you can imagine my delight. Just one spoonful was enough for me to know I’d be ruined for all other peanut butter for the rest of time. In all my years of history with peanut butter, I’d never tasted such gooey, creamy, sweet deliciousness. The fact that it was made from scratch by a Pennsylvania woman in a bonnet only added to its divinity.

As I was eating my toasted peanut butter sandwich, I was reminded of the quote a friend of mine uses as part of her signature at the bottom of e-mails:

God spreads his grace thick and gloppy…the way a child spreads peanut butter.

It struck me as I took another bite that something like Amish peanut butter isn’t meant to be skimped on or rationed out. It isn’t meant to be analyzed for calorie count or obsessed over for exactly which spot on my hips it’s bound to end up.

Forgive me if this sounds a touch sacrilegious, but maybe my friend’s quote is right—maybe grace isn’t so different from peanut butter. God spreads his grace with such extravagance that it gets messy and smears all over us, until the globs rub off onto other people too.

When Jesus interacted with people, he was often accused by the religious folk of being too generous with grace. On one occasion when he was eating dinner with a group of people, he was approached by an “immoral woman” (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus didn’t condone the choices she’d made, but he extended forgiveness to her nonetheless. Forgiveness of the thick and gloppy variety.

I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.

—Luke 7:47

Having received extravagant forgiveness, she responded with extravagant gratitude:

She brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

—Luke 7:37-38

No matter how hard we try, we’ll never deserve God’s extravagant grace. But we do have a choice about how we’ll receive it. Will we clench our teeth and portion it out over so many bread crumbs? Will we nibble each bite guiltily, washing it down with the sour milk of regret?

Or will we take in the gift the way it was meant to be received, with joy and abundance and overflowing gratitude, the way the woman in the book of Luke did?

May my peanut butter communion remind me of how God intends his grace to be: thick and gloppy. Like Amish peanut butter.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

Come as You Are

When I was a kid, my favorite room in the house was the formal living room, for one simple reason: there was no furniture in it—just cushy white carpet and lots of space to cartwheel to my heart’s content.

The only thing in the room was a shelf with Mom’s Precious Moments collection in the corner. The rule was that I could do as many tumbling stunts as I wanted to, as long as I was careful not to veer into the corner and knock over the Precious Moments.

I was on a roll one day, going for a record number of cartwheels in a row, when I heard the stomach-churning sound of shattering glass. I looked down and, to my horror, saw that one of Mom’s beloved figurines had shattered into a pile of pointy shards.

There was no way I could tell Mom, I decided. I needed to fix this first. My initial stroke of genius was to reconstruct the figurine with tape, but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to work. The next obvious choice: I’d simply make her a new one. I snuck outside to gather twigs for the figurine’s arms and a little rock for the face, figuring I could paint the features on later. But as I tried to stick it all together with Silly Putty, I burst into tears. No paint job was going to salvage this sucker.

And so I did the only thing left to do: I went to Mom. I confessed. With lip quivering, I held out the handful of glass pieces and the lumpy-looking attempt at a replica. The hard truth was, I knew I’d never be able to pull it all together on my own.

As I’m reading the Gospels, I’m struck by what a ragtag band of followers Jesus had. These people who left everything to follow Jesus weren’t the spiritual elites of their day or the morally polished crowd. They didn’t have it all together. They were, in fact, in various states of mess.

There the fishermen (Luke 5:1-11), who got little respect in their culture—likely the rabbinical school dropouts. There were the tax collectors—the sleazy guys who ripped off their own people to get a bigger cut for themselves (Matthew 9:9). And there were the women of questionable reputation who didn’t do much for Jesus’ image (John 4).

When the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

—Mark 2:15-17

These people didn’t try to put themselves together before they came to Jesus; they knew that would be as futile as a child refusing to confess until she fixed the pricey collectible she’d broken.

I love that God doesn’t ask us to pull our act together before we come to him. We come as we are, and he changes who we are.

As I see myself in this lineup of people who came to Jesus, with their hands full of the messes they’d made, I’m reminded of one of the verses of the old classic hymn “Come Ye Sinners”:

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

If we wait to come to Jesus until we’re better, until we have our act together, we’ll never come at all.

When I went to Mom with the broken pieces of her figurine, she hugged me and extended forgiveness to me. Here she was the one who had been hurt, but she was consoling me. When we come to God in repentance, he does the same for us. He wraps us in his arms and wipes away our wrongs. And he alone can put the precious pieces back together again.

Today, if you find yourself compelled to try to clean yourself up before you come to God, I encourage you to take your mess and come to him. Just as you are. And know that he will accept you. Just as you are.

I beg you, do not tarry till you’re better.

Come now. Come as you are.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

 

Grace Spotting: A Modern-Day Emancipator

Last month I attended the Global Leadership Summit hosted by Willow Creek. They had quite a lineup of speakers, from Jim Collins to Condoleezea Rice, but I was especially taken by a woman with a small voice and a big story.

When Pranitha Timothy was getting ready to graduate with her master’s degree in social work, she felt like God gave her a vision for life, straight from the words of Scripture. As she read these words from Isaiah 42, she sensed that God was speaking them afresh for her.

Look at my servant, whom I strengthen.

He is my chosen one, who pleases me.

I have put my Spirit upon him.

He will bring justice to the nations.

He will not shout

or raise his voice in public.

He will not crush the weakest reed

or put out a flickering candle.

He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.

He will not falter or lose heart

until justice prevails throughout the earth.

Even distant lands beyond the sea will wait for his instruction.

—Isaiah 42:1-4

But shortly after she sensed this call, tragedy struck: Pranitha was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Thankfully, the doctors were able to remove the tumor, and it turned out to be benign. But in the process, she lost movement in 60 percent of her face and she no longer had feeling in her shoulder and neck. Worst of all, she could no longer speak. This woman with a dream for justice suddenly found herself mute.

Shattered, Pranitha returned to the Isaiah passage, asking God why he would give her this vision only to snatch it away before she could even begin. But upon closer reading, she was struck anew by certain parts of the passage: God’s servant “will not shout or raise his voice….He will not falter or lose heart.” Pranitha hardly dared to believe it, but what if God hadn’t revoked his call after all? What if it would just take a different form than she’d ever envisioned?

And so, after a period of recovery, Pranitha joined International Justice Mission and devoted her life to setting slaves free in her homeland of India. Over the years she has gradually regained some range of movement in her body and face. And God has given her a voice—a thin, feeble voice, but a voice nonetheless.

To date, Pranitha has led more than 50 slave rescue operations with IJM. She serves as a legal witness, representing these individuals in court, and she has also developed an aftercare strategy to help freed slaves find healing and integrate back into society.

To Pranitha’s surprise, in God’s hands her weakness has become one of her greatest strengths. Her trials provide a kind of common ground with the slaves she seeks to help. When they see the struggles she herself has faced, an immediate connection is formed—a level of trust that is usually hard won from people whose lives have been consistently marked by fear and distrust. She can speak from firsthand experience about what it means to rely on God on a daily basis, from a place of desperate need. “This pain constantly reminds me every day that I need God,” she says.

As I sat enraptured by Pranitha’s stories of risking her life to set slaves free, I was reminded of God’s heart for captives. I, too, was a slave to sin, trapped and full of fear. Christ risked everything to come to my rescue and break me out of my chains.  He defended me before my accusers, and he continues to take care of me after I’ve been set free.

It is because of grace that I’ve been set free. And it’s because of grace that he calls me to set other captives free too.