Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

The Grace of Passing Over

My friend Liz is Jewish—“real Jewish,” she’d tell you, meaning she grew up in Israel. She and her mom moved to the United States when Liz was in high school, in large part so Liz wouldn’t have to serve in the Israeli army—something of an automatic draft for all 18-year-olds, male or female, in her country.

I met Liz shortly after she moved here, near Passover time. Since most of the people I knew of who celebrated Passover were long-dead guys like Moses, I was intrigued to hear how she and her family marked the holiday.

The thing that usually struck me when I read the account of the first Passover was the rather somber tone of the event. Honestly, it didn’t sound like my idea of a holiday to be packed up and ready to flee, eating “with urgency” (Exodus 12:11). Not quite a relaxing family gathering at Grandma’s house.

On a deeper level, the premise itself seemed less than festive: blood painted around the doorframe of each Israelite home, and with it the dark undercurrent of knowing every household in Egypt would be visited by the angel of death that night.

I asked Liz about Passover, in all my Goyim ignorance. Does it ever seem strange, I wondered, to celebrate a holiday whose main event is a nation-wide slaughter? Liz bit her lip, trying unsuccessfully to hide her smile.

“It’s not about the death,” she said. “It’s about getting passed over.”

Oh, right. Hence the name.

If you don’t know what you’re getting saved from, I suppose the grace, the celebration, doesn’t mean much.

And now, many generations after that first Passover, the same can be true for us—Gentiles and descendants of Moses alike. The blood of the Lamb has covered the doorframes of our hearts. And as a result, the angel of death no longer has power over us.

We, too, will be passed over.

Now that’s a reason to celebrate.

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.

Pantry-less Grace

I might as well be up front with you from the beginning: I have a pantry problem. And a freezer problem too, for that matter.

I guess you could blame it on the fact that I come from an ancestral line of farming women who knew how to can and pickle and pantrify and store up for winter with the best of them. Even today, if you went to my grandma’s house, you’d find a stuffed freezer upstairs, plus another full freezer and a huge deep freeze in the basement—all of them stocked with goodies.

I missed the farming and canning gene, but I sure got the freezer gene.

If my husband and I don’t have a backup of everything in the pantry, and if our freezer door can close without heroic efforts, I start getting vaguely antsy. I do realize I live in the era of Costco and Super Walmart, not Little House on the Prairie, but I can’t seem to help myself.

That’s probably, I’ve been realizing lately, because there’s a spiritual component to my neurosis. The stocked pantry and freezer give me a false sense of security…like if I can control what’s on the shelves, I somehow have more control over my life.

I wonder if that’s why God implemented the manna diet for the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert. At first glance, this story in Exodus seems to one of straightforward provision: the Israelites are hungry; God gives them food. But on closer reflection, I find it interesting to note his process. He doesn’t give them a yearly or monthly or even weekly supply of food to store up on. No, he gives them what they needed for today.

They try to hoard it, of course, and put in their pantries. But here’s what happens:

Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.” But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell.
—Exodus 16:19-20

Every morning when the people woke up to find manna scattered on the ground, it was a reminder that they weren’t in control, that they could stock their pantry all they wanted to, but ultimately they were dependent on their Provider.

And so it is with grace. I want to hoard it, stockpile it, stash backup supplies in my pantry. But God says, “No, my child. I know you, and I know that if you stored it away, you would forget the one who gave it to you in the first place. I will give you the grace you need. Just enough for today.”

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.

Cinematic Grace

Before we started watching The Tree of Life, our friend warned the group, “This isn’t your typical movie. It’s more like a poem in visual form.” We looked at him rather skeptically—even more so when he mentioned the twenty-minute segment with no words. Okaaay…this was clearly not going to be your traditional Hollywood “boy meets girl” flick or your “bad guy tries to blow up the world” movie.

I was surprised to see that the opening quote came from the book of Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (38:4). The story traces a boy’s growing-up years as he wrestles with the tension between grace and nature. His mother, the personification of grace, swirls him around in the backyard, playfully squirts him with the garden hose, and showers his life with laughter. His father is nature—embodying the idea that you get what you earn in life, that if you work hard enough, you’ll end up on top.

The movie poses this unspoken question: What happens when life isn’t fair, when you get what you don’t deserve? Is it possible to keeping clinging to grace, despite all seeming evidence to the contrary?

This is, when it comes down to it, the underlying question posed in the book of Job as well. Yes, Job’s technical question is Why? But there seems to be a deeper layer to his queries. The truth is, no answer would have satisfied him. There is no reason, no explanation that from Job’s human perspective would have justified the devastating losses, the crushing defeats, the deaths of the people he loved.

So God, in his mercy, responds to a different question.

He reminds Job of his credentials—essentially that he holds nature, in all its mystery and splendor, in the palm of his hand—but also that he treats his children with compassion and gentleness (Job 38-39).

For all those chapters of back-and-forth between Job and God, the book pretty much boils down to one simple exchange.

Job asks God, “Why?”

And to Job’s amazement, God responds with another question altogether: “Who?”

Who determined the earth’s dimensions?
Who kept the sea inside its boundaries?
Who created a channel for the torrents of rain?
Who laid out the path for the lightning?
Who sends rain to satisfy the parched ground?
Who gives intuition to the heart and instinct to the mind?
Who is wise enough to count all the clouds?
Who provides food for the ravens?
—from Job 38

In my quest for grace, it just may that I’m sometimes asking the wrong question. Maybe when God seems silent, it’s not that he’s not answering. It’s that he’s answering a different question.

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.

The Grace of the Middle Man

If you met my dad under normal circumstances, he’d prefer to have you assume he’s a plumber. He doesn’t fit any of the stereotypes that go with his profession, and as a matter of fact, he does have a knack for fixing leaky faucets.

But if one of his kids is in trouble, he doesn’t hesitate to pull out the tricks of his trade. In my early twenties as I was venturing out on my own, if he felt someone was trying to take advantage of me—whether it was an insurance company, an employer, or some shady individual—he was there for backup.

“You tell them your dad will call them,” he told me. “And if that doesn’t work, tell them your lawyer will call them.” Lucky for me, I had two for the price of one.

Job lived in an era when there were foreshadowings of grace—little whispers leading up to the coming of the Redeemer—but the fulfillment was still fuzzy. As he cried out in the aftermath of his string of personal tragedies, he found himself desperate for a middle man, a lawyer, a mediator—someone to stand between him and God and plead his case.

If only there were a mediator between us,
someone who could bring us together. . . .
Then I could speak to [God] without fear,
but I cannot do that in my own strength.
—Job 9:33, 35

I suspect Job had no idea how prophetic his words were. In Christ, we have just that—a mediator to graciously plead our case before a holy God.

So the next time our sin plagues us, we can say with confidence, “Talk to my Dad.” And if that doesn’t work: “Talk to my Lawyer.”

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.

The Grace of Forgetfulness

I’m currently reading a memoir by a woman named Jill Price, who has an unusual condition called hyperthymestic syndrome. Which is the technical way of saying she can’t forget. Anything. If you asked her about any given day in 1970, she’d be able to tell you what day of the week it was—and precisely what she had for breakfast.

As much as I want to pull out my hair when I leave my lunch on the kitchen counter or when I completely whiff on someone’s birthday, I realize there is grace in being able to forget. On a merely practical level, it’s a mercy that some of those details (like decades-old breakfast menus) can exit quietly and unceremoniously out the mental back door. Otherwise our brains would be so cluttered with nonessentials that we’d never be able to stay focused on weightier matters.

On a spiritual level, I think God works in a similar way. He takes those wounds and painful memories from times we’ve been hurt and, through the process of time, his Spirit, and godly people in our lives, enables those painful incidents to fade into the background.

Joseph, the Old Testament hero, had plenty of wounds that hounded his memory. His own brothers had sold him into slavery, and he ended up a captive in a faraway country, where he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. There should have been plenty of bitter juice to go around. But it’s interesting to note what he named his firstborn son once his life started looking up again: Manasseh, which means “God has made me forget all my troubles and everyone in my father’s family” (Genesis 41:51).

I have to wonder, though: if Joseph had truly moved on, would he really need to name his son “I have forgotten”? In a sense, every time he called to his son was a reminder of the family he’d allegedly left in the rearview mirror.

So what do we do when we can’t forget?

In those cases, it just may be that God has something redemptive up his sleeve. God wasn’t finished with Joseph when it came to those brothers he claimed to have forgotten. When he met up with them years later, there were no vengeful daytime talk show moments. Instead, there was a teary, grace-filled reunion—and a reconciliation that was more beautiful than amnesia ever could be.

If there is a wound in your life right now that is burned into your consciousness, go ahead and ask God for the grace of forgetfulness. But if it’s slow in coming, don’t get discouraged. Because it just may be that God is going to so bring something out of this you’ll never want to forget.

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.

The Grace of the Tarzan Skirt

Call it shallow, call it being female, but I can’t help but notice as I read Genesis that God was the designer of the very first outfit.

Thanks to those illustrated Bible storybooks I read as a kid, I always picture Eve with a furry Tarzan look—one shoulder covered, the other bare, a tasteful belt around her waist. I just never really thought about where the outfit came from.

But this time as I read the account of Paradise Lost, something new hit my fashion sensibilities. The first line of clothing in the brand-new world, it turns out, was preceded by its first bloodshed.

Back when things were perfect, Adam and Eve were on vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29), which meant no cows or chickens had kicked the bucket for sake of supper. And presumably, since things were perfect, no one—human or animal—had died for any other reason. But once Adam and Eve caved to temptation, God’s promise that death would ensue (Genesis 3:3) went into effect immediately.

When I think about that heart-wrenching scene when God calls the first couple on their sin, I typically think about the curse part of it: enmity with the snake, pain in childbirth, toil in labor, to every generation hence, thankyouverymuch, Eve.

But just after the curse is pronounced, there’s this little grace note I’ve overlooked in the past: “And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife” (Genesis 3:21). God gave them clothes, a covering for their nakedness and shame. But before he could do that, there had to be a sacrifice. Blood had to be shed.

And in this AD era, so it is for us. God has provided a permanent covering for our sin. But a sacrifice was necessary; bloodshed was required. And we, the guilty ones, find ourselves clothed.

When God stitches the garment, he threads his needle with grace.

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.