Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

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

Sweet Sundays, Part 2

sweet_sundays_artworkIn this post from January, I wrote about my journey toward embracing a day of rest. Here’s the latest on my Sabbath experiment.

Not long ago I was pulled over for speeding on a Sunday morning—on the way to church, no less. The irony was not lost on me. A day of rest, and I’m rushing to get there? I managed to explain my way out of the ticket, but not the breaking of the heart of the Sabbath.

One thing I’m noticing about the Sabbath is that rest, by its very nature, forces a slower pace. And while on the one hand that sounds appealing, it can also be terrifying when you’ve grown accustomed to the adrenaline-inducing rush that comes with our culture’s frenetic pace.

I’m finding that on Sundays I have to intentionally take my foot off the gas pedal. I have to resist the urge to go faster, even when I’m not going anywhere.

One baby step I’ve taken to slow down the Sunday pace is to reconsider my communication. E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter, by their very design, are fast paced. 140 characters. A jotted note. A quick Send button. I’m realizing, come Sunday, that I need to unplug. I’m not suggesting this as a blanket rule for everyone, but for me personally, media is no friend to rest. So I’ve taken to writing letters on Sundays instead. Old-fashioned, pen and paper letters. The kind with a stamp.

In the charming little book For the Love of Letters: The Joy of Slow Communication, the author talks about the awkwardness of getting back into a letter-writing habit after years of fast communication. He says: “The nib touches the paper. And instinctively I follow the old formula….My writing looks weird. I hand-write so infrequently these days that I’ve developed a graphic stammer—my brain’s way of registering its impatience and bemusement. What are you doing? Just send an email! I haven’t got all night!”

I’ve been surprised to discover that not only is the form slower in letter writing, but so is the content. I write about different things when I’m penning a letter than I do when I’m shooting off an e-mail or a Facebook message. I tend to write about bigger things, deeper things, more permanent things, not just the wispy matters of the right-now.

Catherine Field said in a New York Times article, “A good handwritten letter is a creative act, and not just because it is a visual and tactile pleasure. It is a deliberate act of exposure, a form of vulnerability, because handwriting opens a window on the soul in a way that cyber-communication can never do.”

And that feels in line with the Sabbath to me: slowing down to open a window to the soul.

 “When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.” —Thomas Merton

How about you? What does restful (and not restful) look like for you?

Have you taken any steps toward implementing a Sabbath lately?

A True Story of Love and War and 67 Years

The year was 1946. The Nuremburg war trials had begun. Wartime price controls were being lifted in the United States. And America’s boys were slowly trickling back from the war…including the tall, dark-haired Lieutenant Voiland, having defied the odds and survived countless bombing missions on the European front.

His fiancée, Cay, had been waiting and praying anxiously, day by day, month by month, year by year, longing for her sweetheart to come home. She’d been planning their wedding while he was gone—the ultimate act of hope in the midst of a war in which half a million men who left never returned. With her trademark spunk, she refused to let the scarcity of silk prevent her from having a wedding dress, so she arranged to have a dress made from the unlikeliest of sources (I wrote about the remarkable story here).

For most of my life, I assumed Grandma and Grandpa’s February wedding date had been scheduled around Valentine’s Day. Whenever we gathered to celebrate as an extended family, we marked the occasion with red decorations and a heart-shaped cake, and I never heard anything to indicate otherwise.

It was only recently that I discovered their wedding date was determined not by Valentine’s Day but by Ash Wednesday.

“Ash Wednesday?” I asked Grandma. The dots weren’t connecting for me.

“Things were stricter back then,” Grandma said. “You couldn’t get married during Lent.”

g and g weddingOf course—Lent. The church took seriously this 40-day period of sacrifice, fasting, and repentance, and it was not the time for weddings and feasts.

Grandma winked at me. “I’d been waiting long enough,” she said. “I wasn’t about to wait until after Easter!”

And so, on a Tuesday morning, just a day before Ash Wednesday, they squeezed in a simple ceremony at the campus chapel. I’ve always been enchanted by the lone black-and-white photograph of Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day: Grandma looking beautiful and big eyed in that one-of-a-kind gown, and Grandpa, serious and handsome as ever in his classic suit.

***

This year Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fell one day apart from each other, just a week before my grandparents’ 67th anniversary, and I was struck by the tender intersection of these sacred occasions: Valentine’s Day. A much-anticipated wedding. Ash Wednesday. Lent. An anniversary marking almost seven decades of marriage. And it got me to wondering: maybe Ash Wednesday is the perfect backdrop for a wedding after all. Valentine’s Day offers fine sentiments, of course—an appropriate reminder for us to express our love each year. But real love may be more aptly captured by a day marked by sacrifice and surrender and the choice to lay down one’s life.

Grandma and Grandpa know this well. The war showed them the cost of love from the very beginning: the agonizing separation—both by an ocean and by endless days, when the only threads connecting them were their love and a string of handwritten letters. And just because the war ended, that didn’t mean the sacrifices did. With the ratio of one income to 12 children, they sometimes had more month than they had money.

And now, as my grandparents are in their golden years, they are dealing with the sacrifices of caring for each other’s needs as their bodies and minds aren’t quite what they used to be.G&G

But if you asked them about the cost of love, they’d likely look at you with a bewildered shrug. That’s just what love does. It’s the very nature of love to give, to sacrifice, to lay down one’s life for one’s beloved.

And that is, after all, what we celebrate during Lent. This season marks the greatest romance of all time: the Savior who sacrificed everything to show us his love. The one who fought courageous battles on our behalf. The one who laid down his life for the ones he loves.

Love and Lent. Perhaps they’re more connected than I realized. 

So happy 67th anniversary, Grandma and Grandpa.

And happy VaLENTine’s season, everyone.

***

If you’d like to read more about my grandma and grandpa’s love story, including how Grandma’s dress was passed down to two more generations, check out my aunt Annie’s story here.

To Anyone Who Feels Underloved on Valentine’s Day

I write this with no credentials except that I’ve spent my share of Valentine’s Days solo. And I know firsthand that there’s no way around it: it stinks to feel alone on Valentine’s Day.

I remember being single and having nice people try to cheer me up whenever February 14 rolled around. (Which it inevitably did. Every. Single Year.) I appreciated their kindness, but it kind of felt like getting a stick of gum when you’re ravenous for steak.

All that to say, I won’t pretend that anything I can say will make this day easier. But I feel compelled to say it anyway, just to let you know that you are not invisible. You are not alone. And even when it doesn’t feel like it, you are loved.

Today, if you feel betrayed or abandoned by someone you thought would never leave, this is what God says to you:

I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.

—Hebrews 13:15

Today, if you feel alone in this big world, God says:

Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

—Matthew 28:20

Today, if you feel forgotten, like so many leftovers, God says:

I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

—Isaiah 49:15-16

Today, if you feel like you got passed over when Cupid was flinging his arrows, this is what God says:

I have loved you…with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.

—Jeremiah 31:3

Today, if you feel unnoticed, damaged, unappreciated, devalued, here’s God’s promise:

The Lord your God is living among you.

He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

With his love, he will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

—Zephaniah 3:17

As for me, my love isn’t close to God’s love. It has conditions, it lets people down, it’s forgetful, it’s self-centered and fickle and cantankerous. But my prayer this Valentine’s Day is that God will weed out my own love from my heart and replace it with his love. Love that is unconditional and pure and selfless.

“In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.”

—C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

It’s with that generous love that I want to love God and my husband and my family and my friends and strangers. And it’s with that love that I love you, whoever you are, wherever you are, however alone you’re feeling right now.

Wherever you find yourself on Valentine’s Day, know this:
You. Are. Loved.

Love in the Little Things

Sometimes love is in the big things—gem-studded jewelry, exotic trips, big promises, grandiose gestures. But more often, as I was reminded the other day, it’s the little, everyday actions that string together to make up this thing we call love.

It was a Friday, and I’d just met a big deadline at work, so when I got home, Daniel suggested we go out to dinner to celebrate. We decided to try a new Thai place to replace “our” Thai restaurant that bit the economic dust (you can read the sad story here). When our food arrived, Daniel surprised me by pulling something out of his bag.

“A plate?” I asked.

When I looked more closely, things started to make more sense. The “Your Special Day” plate!

When I was a kid, Mom had a special red plate she pulled out on significant occasions—not just on birthdays, but also on days we accomplished something worth celebrating. A piano recital. A satisfactory report card. A basketball win. Shortly after I moved out on my own, my sister made me a plate like it, and now Daniel has been swept along in the tradition too.

But I certainly wasn’t expecting to have the plate show up in the middle of Tusk Thai restaurant. It was a little thing, perhaps, but it meant something big to me.

The next day I got a card in the mail—an expected burst of yellow amid the junk mail and bills. What’s this? I wondered. Christmas is over, it’s not my birthday…

I tore open the envelope to find a card from my friend Sarah that said, “Thanks for being you. I’m looking forward to another year of being your friend.” A card for no reason at all, just to tell me I meant something to her. It was a series of little things, really…she picked out just the right card, she wrote words with real pen and ink, she put a stamp in the corner so it would make its way to my mailbox. Little things; big love.

How often am I looking to God for grand gestures to prove his love—the impossible miracle, the big answer to prayer, the parting of a proverbial sea? And to be certain, God does offer those large-scale proofs of love at times. But he also gives us undeniable bread-crumb trails of his love through the smaller things too. A ray of sunshine bursting through the cloudy sky. The provision of daily bread. The innocent laughter of a child. An unlikely burst of joy that surges despite all evidence to the contrary.

May my eyes ever be open to those little acts of love. Because who knows—maybe those little things are big things after all.

***

Epilogue: Daniel and I noticed throughout dinner that we seemed to be getting more attention than the other customers. The waiter was extra friendly, and the owner kept walking by our table—not saying anything, but obviously observing us. When we’d finished our meals and were waiting for the check, we were surprised to see the waiter coming out with a plate of sumptuous coconut custard. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if this sweet treat was missing its intended mark. But no, the waiter’s eyes landed straight on me, eagerly awaiting my reaction.

I fumbled out something appreciative, but I was baffled.

“It’s not my birthday!” I whispered to Daniel after the waiter left. And then it hit me. Of course! The plate. He must have assumed “Your Special Day” meant birthday. Hence the free dessert.

I certainly wasn’t going to complain. As I looked at the last bite of custard, which Daniel had saved for me, as usual, it felt for all the world like another little piece of love, right there on my plate.plate

Mishearing God

Have you ever felt like you heard something so clearly, but the message must have gotten garbled somehow along the way?

I have voice recognition software at work that translates phone messages into text, but let’s just say the technology still has a ways to go. Case in point: yesterday it translated “Stephanie” as “Brian” and interpreted “just going to” as “jazz orchestra.”

It’s rather entertaining when communication breakdowns are of the lighthearted, technical variety. But when it comes to spiritual messages, the stakes are a bit higher.

A while ago I felt prompted to buy a Bible, and not just any Bible—one of those big, classic, leather-bound numbers. I didn’t know why or who it was for, but the message was undeniable: Buy this Bible. And so, despite feeling rather foolish, I made the purchase, wondering when I’d get my next set of instructions.

Not long after, my husband and I were packing for a nine-hour train ride to visit his family. We were carrying everything on with us, and our bags were stuffed. Just as I was wrestling with the zipper on my bloated carry-on, another prompting came out of nowhere: Take the Bible with you.

I was pretty sure I’d misunderstood, and I haggled with God over it. Surely he didn’t mean I’d have to take it with me on the train! Couldn’t I compromise and take a smaller Bible, one that wouldn’t cause permanent spinal damage? Or once I met the person I was supposed to give the Bible to, couldn’t I just write down their address and mail it to them? But the directions felt unambiguous, so I obliged.

All through the trip my eyes were peeled, searching for the person in need of a Bible. Maybe it would be someone sitting in the aisle across from us or a fellow passenger we met in the dining car. Maybe it would be one of Daniel’s relatives or his parents’ neighbors. Perhaps it would be a stranger we encountered at some point on the trip. As silly as I felt, I was eager to see what God would do, to have a testimony about how I’d carried that Bible around and then God had led me to just the right person at the precise moment.

It never happened.

I lugged that big Bible home again—all nine hours—and never got another nudge about what to do with it. Did I miss the person I was supposed to give it to? I wondered as our train pulled into the station. Or did I miss the instructions in the first place?

I’ve been pondering this mystery ever since—not just the Bible carry-on, but other times I’ve apparently misheard God over the course of my faith journey, times that have left more significant damage than a sore back. What am I supposed to make of those times I’ve stepped out in faith and everything dead-ended unceremoniously…or blew up in my face?

Then I came across this story, taken from Elisabeth Elliot’s book These Strange Ashes:

One day Jesus said to his disciples: “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.” He didn’t give any explanation.

So the disciples looked around for a stone to carry, and Peter, being the practical sort, sought out the smallest stone he could possibly find. After all, Jesus didn’t give any regulation for weight and size! So he put it in his pocket.

Jesus then said: “Follow Me.” He led them on a journey.

About noontime Jesus had everyone sit down. He waved his hands and all the stones turned to bread. He said, “Now it’s time for lunch.”

In a few seconds, Peter’s lunch was over. When lunch was done Jesus told them to stand up.

He said again, “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.”

This time Peter said, “Aha! Now I get it!” So he looked around and saw a small boulder. He hoisted it on his back and it was painful, it made him stagger. But he said, “I can’t wait for supper.”

Jesus then said: “Follow Me.” He led them on a journey, with Peter barely being able to keep up.

Around supper time Jesus led them to the side of a river. He said, “Now everyone throw your stones into the water.” They did.

Then he said, “Follow Me,” and began to walk.

Peter and the others looked at him dumbfounded.

Jesus sighed and said, “Don’t you remember what I asked you to do? Who were you carrying the stone for?”

The story got me to wondering: maybe it wasn’t that I’d misheard after all. Maybe the truth is that obedience is a reward in itself. Maybe I was supposed to carry this load for Jesus, even if I never understand why. Just because he asked me to.

What if sometimes God just wants to see if I’m willing to say yes?

What burden are you carrying right now?

What would it look like to be obedient, even when you don’t know why you have to carry such a heavy load?

 

 

Imago Dei

With all due respect to the pastors and professors I’ve been privileged to learn from over the years, some of my best lessons in theology have come from children (see these ponderings) or those with childlike hearts.

Not long ago I was having lunch at my friend Luann’s house with our friends Cheryl and Heather. Cheryl has faith of the purest variety, and she radiates joy in a way I can only dream of. She also happens to have Down syndrome. (For more about Cheryl, read this story.)

Cheryl was especially full of joy at lunch that day because she got to meet Heather’s twin babies for the first time. I’m not sure Cheryl understood what a double miracle these babies are (check out the amazing story here), but she was doubly taken with the idea of not just one but two babies.

The moment Heather brought little Claire inside from the cold and unzipped her carrier, Cheryl rushed over to take a look. She leaned in close to gaze at Claire’s big-eyed smile before planting a kiss right on Claire’s cheek. And then, lifting her face to the ceiling, Cheryl whispered, “The face of God.”

Heather and Luann and I just stared at each other. It was truer than anything we could have said ourselves.

The face of God.

Luann finally broke the spell with her trademark humor. “What about me, Cheryl?” she asked, pointing to her own face. “Don’t you think the same thing when you look at me?”

Cheryl broke into a grin. “Yeah, you too,” she said. “Everybody shows us the face of God.”

She’s right, I know. But how often I forget it.

The Bible opens with a statement every bit as radical as Cheryl’s, right from the first chapter of the first book:

God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them.

—Genesis 1:27

Imago Dei: the idea that human beings have inherent value because they’re made in the image of God. Not because of what they can accomplish or contribute, but simply because they reflect their Creator.

What would it look like, I wonder, if I could start seeing people that way? The way Cheryl does?

The person who just cut me off in traffic.

Imago Dei.

The person who is socially awkward or less than beautiful by the world’s standards.

Imago Dei.

The person who is just downright difficult to love.

Imago Dei.

The man without a home, the woman with the mental illness, the leader who broke his promise, the coworker who burns the popcorn.

All of them, Imago Dei.

I once heard a lovely legend about God’s creation of human beings. According the story, God looked into a mirror, and the mirror shattered into millions of pieces. The pieces fell to the earth below, and each one became a unique individual. Now each person reflects a different part of God’s face, and we can’t get the full picture of what he looks like until we seek him in the faces of all those around us.

So thank you for the reminder, Cheryl. When we gaze into the face of a human being, it is no small thing. For in a real way, we are getting a glimpse into the very face of God.

How would it change the way you saw yourself if you knew you were Imago Dei?

How would it change the way you saw other people if you knew they were Imago Dei?

 IMG_0447

On the Lookout for Treasure

Daniel and I are currently on an American Pickers kick. In case you’ve never seen this History Channel series, the basic premise is that two guys, Mike and Frank, hit the road in a big van, traveling the U.S. looking for treasures amid people’s hoarded junk.

For me it’s part horror, part cautionary tale to see the piles of stuff people have collected over the span of years, decades, even generations. I find myself hyperventilating when they open the door to people’s barns or garages to find them stuffed wall to wall, floor to ceiling with junk. Rusty, grimy, decaying junk. I usually vow on the spot to clean out all my closets. And then I suggest to the guys on the screen, rather forcefully, that they might be better off getting a bottle of lighter fluid and torching the place.

But the pickers are more patient than I am, and they can see something I can’t: there just may be pieces of treasure tucked in with the trash. They have different eyes than I do—eyes that can see below the surface and take in the underlying value of something.

One of the fascinating parts about the show is watching the price haggling being played out on the screen. How do they know what something is worth? I wondered at first. Then we watched an episode where Mike and Frank sold some of their wares to an interested buyer—a collector with moola to spare. And suddenly this realization hit me, obvious as it was: The value of something is determined by what someone will pay for it.

And so it is for the likes of us. We may look like junk. We may be surrounded by trash. We may feel rusty, dirty, washed-up. But God traveled great distances to seek us out, combing the earth to and rescue us from the trash heap. If you ever question your worth, wondering if you have any value, know that someone—the God of the universe, no less—was willing to pay the ultimate price for you. The life of his own Son.

I have swept away your sins like a cloud.
I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.
Oh, return to me,
for I have paid the price to set you free.
—Isaiah 44:22

{For more musings on this topic, see my post Trashed.}

 

 

Sweet Sundays, Part 1

sweet_sundays_artworkWhen my grandmother was a girl, Sunday was a day for taking the team of horses to her little white country church in North Dakota. Her father did the bare minimum of chores around the farm—like milking the cows before the sun came up—but all other work ceased. Even knitting was a borderline activity, since some people argued the creative aspect of it constituted work.

When my mom was growing up, most stores and restaurants were closed on Sundays, and on the rare occasion when her family had to go to the drugstore to pick up an emergency item, her father would apologize to the cashier for making him work on the Sabbath.

A generation later, when I was a kid, Sundays were family day at my house. We’d have brunch together after church, and then we’d go on a walk in the woods or play games together. No getting together with friends, no organized sports.

Now that I have a home of my own, I’m shocked to find how much our culture (and me with it) has changed in its attitude toward the Sabbath. Work has now infiltrated every part of life—it’s on our laptops, on our phones, at our very fingertips. While previous generations had to physically go out to the field or in to the office, work now finds us. We have to go to great lengths if we want to avoid it.

For the most part I’ve looked at God’s instructions about the setting aside a day of rest as something of an anachronism—rules that were meant for people in the Old Testament but didn’t really apply to us today. In fact, somewhere along the way I even got the idea that it was more righteous to have a strong work ethic, to be productive—even on Sundays. But the more I’ve looked at what the Bible says about the holiness of rest, the more trouble I’m having rationalizing away those commands. And the more I’m realizing, to my surprise, how much the instructions smack of delight rather than duty.

Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day. —Isaiah 58:13

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” —Matthew 11:28

I’m also recognizing that while Jesus was criticized by the religious leaders of his day for breaking the Sabbath, he wasn’t throwing out the concept altogether. When he did things that enraged the religious leaders—most often healing the blind and the lame and the deaf—he wasn’t disregarding the Sabbath; he was rejecting the legalism of the manmade rules surrounding it (see here for an example). He was getting at the heart of the day of rest—setting aside time to slow down so we can honor the Lord, catch our spiritual breath, refocus on what’s really important.

So what does a grace-based view of a day of rest look like? I’m not entirely sure, but I want to find out.

With my bent toward legalism, I’m not sure the best idea would be to make a bunch of Pharisaical rules for Sundays. And I don’t want it to be a day focused on the negative—what I can’t do. I want it to be about what I can do—what brings life and freedom and closeness with God.

So here are the two litmus-test questions I plan to use to determine if something is a worthy activity for a Sunday:

  1.  Does it feel like work?
  2. Is it life-giving?

24/6_coverI don’t know exactly what this adventure will look like, but I invite you to join me in reserving a weekly day of rest. I invite you to explore what it might look like for us to cease work and discover things that fill us with life and peace.

I’d love to have your feedback and help as I embark on this quest.

  1. What do you need to turn off or stop doing to allow yourself to rest?
  2. What feels like true rest for you?

Recommended reading: Matthew Sleeth’s book 24/6 was instrumental for me in kick-starting this journey toward rest. I highly recommend it—it’s an easy, engaging, grace-filled read.

 “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in Thee.” —Augustine of Hippo

48 Pieces of Fried Chicken

When Daniel and I walked into the grocery store the other night, we were just expecting to pick up a few things for dinner. We weren’t anticipating so much drama.

When we checked out, the couple in front of us had two huge tubs of fried chicken, the aroma of which wafted through the checkout area, setting our stomachs to rumbling. After all our items had been scanned and bagged, we noticed that the couple remained standing there, apparently still waiting for their chicken.

“Where did you put their bags?” the cashier asked the guy doing the bagging, a gangly teenager with a mop of blue-streaked hair.

He gave her a look of befuddlement. “You mean the chicken? I gave it to the woman in front of them.”

“Well, go to the parking lot!” she barked. “You’d better find her before she drives away.”

As the bagger dashed out of the store, Daniel and I looked at each other, trying our best not to split at the seams. We couldn’t decide what was funnier—the fact that the couple had patiently waited all this time for their fried chicken, which by now was probably halfway across town in an unidentified SUV, or the fact that at this very moment some woman was driving away wondering why her car smelled like KFC. I wished I could have seen her face when she arrived at home to find precisely 48 pieces of hot chicken in with the rest of her groceries.

But our laughter evaporated the moment we exited the store. There was the bagger, standing in his shirtsleeves despite the freezing temperatures. He was shouting into the night air and throwing punches at the concrete post outside the store.

Daniel, who possesses the handy skillset of being able to strike up conversations with strangers and being able to calm potentially volatile situations, didn’t hesitate. “Hey,” he said to the boy. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just about ready to sack this job.” The kid swung another fist into the air.

As the conversation progressed, we found out the store was understaffed that day and the bagger felt like he couldn’t keep up. “And when I’m under pressure,” he said, “I do stupid things like this. I might as well quit before they fire me.”

Fortunately, among his other talents, Daniel also has the gift of encouragement. “You know, they need you in there. If you leave, what will they do without you? I know you can go in there and finish well tonight. It’ll work out.”

Before long, our bagger friend had calmed down and was ready to face the disgruntled cashier. I don’t know if he ended up quitting or not, but before he headed back in the store, he managed a small smile. “Thanks,” he said, nodding in Daniel’s direction.

As we made our way to our car, I couldn’t help but wonder how different that guy’s evening might have been if we’d just avoided the awkwardness and headed straight to our car.

To encourage literally means to pour courage into someone, and that’s exactly what Daniel did: he gave that boy the courage to turn around and go back into the store. But something I’d never considered much before was that encouragement also tends to require courage on the part of the one doing the encouraging. Daniel was only able to pour courage into this guy because he was courageous enough to enter his world.

Sometimes courage-pouring means stepping right into the middle of awkwardness when it would be easier to go our own way.

In his essay “The Weight of Glory,” C. S. Lewis extends this sobering charge about the way we treat the people we come into contact with each day—at work, at home, even at the grocery store. Since people are made in the image of God, he claims, they are no mere mortals. They deserve courage-pouring—all of them.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

I confess that as Daniel and I drove away, we shamelessly peered into the window to find out what happened with the chicken. The last we saw, the couple was going back for two new buckets of fried chicken. We can only assume the other woman called a bunch of her friends over and had a party.

Encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

—1 Thessalonians 5:11