Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

That’s Not Fair!

My sister is eight years younger than me, which gave me a tactical advantage over her for a good four years (after which point she started keeping pace with me in every quantifiable way). But at some point before she wised up, when she was old enough to appreciate having money in her piggy bank but young enough to be lacking some key fiscal principles, I used the age gap to my advantage.

We had just met one of Dad’s friends, Roger, who had collected a massive bag of loose change from his car and given it to us. Jackpot! As the oldest, I took it upon myself to distribute the money among the three of us kids. After all the coins had been split evenly, inspiration struck.

“Meghan,” I said, “wanna trade?” She looked at me skeptically. “I’ll give you all my big bronze coins for your little silver ones.” She agreed, and my plan worked flawlessly…until we got home and Meghan dashed inside to share the news of her trades with Mom. At that point Mom ordered all the pennies and dimes to be swapped back, along with an “abuse of power” tax from my stash.

The truth is, trades tend to be sketchy business. As adults, we are wary of the inevitable catch; we know that the other person is in it for what they can get out of the deal.

As I read Isaiah, I’m amazed how many times God talks about trades that will take place when he comes to redeem his people. From a human perspective, God’s trades seem too good to be true. We bring God everything we have, but even our best offerings are worthless. And yet God doesn’t hesitate to take our ugly things on himself and give us the good things that are in his hands—things of beauty and great value.

In the book of Isaiah, we read about God’s mind-boggling trades—the gifts he gives us in exchange for our worthless things:

Gold for bronze

Silver for iron

Bronze for wood

A crown of beauty for ashes

Blessing for mourning

A double blessing instead of shame

(See Isaiah 60:17 and Isaiah 61:3.)

We hand him our sin, and he gives us salvation. We give him our brokenness, and he gives us healing. We extend our unworthiness, and he bestows on us his grace.

I was at a Vacation Bible School event for fifth and sixth graders recently, and they were singing—or more accurately screaming—the words to this song as they ran and danced around the sanctuary:

I’m trading my sorrows

I’m trading my shame

I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord

I want to have that same kind of boundless joy as I remember the trade God has made with me. It was the ultimate unfair trade. In an unprecedented move, the one with the power took the loss himself… and gave us everything instead.

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 Spottings, Take 2

Today I’d like to share a few grace spottings I’ve come across lately. Enjoy!

Grace Spotting #1: Redeeming Love

This book by Francine Rivers is a retelling of the story of Hosea and Gomer, set in California during the gold rush of the 1850s. Not only is it a romantic story of boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy wins girl back, but it will also stun you with its portrayal of the kind of pursuing love God has for you.

Grace Spotting #2:Women at Risk International

This organization is dedicated to providing safety, dignity, life skills, and job opportunities for women and children around the world who have been rescued from various kinds of abuse, including human trafficking and sexual slavery. My friends Michael and Kay Killar and their three children serve women and girls trapped in such situations in Thailand, and there they show God’s redemption in a tangible way.

Grace Spotting #3:Corrie ten Boom

If anyone ever had a right to withhold forgiveness, it would have been Corrie ten Boom. She was sent to a German concentration camp for hiding Jews during World War II, and she suffered unspeakable horrors there, including the death of her father and beloved sister. After the war she devoted her life to traveling and speaking on God’s faithfulness and grace. At one of these speaking engagements, she came face-to-face with a guard who had inflicted on her some of the most brutal torture at the camp. Would she run away, like Jonah did, or would she live out the message of grace she preached? Watch this compelling interview for her firsthand account.

 

Are some people beyond the reach of grace?

One of my relatives has a certain qualm about heaven that he airs anytime the topic of heaven comes up. This relative (who shall remain nameless, on the off chance he decides to run for political office or enroll in seminary at some point) has a good grasp of grace, but there’s one person he can’t reconcile being admitted into the pearly gates.

“What if Hitler had a deathbed conversion and squeaked his way in to heaven?” he inevitably asks. “And what if it turns out my mansion is right next door to his?”

I know he’s mostly joking when he says this—or perhaps trying to incite a heated discussion, as he is wont to do—but there’s an underlying truth to his complaint. Everyone’s in favor of grace, but most of us apply asterisks to it, deeming certain people past its reach. I can accept that Jesus’ blood is enough to cover the sins I have committed, but surely not the child abuser, the serial rapist, the person who invokes intentional harm on me or the people I love.

I have to admit that since my Flannel Graph days, I haven’t had much sympathy for the prophet Jonah. What with getting himself thrown off a ship, being swallowed by a giant fish, and sulking in that big stomach-aquarium for three days, Jonah has a tragically comic feel about him. It’s easy to look at him and think, Duh, Jonah, it would have saved you a lot of hassle, not to mention seaweed ingestion, if you’d just gone to Nineveh the first time around.

But as I learned more about the city he was called to preach to, I realized that if I’d been in his shoes, I would have likely run off in the other direction too. Only maybe I would have stayed on dry land, seeing as I get a little queasy around digestive juices.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, one of Israel’s fiercest enemies at the time. Assyria was constantly at war, vying to become the dominant superpower in the ancient Middle East. The Assyrians were feared for their aggression in battle and their tendency to force the people in the lands they conquered to disperse to various parts of the Assyrian empire. It’s no wonder Jonah wasn’t especially excited to pay them a house call.

But eventually, with all the grace of a pouting toddler, Jonah delivered his message to the people of Nineveh. It was quite possibly the world’s shortest sermon:

“Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”

—Jonah 3:4

Shockingly, the people responded. They immediately repented over their sin, with fasting and deep mourning. And God, true to his character, had mercy on them, sparing them from the judgment they deserved.

And Jonah? Well, I guess he felt like he got to heaven only to find that Hitler was his next-door neighbor.

“Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.”

—Jonah 4:2-3

In God’s eyes, no one is beyond the reach of grace. Not a wicked city. Not a pouty, stubborn prophet. Not a cruel dictator. Not even a sinner like me.

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.

Tuesday’s Child

When I was little, I was secretly envious of my sister. Not because she grew up eating ice cream on a regular basis or because she got to stay up late and play bridge with Mom and “the ladies” while I was in bed. No, it was all because of the day of her birth.

Meghan was born on a Friday, and according to the little nursery rhyme, that meant she was “loving and giving.” And here’s the thing: she was. Even from a young age, we had to keep a close eye on her piggy bank because she was liable to hand the whole thing over to the nearest person she deemed in need.

I was born on a Tuesday, which allegedly meant I was “full of grace.” At age ten, I took that to mean I made elegant, ballet-like movements. And while it’s true that I was enrolled in gymnastics, I had kicked way too many people while doing cartwheels in the hallway for anyone to believe there was anything akin to grace happening there. But being loving and giving—now that felt like something a little more practical.

I was watching the trials for the Olympics the other day, and I was struck by the undeniable grace of the divers in the platform event. As I watched, it hit me that maybe physical grace and spiritual grace have more in common than I realized. In both cases, whether you’re diving off the high dive or forgiving someone who has wronged you, there’s a kind of apparent effortlessness to it.

Although the one doing the gracing knows how many bruises and tears have brought them to this point, the spectators only see something beautiful. For an action to be truly graceful, there can’t be a sense of “Look at me!” or “Hey, everyone, check out how hard this is!” No, to be “full of grace” is to do something hard and make it look easy.

As with diving, grace-giving can feel a lot like standing on a 33-foot ledge, looking down into the swirling water below. That is to say, terrifying. And neither of these Olympic tasks happens automatically—they both require a lot of practice. But grace is worth the effort. It is so extraordinary, so compelling, that the watching world takes note when it happens.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this little proverb lately—so simple, but definitely not easy:

A gracious woman gains respect.

—Proverbs 11:16

So today I want to put my toes right up to the ledge and dive headfirst into grace. I’ll never be a platform diver, but with a little practice, I just may start looking more like the Tuesday’s child I was intended to be.

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 Spottings

I’ve been awed by several grace spottings lately, and I didn’t want to keep them all to myself. Here are three I’d like to share with you.

Grace Spotting #1: Our Good and Perfect Gift

Amy Julia Becker has written this touching post about her young daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome. When she and her husband received the news about Penny’s condition shortly after she was born, they were initially hit by a wave of doubt and shock. But over these past few years of Penny’s life, they have come to see that their smiley, pigtailed little girl is a gracious gift from the hand of God. In Amy Julia’s words, they have moved “from darkness to light, from sorrow to joy, from fear to wonder, from doubt to faith, from bitter to sweet.”

I highly recommend her book as well: A Good and Perfect Gift.

Grace Spotting #2:Craving Grace

Lisa Velthouse is one of the most grace-filled people I know, so it should come as no surprise that her book is called Craving Grace. For most of her life, Lisa thought Christianity was about doing things right, about being a “nice Christian girl.” Her memoir is about how God revealed his surprising sweetness to her, how he shocked her with how abundant, how scandalous, his grace really is.

When you read this book, you’ll feel like you’ve made a new friend. An authentic, grace-filled friend.

Grace Spotting #3: Forever Family

To me, grace looks a lot like this: a parent loves a child and gives her a home, for no reason other than love. If that’s the case, then Casa Viva is in the grace business. This nonprofit organization is committed to finding families for orphaned or abandoned children in Latin America. I had the privilege of serving with them on a short-term trip several years ago, and I found myself amazed by the hospitality of the staff and the families who dedicated their lives to caring for the fatherless.

This story from the Casa Viva blog is about a little girl named Gloria and her brother, David. It will give you a glimpse of grace (and maybe, as in my case, a sweet lump in your throat).

Have a grace-filled weekend!

Saying Grace

Whenever we ate a family meal at my grandparents’ house, there were two things I could always count on: Grandma’s homemade rolls (accompanied by jam made with raspberries from their garden) and Grandpa’s trademark prayer before we ate. Without fail, he’d quote these verses from the Psalms:

The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And You give them their food in due season.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
—Psalm 145:15-16

His voice was resonant, backed by a rock-solid faith. It was the same prayer his own parents and his grandparents before them had said around the table, only they’d spoken the blessing in German. I confess that as a kid, I’d open my eyes during the prayer just so I could see Gramps’s face, a mysterious blend of humility and confidence.

Gramps grew up on a farm without much money—he loved telling us grandkids stories about how his family made do without electricity and running water until he was well into his teen years and how he and his cousin had to create their own Monopoly game out of cardboard and scrap paper. But he believed in hard work and education, and he managed to clock enough hours on the job to put himself and his three daughters through college.

Yet through it all, he never credited his abilities or his hard work for the provision. He knew that everything he and his family had, including the meal on the table, was a gift from the open hand of God.

I’m ashamed to say that in the thousands of times I’ve “said grace,” I’ve never thought through what that actually means. Sure, I’ve made it a habit to pause and thank God for the food, but I tend to miss the fact that each meal is indeed grace—undeserved blessing from the hand of God. Maybe I cooked it myself and maybe it was my paycheck that bought the groceries, but on deeper reflection, I have to admit that it was my Creator who gave me the hands to chop the onions, a mind to read the recipe. And he’s the one who gave us the ability and the opportunity to bring home the proverbial bacon in the first place.

***

The last time I was at my grandparents’ house, Gramps wasn’t the same man I used to know. He now suffers from dementia, and although he is as quick as ever with a witty pun or a compliment about how lovely I look, he can no longer remember why he walked into the kitchen or how I’m related to him.

But when it came time to pray, he knew just what to say:

The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And You give them their food in due season….

I opened my eyes as Gramps prayed, just as I’d done as a child, so I could memorize his face. Still faithful, after all these years. Yes Lord, I echoed silently. Our eyes look expectantly to you, even now. Even in this season.

I’ve always loved this quote by G. K. Chesterton:

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

Chesterton knew what Grandpa knows: grace isn’t just meant to be received; it’s also meant to be said. Not so much for God’s sake, to tickle his ears, but as a reminder for us. There’s something about the saying of the grace, about acknowledging it out loud, that makes it more real.

Whether I’m sitting at the dinner table or at the opera, may I never forget to speak the grace. And may I never forget—through every day, in every season—the one who faithfully opens his hand to us.

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.

Graceful Remembering

At a conference I attended recently, I heard a firsthand account of graceful remembering. An author named Margot Starbuck told the story of her childhood and her quest for the Father-love she never had from her earthly fathers.

Margot experienced the double whammy of abandonment early in her life, having been given up for adoption as a baby and then having her stepfather succumb to alcoholism and leave the family when she was a young girl. These abandonments from the very people who were meant to reflect the parental love of God sent her on a desperate search for the true nature of God’s love, which she chronicles in her memoir, The Girl in the Orange Dress.

What struck me most when I read Margot’s story wasn’t so much the tragic nature of her memories, but what she left out.

She never shies away from the truth or the pain of what she went through, and she doesn’t excuse her father and her stepfather for their absence. But the focus in her remembering is on the way she grew from her losses and the mysterious good God brought out of them. She offers both men the kind of forgiveness and grace they don’t deserve. But then again, that’s what grace, by its very definition, is all about.

I was equally amazed when I read the funeral song David wrote for his nemesis, King Saul. David had been nothing but faithful to Saul all his life, fighting for him, defending his honor, protecting him against assassination attempts. By way of thanks, Saul tried to kill and him and then drove him out of the country.

And yet this is how David remembered Saul after his death: 

How beloved and gracious were Saul and Jonathan!
They were together in life and in death. . . .
Oh, how the mighty heroes have fallen!
—2 Samuel 1:23, 25

I imagine David hadn’t forgotten all the evil Saul had inflicted on him when he was alive. But when it came to his final reckoning, David chose to remember with grace rather than bitterness.

Just as Margot did.

Surprisingly, Margot told us that her book has served as a reconciliation tool of sorts between her and her dad. Her father, the very one she wrote about abandoning her, now gives her book to just about everyone he meets.

How beloved and gracious, indeed.

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.

God’s Gracious Smile

In my job as an editor, one of my biggest joys is receiving notes from readers and hearing how a certain book touched them. Of all the notes I’ve gotten over the years, though, there’s one that especially stands out.

The e-mail came to me from a 10-year-old girl who had just finished reading a children’s fiction series about a girl and her horse:

I used to think God was too busy to ever think about us, and the only times he did was when he was mad about something. And I thought he was just always frowning at us, so I never really talked to him. I didn’t understand what it meant in the Bible when it says you’re supposed to fear God.

Young as she is, this girl articulated what so many of us, deep down, fear is true—that when God looks at us, his face is screwed up in a frown. He sees all our shortcomings and failures, and he wishes we’d be a little smarter, a little more well-behaved, a little more spiritual. Even if we acknowledge that at some level he’s obligated to love us, we picture him as distant or at least mildly dissatisfied with us.

Then the girl goes on:

But then I read these books and I realized I was wrong. Especially when I read how Ellie pictured God smiling. Since then I’ve thought about him smiling about different things, and I talk to him a lot. Anyway I just wanted to tell you that and thank you very much for the books.

In the book of Numbers, Aaron gets instructions about his duties as a priest. This role was especially significant in the Old Testament because the priest wasn’t just the spiritual leader; he was God’s representative to the people. The priest was charged with showing them, in a sense, what God looked like. So when the Lord revealed the blessing Aaron should give the people, it wasn’t just some nice, poetic-sounding language. It was a picture of God’s very face.

May the LORD bless you
and protect you.
May the LORD smile on you
and be gracious to you.
May the LORD show you his favor
and give you his peace.
—Numbers 6:24-26

When I read this verse, I can’t help but think of another 10-year-old. Me. As a kid, I was sensitive with a side of drama, so I often felt like going to school was some kind of epic battle. I feared that I wouldn’t fit in, that someone would make fun of me, that I’d fall short somehow.

But every morning my mom served as my own Aaron. She’d wait at the bus stop each day and recite the priestly blessing over my brother and me: “May the Lord bless you and keep you. . . . May the Lord smile on you. . . .”

No matter what battles might be waiting for me that day, there was something I could cling to that would make it all bearable: I knew what God’s face looked like. He wasn’t frowning; he was smiling.

And he was smiling on me.

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 on the Streets of Bangkok

Jubilee. The word itself sounds like a party on the tongue.

This celebration is spelled out in the book of Leviticus: once the Israelites entered the Promised Land, every fifty years all debts would be forgiven, all slaves would be released, and there would be “freedom throughout the land for all who live there” (Leviticus 25:10). That year would be set apart as holy, and no work was to be done on the land for an entire year.

I can just imagine servants checking days off on a calendar, longing for the year of Jubilee, when their time of captivity would finally be over. Since the Jubilee came just twice in a century, most people probably experienced only one in a lifetime. Maybe the younger generation heard rumblings about the previous celebration and looked forward to the next one with great anticipation, half wondering if it was too good to be true.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a slave desperately longing for freedom. But I once got a glimpse of something similar through the eyes of a young woman on the streets of Bangkok.

I was on a short-term trip to Thailand, working with an organization that helps free women from the sex industry in Bangkok’s red-light district. Our group’s ultimate goal was to connect women to the ministry and let them know another way of life was available to them.

We did that by buying women out for the night so they wouldn’t have to work. For the equivalent of $20 in US currency, the woman (or in most cases, young girl) would be free to go home and just be a human being, with no pressure to belong to another person for the evening.

I’ll never forget the look on Buk’s face when our group bought her out the first night we were there. She kept trying to figure out what the catch was, what our hidden agenda was. Surely this was too good to be true. But when we finally got through to her that we’d paid her bar fee simply because we wanted to show her God’s love—because we, too, had been set free, redeemed—her smile was so bright it dimmed the garish neon lights of the strip.

I wouldn’t have been able to put it into words then, but I know now what I was seeing. Buk’s face told her own tale of Jubilee, if only for one night.

I don’t know where Buk is today, but I pray that one day she will experience permanent Jubilee—the eternal freedom we can experience knowing that Jesus paid the fee—for all of us.

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.

Counterintuitive Washing

One of my pet peeves about winter in the Midwest is the salty cars. Specifically, my salty car. (Yes, I know it’s currently 70 degrees outside, but I haven’t quite made it to the carwash yet.) At any rate, it isn’t uncommon for me, about halfway through the workday, to look down and realize my black pants have inadvertently brushed against my dirty car.

As someone who grew up with all the glories and messes of the four seasons, it isn’t hard for me to relate to a certain aspect of the regulations about sacrifices described in Leviticus: the idea that once something clean touches something unclean, the once clean object or person is now defiled (Leviticus 5:2-3).

I’ve been around long enough to know that when a mud-splattered puppy bolts through the living room, it’s not the freshly vacuumed carpet that rubs off on the dog; rather, the rug takes on the dirt and grime. When a kid falls onto the grass in his brand-new pants, it’s the pants that get the stain, not the other way around. And it’s not that different with sin, I suppose. If sin so much as sneezes in my direction (whether I’m seeking it out or not), I know I’ll get its tainting effects on me.

So as I read God’s instructions to the priests about the impure making the pure dirty, it made sense to me. That’s just the way our world works. But I stopped in my tracks when I got to this part: “Anyone or anything that touches these offerings will become holy” (Leviticus 6:18).  Now this doesn’t jive with my understanding of the world. How could touching something pure cleanse something that was dirty?

That is, I suppose, the counterintuitive nature of grace.

Thankfully, we no longer live under the system of animal sacrifices. But it is much the same for us today. When I come into contact with Jesus, the pure and perfect Sacrifice, he isn’t tainted by my uncleanness, my sin. Instead, I am made clean and whole by touching him. It’s only then that I can stand confidently before a holy God.

My soul’s own carwash. Spot free.

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.