Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

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.

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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.

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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.

Alena’s Story

Two of my great passions in life are helping other people share their stories and seeing God’s extraordinary grace at work through ordinary people. So when I was given the opportunity to be part of the Gospel Stories project at my church, it felt like a beautiful collision of those passions.

 

Today I’d like to share Alena’s inspiring story with you.

 

alena

Alena’s Story

When we experience pain—whether the pain is physical or emotional—most of us fall to our knees with the same agonizing question on our lips: Why, Lord?

 

At the age of 16, Alena asked the same question when she found herself in constant physical pain, battling a condition that doctors couldn’t seem to nail down and wondering if she’d ever be able to dance again. Why did she have to go through something like this at such a young age? Where was God in the midst of her suffering?

 

It was only when she surrendered to the Lord that she experienced a life-transforming truth: even if God never changed her pain, he was changing her heart. This is the story of how the gospel met Alena at her point of deepest pain and taught her to dance again.

 

O Lord my God, I called out to you for help, and you healed me. . . . You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
—Psalm 30:2, 11

 

Click here to watch Alena’s story in her own words.

 

Sweet Sundays, Part 5: Multitaskers Anonymous

sweet_sundays_artworkHello, my name is Stephanie, and I’m a multitasker.

I haven’t always been this way. When I was a kid, I’d get so caught up in whatever I was doing that I was prone to lose all track of time and occasionally even miss my bus stop. Maybe it comes with the territory of adulthood or womanhood, or maybe it’s exacerbated by the various technologies itching at our fingertips, but whatever the reason, it can feel foreign and disorienting to only do one thing at a time. (Let alone rest!)

The other day I was reading Psalm 92 (while finishing my breakfast and drinking my coffee and doing the laundry), and I was struck by the epigraph at the beginning of the psalm: “A song to be sung on the Sabbath Day.”

And it got me to thinking: What is so special about music that God would have us set aside certain songs for the Sabbath?

One of the bonus gifts I received with the Daniel-package is the gift of music. On any given day, our home is graced with strains of live music—anything from the Beatles to Bob Dylan to worship music. Daniel plays the bass guitar for our church band, and on the Sundays he goes early for practice, I like to go with him. In the spirit of efficient multitasking, I usually I bring along something I’m working on—a book to read, a letter to write, some scribbles I’ve been wanting to put to paper.

But after reading Psalm 92, I decided to just do one thing on a recent Sunday: soak in the songs for the Sabbath Day.

As the melodies and chords washed over me like so much grace, it occurred to me that music engages our hearts in a way that short-circuits our swirling minds and goes straight to our souls. The church father Athanasius suggested that God paired the words of the Psalms with melody to serve as a metaphor of sorts. Music, he said, serves as “a symbol of the spiritual harmony in a soul.” As a Christian sings praises, Athanasius said, he “brings rhythm to his soul and leads it, so to speak, from disproportion to proportion.”

While I sat there listening, I noticed something interesting about the rest notes. As lovely as the music is, the rests make you appreciate the melody all the more.

Just like Sundays.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to the Most High.
It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning,
your faithfulness in the evening,
accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp,
and the melody of a lyre.*
—Psalm 92:1-3

 *Or an ice-blue Fender bass guitar.

10 Grammar Saves in 10 Years

I’m not quite sure how I blinked and 10 years passed, but last month I woke up and realized it had been a whole decade since I jumped into the world of editing and publishing. It has been a good decade, and in honor of the mile marker, I thought I’d share with you 10 of the errors I’ve stopped from going into print over the past 10 years.

{Note: I have omitted the authors and titles of these books to protect the relevant parties, but rest assured, these are all real quotes from real books.}

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  1. My daddy was a steal worker, and my granddaddy was a steal worker.
    [Sounds like a kind of shady business to me.]
  2. Gelatins 2:16 clearly states that human deeds can never save us.
    [Shockingly, the book of Gelatins made it through spell-check but not canonization.]
  3. I was blessed by marring a Christian lady and having three kids.
    [The blessing doesn’t quite sound mutual when you put it that way.]
  4. As a society, we’ve developed an erroneous belief system that is about as subtle as a rattle snack.
    [Hmm, must be a Southern delicacy, up there with fried okra.]
  5. Joshua 2: Rehab helps the Israelite spies
    [The earliest evidence of a successfully implemented 12-step program . . . ]
  6. But the Pharisees hardened their hearts toward Jesus’ wisdom. . . . They planned to deny pubicly that he was Messiah.
    [I have nothing further to say.]
  7. This relationship is called “the hookup,” referring to repeated one nightstands.
    [I’m getting a mental image of row after row of identical bedroom furniture. . . .]
  8. Does that mean God wants us to never plop down on the coach?
    [I’m not sure he addresses that particular issue, but it does sound rather uncomfortable for all parties.]
  9. “You don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blond and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
    [Apparently, God prefers brunettes.]
  10. From an endnote source: (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Boobs; 2009), 275.
    [With apologies to the lovely people who work at Multnomah.]

ten_grammar_saves “There are two typos of people in this world: those who can edit and those who can’t.” —Jarod Kintz

“Only Southerners have taken horsewhips and pistols to editors about the treatment or maltreatment of their manuscript. This—the actual pistols—was in the old days, of course, we no longer succumb to the impulse. But it is still there, within us.” —William Faulkner

My Husband, Good Sam

daniel and steph6One of the nicknames I have for my husband is Sam. Which is weird, when you think about it, since his name is Daniel. But in his case it’s Sam as in Good Samaritan.

Here’s the thing: If you ever found yourself on the side of the road with a flat tire or a skinned knee or an empty tank of gas, Daniel is precisely the person you’d want to find you. In the three years I’ve known him, we’ve given a ride to a woman who was walking home in dress shoes after her car broke down, loaned an Allen wrench to a guy with bicycle troubles, and dropped someone off at the bicycle shop to get a new part for his bike—to name just a few examples.

It’s always a rather startling experience to be with Daniel, I mean Sam, in these situations, because before I’ve even noticed there’s a problem, he has already diagnosed the situation, pulled over the vehicle, and procured the necessary tool.

So it was fully in character for Daniel to stop when he spotted the two guys off to the side of the bike path poring over their map the other evening. Daniel and I were on a bike ride together, reliving our first date from three years prior—our “blind date-iversary,” as we call it. We were pedaling to the park we’d gone to on our first date when we spotted—okay, when “Sam” spotted, the pair of guys, looking weary and a little lost.

“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked, coasting his bicycle to a stop.

It turned out the duo was a father and a son, on a 540-mile trek to celebrate Will’s high school graduation. They’d started in Iowa six days ago, and they were now on the last leg of their journey, hoping to arrive at their friends’ house before dark.

There was just one problem: the paths had changed significantly since the last time the dad had been in the area some thirty years ago. And the map didn’t seem to be matching up with the signs around them.

Daniel went over directions with them, coaching them through the forks in the path and the landmarks they could expect along the way. Then, just as they were getting ready to head out, Daniel said, “Hey, we could ride with you for this leg. That would at least get you past this tricky part.”

Their sweat-streaked faces lit up at the offer. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

But as it turned out, we were the ones who reaped the real benefits. As we rode together, they regaled us with tales from the journey—how they narrowly made it to shelter just before a spontaneous storm struck, how they pushed through the pain of the brutal Wisconsin hills, how they managed to pack light enough to carry all the belongings they needed for a week.

As we rode together, I thought about what a gift it is to have friends who travel with us on various legs of our journeys. No one can journey with us all the way from the start to the finish line, but God has a way of sending fellow pilgrims just when we need them . . . when we’re climbing that big hill, when we feel too weary to go one more mile, when we’re lost and in need of directions.

daniel and steph2

Finally we arrived at the spot where the trail diverged, and we offered our new friends some banana bread (another nod to our first date) before saying our good-byes.

“Bless you,” the dad said, shaking our hands warmly. The son nodded, his mouth full of another large bite.

But we’d already been blessed. That’s the funny thing about hanging around with the Sams of the world. You start out thinking you’re offering a blessing, but the blessings come pouring back to you a hundredfold instead.

Happy three years of knowing you, Sam. I’m so glad God gave us each other for the rest of this journey.

 

Friday Favorites: June

This Friday I thought I’d share a few of my recent favorite things with you.

For anyone who loves to read…

This site is fantastic—kind of like Pandora for book lovers.

What Should I Read Next

For all angsty writers (wait, is that redundant?)…

If you’ve ever felt the pain and suffering of writing (or not writing), this is for you:

Having Trouble Writing? Try This Famous Author’s Technique

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For anyone who loves a second breakfast…

I kind of want to live in (or at least visit) these Hobbit houses.

Real Life Houses That Look like They Belong in the Shire

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For anyone who knows they’ll never live up to Pinterest…

Next time you’re having a rough day, all you need to do is look at these babies in pumpkins. That’s real life.

Reasons You Should Never Reenact Pinterest Photos

ff June2

For anyone who needs a little boost of brave…

“Sometimes it’s good to let them see you sweat even when it feels awkward. Fear seems to grow in the darkness of isolation.”

Why You Need to Tell Someone How Scared You Are

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The Gift of Presence

Dad #1crop

 

When I was fifteen, I decided to exchange my gymnastics leotard for a basketball jersey. There was just one little problem (and I do mean little): I was barely four foot eleven, with shoes on.

 

I practiced hard that season, but whenever game time came, I warmed the bench. With the rare exception of a major blowout, my sub-five-foot frame didn’t see any action on the court the moment the game clock started.

 

But my dad . . . my dad was at every game. Every. Single. Game. He’d leave work early and sit up in the bleachers with my mom, still in his dress shirt and tie. All so he could watch me warm the bench.

 

When I came out of the locker room with the team before each game, I’d find him in his usual spot—left side, near the back—and he’d flash our family’s secret signal, which, roughly translated, meant, “Hey, I see you. I’m here.”

 

He was there, even though we all knew I wouldn’t be out there shooting or dribbling or passing or doing any of the other things he’d been helping me with in our hoop out back.

 

And he was there after each game for his trademark “postgame talk” when I was feeling discouraged after yet another four quarters of not even taking off my warm-up jacket.

 

“We’ll keep practicing,” he told me. “Just wait—you’re going to be a starter one of these days.”

Dad #2crop

 

***

 

Right around that time, I found myself plunged into the waters of teenage awkwardness, and along the way, I started losing track of how to connect with my dad. I was self-conscious in my own skin, clumsy about hugging him, so we mostly exchanged fist bumps instead. I didn’t quite know how to talk to him about the things that made up my world either—friend drama, boys, how I was trying to sludge through this new space to figure out who I was and where I fit in. How could we show love to each other surrounded by so much awkward?

 

But Dad found a way. I’m sure I didn’t realize what was happening back then, but each time he showed up, each time he watched me sit the bench, he was giving me a rare gift: the gift of presence. He was there, and there said, “I love you.”

 

***

 

All through the next summer, Dad coached me as I relearned my basketball shot. It was brutal at first, but he was right—it paid off. My senior year, when they announced the starting lineup for my team, there was a new jersey out on the court—number ten, measuring in at barely five feet tall. When they called my name, I ran out onto there, shoes squeaking on the hardwood, my eyes scanning the stands for one face.

 

He was there, of course. I flashed Dad the trademark family signal and grinned to myself. I’d been wishing for this moment for a long time, but when it arrived, I realized that what I’d needed most had been there all along.

 

“The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Sometimes love is complicated, multilayered. Sometimes it means having deep talks and hashing everything out. But other times love is simple. Sometimes love is just showing up.

 

dad and me

So Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Thanks for teaching me how to shoot a basketball. Thanks for watching all my games. Most of all, thanks for always showing up. (And by the way, I didn’t get you anything for Father’s Day, so please consider this your gift.)

On Judy Blume, Burning Bushes, and Timelessness

Tiger1The first time I read Judy Blume’s Tiger Eyes, I was just a little younger than Davey, the fifteen-year-old narrator and heroine. Now, some two decades later, I’m just about the age of Davey’s mom. Interestingly, the characters on the pages haven’t aged a day since our last visit.

 

On Saturday I heard Judy Blume speak about the debut of the movie version of Tiger Eyes, released last Friday. At the end of her talk, she opened the floor for a Q & A with the audience. To my astonishment, dozens of young girls stood up—from grade schoolers to middle schoolers to high schoolers—to let her know how her books had connected with them. Superfudge, Freckle Juice, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: the same books that kept me company some twenty years ago.

 

“We read to know we are not alone,” C. S. Lewis said. And sure enough, Judy Blume’s books were there to let me know I wasn’t the only one wrestling through the crazy-making emotions that come with the territory of growing up.

 

At one point near the end of the Q & A session, a teacher took the mic and asked Judy why she thought her books had held up for so many years.

 

Judy thought for a moment and then said, “You know, I write about people, about feelings. And as much as technology advances and the world looks different in a lot of ways than it did when I wrote the book in 1981, people are still the same. They still experience the same emotions.”

 

Tiger2

***

The next day in church, the message was about Exodus 3, where God shows up to Moses in the form of a burning bush. In this scene, God reveals his name to Moses, and it’s kind of a curious one—a verb where we’d expect a noun: I Am. “Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14).

 

God didn’t reveal himself as “I Was”—citing a track record of things he’d done in the past. He didn’t reveal himself as “I Will Be”—claiming what he’d do one day in the future. He was saying, in effect, Wherever you find yourself in the timeline of history, I Am there.

 

Generations come and go. Traditions change, culture fluctuates, technology thrusts us ever forward. But we humans, at our core, are still the same. We love and we lose, we laugh and we cry, we mourn and we rejoice. And in the midst of it all, God and his Word remain relevant, timeless.

 

Even more timeless and more timely, I dare say, than Tiger Eyes.

 

Tiger4

 

Note: For more on the burning bush artwork, visit http://fineartamerica.com/featured/burning-bush-anne-cameron-cutri.html.

Tree Funerals and Other Necessary Endings

I’ve been to too many tree funerals lately.

 

First it was the big old elm tree in my parents’ front yard—the Climbing Tree, all of us kids called it.

 

I’d always thought the Giving Tree was a little over the top about a hunk of deadwood…until I found out my own Climbing Tree’s days were numbered.

 

It was the perfect tree for a kid, with its low, sturdy limbs to get you started and plenty of compact branches to perch on. After a summer day full of playing outside or helping my parents in the garden, I’d bring my book into the tree and sit in my reading spot—a “V” between branches that was cozy enough for me to be able to turn the pages of the next Anne of Green Gables book without having to hang on.

 

ending2

 

It was the first tree to turn gold in the fall, marking the commencement of my favorite season and ushering in my birthday. The tree was also my first glimpse of home when I returned from college, those sweeping branches beckoning welcome to a homesick heart.

 

So when my parents told me it was time to take down the old tree, I weakly argued for them to let it stand a little longer (after all, it still had six green leaves on it!). Deep down I knew it was time, but there’s inherent sadness that comes with taking an ax to something that was once so vibrant and full of life. It wasn’t just the end of the tree; it was the end of an era.

 

One day not long after my parents’ announcement about the Climbing Tree, I arrived home at my own place to find that all the trees lining our street had been systematically mowed down by orders of the city—casualties of the ash borer infestation. The stump of each tree had been spray-painted with neon letters that read “OK,” apparently an indication that there were no lingering signs of the guilty little vermin. But as I walked around our post-apocalyptic neighborhood inspecting each spot that had once held a tall symbol of life, I wanted to scream, “No! It’s not okay!”

 

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***

I’ve been reading a book by Henry Cloud called Necessary Endings, and in it he talks about how sometimes we have to do the hard work of chopping down projects and relationships whose season has past.

 

“Good cannot begin until bad ends,” he says. “Endings are not only part of life; they are a requirement for living and thriving, professionally and personally. Being alive requires that we sometimes kill off things in which we were once invested, uproot what we previously nurtured, and tear down what we built for an earlier time.”

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Cloud says there are three categories of things that may need to end:

1. Healthy buds or branches that are not the best ones

2. Sick branches that are not going to get well

3. Dead branches that are taking up space needed for the healthy ones to thrive

 

As painful as endings are, we are wise to make the tough call and end these things now, before more damage is done.

 

Are there some necessary endings you need to bring about in your life?

  • Do you have a vampire-friend who is slowly sucking the life out of you?
  • Is there a relationship you know you should end but you’re hanging on to it because you’re afraid to be alone?
  • Is there some commitment that was once life giving but its season is now up?
  • Has God made it clear that your time at your job has come to an end, but fear is holding you back?

 

Necessary Endings are painful because we know the chainsaw is going to hurt. And once the tree is gone, it will leave behind a gaping hole—one we’ll likely tumble into for some time.

 

But as tempting as it is to put off the pain, delaying a needed ending only makes things worse. After all, the pain is there as a megaphone, telling us something needs to change. Henry Cloud puts it this way: “Pain by its nature is a signal that something is wrong, and action is required. So pain should be driving you to do something to end it.”

 

Here’s the thing: there won’t be a place to plant a new, healthy tree if the old diseased one stays there.

 

Is there a Necessary Ending you need to bring about so you can make way for a New Beginning? If so, let me know how I can pray for you as you rev up your chainsaw.

Anxiety in High Gear

I have a rather embarrassing confession to make: when I was single, I had the subconscious notion that if I got married, all my anxieties would magically disappear. Ridiculous, I know. It turns out I’m the same Anxious Annie with a ring that I was without one. Now I just have another target to worry about.

One year ago, over Memorial Day weekend, my worrywart tendencies showed up in full force, and before it was all over, things got downright ugly.

My husband, Daniel, is an avid cyclist, and anytime he sees a long stretch of pavement without cars on it, he practically starts salivating. We went out of town for the weekend, and he got the notion to ride his bicycle home. All 67 miles. As if that weren’t cause enough for worry, he didn’t have a map, it was 98 degrees with the heat index, and he was going straight into a 20-mile-an-hour headwind.

Sixty-seven miles. Four and a half hours. That’s a long while to worry.

dwr bike

Then our next-door neighbor called and said our garage door was wide open. Had we closed it before we left? I thought so, but I couldn’t be sure. The likely scenario was that we’d inadvertently left it open, not that some conniving thief had wrangled his way in and left the door open as some kind of twisted signature. But who ever said worry is rational?

With my anxiety in high gear already, that was all it took to put me over the edge. As I drove the 67 miles home, I created multiple disaster scenarios in my head: Daniel was on an ambulance somewhere in Wisconsin, being pumped with liquids as they tried to save him from dehydration. Or maybe he’d gotten a flat tire and hitched a ride with the very same creepy guy who had broken into our house. Or most likely the thief was still camping out behind the couch in our living room, biding his time so he could jump me the moment I walked in the door.

Fortunately my husband is a patient man, and he let me cry it out over the phone while my incoherent fears came tumbling out.

When I finished blubbering, he said, “What time will you get home? I’ll call you back, and I’ll walk you in.”

When I hung up, I had a flash of realization: I’d just spent 40-some miles stewing and worrying and generally getting my panties in a bunch, but I hadn’t so much as whispered a prayer. How different would the trip home have been if I’d confessed my worry to God and asked him to stand guard over Daniel’s bicycle tires instead of going around and around on my gerbil wheel of worry?

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?

—Luke 12:25-26

True to his word, Daniel called and walked me in when I arrived home. It turned out there was no crime scene, no trace of a sneaky garage thief. And several hours later Daniel arrived home in one piece, requiring no detours to the hospital.

God has promised to hold our hand as we go through whatever scary doors before us. But first we have to open our hand and let go of the worries we’re clinging to so tightly.

Only then can he grab our hand in his and walk us in.

I hold you by your right hand—

I, the Lord your God.

And I say to you,

“Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.”

—Isaiah 41:13

 ***

This year Daniel made the same trek over Memorial Day weekend—all 67 miles again—only this time instead of scorching heat, there were threatening rainclouds. I still have a long way to go in the worrywart department, but this time I pictured God beside me, hanging on to my right hand as I drove. (Don’t worry, I kept the other hand on the wheel, just in case.)

daniel and steph