Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Ordinary Love

Dear Daniel,

I don’t know how long it takes to fall in love with someone. But I do know precisely when it started: under the gazebo on our first date.

We were munching on the picnic you brought, and as I took a bite of pineapple, a thought ran through my mind: This man treats everyone with kindness and respect. And I was right.

Who would have thought, nine years ago, that we would someday be married and have a baby and live within walking distance of that very gazebo? (Okay, I was secretly hoping those first two would come true, but number three was a surprise.)

This might sound strange, but after we moved into our house and I realized how close it was to our first date spot, I was a little worried. Would the place become too ordinary somehow? Would I cease to see it as a sacred space, commemorating the origin of the Daniel and Stephanie Team?

Truth be told, I was a little nervous that the same might be true of marriage too. Would the sacredness of love wear off amid the ordinariness of life? Would I start taking it for granted if we brushed our teeth at the same sink and paid the water bill together and picked up each other’s dirty socks? Would our love become mundane?

But almost a decade into this, I’ve discovered that the best love is the kind that’s found in the beautiful ordinary.

Ordinary love is the way you load my toothbrush every night. (And the way you inevitably make me laugh with a mouthful of toothpaste.)

Ordinary love is the way you change the oil in our cars and change our son’s diapers.

Ordinary love is the way you fix the leaking ceiling and take out the trash and rush home for family walks after work.

Ordinary love is the way you play the guitar for us after dinner and the way you put chocolate chips in the Saturday-morning pancakes.

Annie Dillard says, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” So I suppose we don’t have to wait for grand gestures or epic moments to build something beautiful. These ordinary moments that we’re stringing together, one day at a time, are creating a life of love.

***

When Graham and I go on walks to the library, we sometimes pass the first date spot. Almost without fail, I point it out to him. “See that gazebo?” I say. “That’s where Mama and Daddy went on their first date.” Although he’s too young to roll his eyes, I’m sure that day will come. But that’s okay. Because we are writing this story of ordinary love together, and he is part of it.

How long does it take to fall in love? I propose that it takes a lifetime of ordinary moments, stitched together with toothpaste and laundry and chocolate chip pancakes.

***

God’s great love and purposes for us are all worked out in messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives.

Frederick Buechner

Not Enough Time

Every grief, I think, is different. With each death comes unique aches, depending on who you lost or how you lost them, depending on the history you had together or the future you didn’t have together.

But in one sense, every grief is the same. The anthem for anyone who has ever lost someone is, “We didn’t have enough time.” Whether that person was one or one hundred, we are never ready. It’s always too soon.

We lost Baby Mo when he’d been inside me just nine weeks. It was too soon. We didn’t have enough time.

The book of Ecclesiastes says there’s a time for everything, a season for everything.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die.

I’ve always given intellectual assent to the idea that there’s a time to be born and a time to die. But I never thought our baby’s time to die would come before his time to be born.

If we had our way, Mo’s time to die would come after he’d lived a long, good life. It doesn’t seem right that his time to die came before he had a chance to blow bubbles or shoot baskets with his dad or give sloppy kisses to his mama.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about God’s timing, it’s that he has his own clock, his own calendar. Sometimes he’s slower than I’d like, and I’m stuck in the agony of waiting.

And sometimes the hourglass is up before I’ve even fully embraced the season.

A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance . . .

And so even though this isn’t what we would have chosen, now is a time to weep. It’s time to weep on a Wednesday afternoon, when the delivery guy grins and says, “Congratulations!” not knowing the flowers are here to mark Mo’s too-short life. It’s time to mourn when the baby books I’d put on hold arrive at the library, only to be returned, unopened. It’s time to grieve when the doctor’s office calls, reminding of my the prenatal appointment I forgot to cancel.

But now is also a time to laugh. It’s time to laugh when Daniel sings silly songs at the dinner table. It’s time to laugh when Graham dashes out of the bathroom, stark naked, before bath time. It’s time to dance with my boys in the kitchen, even though I have no rhythm and I’m supposed to be making dinner.

So maybe the truth about seasons is that it’s not one or the other—living or dying, weeping or laughing, mourning or dancing. Maybe life is an inextricable jumble of both.

And although we don’t get to choose whether it’s a time to weep or a time to laugh, maybe we do get to choose to embrace them both at once.

***

What I want to tell you is that these times are connected. Mourning and dancing are part of the same movement of grace. Somehow, in the midst of your tears, a gift of life is given. Somehow, in the midst of your mourning, the first steps of the dance take place. The cries that well up from your losses belong to your song of praise. Those who cannot grieve cannot be joyful. 

Henri Nouwen
For Mo. Wishing we had more time.

A Letter to Our Baby 2.0

Dear Baby,

When you were about the size of a blueberry, newly growing inside me, your dad nicknamed you Mo. He imagined that you’d be spunky, with a sense of humor, maybe even a little mischievous. I don’t question him on these things anymore—somehow he just knows.

We’d been hoping for you and dreaming about you for a while, but we first met you at the doctor’s office. Your tiny heart was beating wildly on the ultrasound screen. For the next three weeks, we walked an inch off the ground, fairly bursting with this secret of new life.

***

The morning of our nine-week ultrasound, I felt a lump of fear lodge in my throat. We’d gotten difficult news at an ultrasound once before, and it was hard to swallow my anxiety. I tried to be rational, to remind myself that the past does not dictate the future. Besides, hadn’t we learned a thing or two about trusting God the last time around?

And so I followed the doctor’s instructions, drinking copious amounts of water in the space of an hour to ensure that my bladder would be sufficiently full for the procedure.

“I’ll show you the screen once I start the next test,” the technician promised me.

She didn’t show me the screen.

Two hours later, the doctor called to confirm what I already knew.

“Your baby stopped growing,” she said. “There is no heartbeat.”

***

Your big brother was taking a nap when I got the call. At just a year and a half old, he doesn’t yet appreciate the concept of a little sibling. But he does know about you. On principle, if not practicality, we made sure he was the first to find out we were expecting. For the past several days, he’s been showing off his newfound ability to say your name.

As I lifted him out of his crib, he rewarded me with his trademark cheeky grin. Then he promptly pointed to my belly. “Mo!” he exclaimed.

I put one hand on his head and the other on you, tiny as you are. And in that brief moment I was given to hold you both, I baptized the two of you in the saltwater fountain of my tears.

***

Baby of mine, I don’t weep for you. You are in a place with no tears and no pain and no loss and no death. Best of all, you are with Jesus. I weep for us, because there are so many things we’ll miss. We’ll miss seeing your smile light up a room. We’ll miss hearing your contagious giggle. We’ll miss finding out your favorite color or if you like cherries or if you have an affinity for knock-knock jokes. We’ll miss holding you in our arms and smelling the top of your baby-fresh head.  

Your dad says he pictures God’s love like a nest. It’s hard for me to imagine what heaven is like, but I suppose that’s as good a picture as any. Heaven must be the ultimate nest—where we’re covered, protected, hemmed in by Love himself.

I wish you could have stayed in our nest a little longer. There is a Mo-shaped spot we saved just for you.

But maybe I have this backwards. Maybe you are the one who has arrived in the nest already. Maybe you’re the one who’s saving a spot just for us.

Love,
Mom

He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection. 

Psalm 91:4

The Groundhog Days of Parenting

Did you do anything to mark Groundhog Day this year? Yeah, me neither. Wait, I take that back. We shoveled the driveway and scoffed at the prediction of an early spring. On the heels of a week filled with –25 degree weather and other unsavory records, I’m not holding my breath.

But the idea of days endlessly repeating themselves, groundhog style, has been floating through my mind lately, especially as we have unequivocally entered the phase of toddlerhood. I suppose it shouldn’t be shocking that “Again!” plays such a starring role in our days, since repetition is a child’s primary method of learning. But I still find myself surprised at my little man’s ability to never tire of his favorite things.

Novelty, it seems, is lost on small children. When Graham and I are driving in the car, we like to sing songs together (he doesn’t seem to mind that I’m perpetually off key). I try to expand our repertoire of songs, but his current obsession is “Deep and Wide”—a song I learned in Sunday school as a kid. I have no idea what hooked him on this particular tune, but he will say “No, no, no” to every other song I cycle through until I finally give in and sing “Deep and Wide,” on endless repeat.

There’s an old saying that was allegedly first said by a rabbi. To me it sounds more like something the parent of a toddler might say, but I suppose it applies whether you’re doing rabbinical things or wiping faces and bottoms forever and ever, amen: “Do not be afraid of work that has no end.”

The theme I chose for 2019 is “Be Present.” With less than two years of parenting experience under my belt, I’m already realizing how true it is that these are “the longest shortest days.” I don’t want to miss the right-now while looking ahead of me or behind me. I want to show up. I want to seize the little moments, the in-between moments, the blink-or-you’ll-miss-them moments.

Sometimes I think we look for meaning in the big events—the vacation, the holiday, the next big thing. But it turns out that most of the moments we end up treasuring most sneak up on us while we’re in the midst of doing work that seems to have no end.

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough. . . . It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

G. K. Chesterton

***

How do you choose to be present in your life? What tips do you have for me in the year ahead?

Did you choose a theme for the year? If so, I’d love to hear about it!

A Recipe for Laughing More

The theme I selected for this year (or perhaps the theme that chose me) was “Laugh More.” When I landed on the theme, I had no idea how timely it would be, because as it turns out, I now have a live-in tutor in laughter.

My tutor is just over a year old, and although he only learned how to laugh a few months ago, he is already something of an expert. Graham doesn’t know to be cynical. He hasn’t learned sarcasm. He doesn’t require a lot of nuance in his humor. He just laughs, straight from his belly.

Through the eyes of toddler, life is full of laughter: the springy sound of a doorstop, the unpredictable bounce of a balloon, the sandpapery tongue of a dog, a well-placed tickle.

There’s something profound about how straightforward his humor is: he sees something that strikes him as funny, and he laughs.

I still have a lot to learn when it comes to laughing, but more than halfway through the year, here are a few things I’ve learned so far:

1. Be present in the moment.

There is nothing like regret over the past or worry about the future to squeeze the laughter right out of a person. When you’re one, you aren’t worried about your to-do list and you’re not stewing over something you said yesterday. That frees you up to embrace the funny moments in the right-now.

I am trying to take lessons from Graham, as well as from the wise woman in Proverbs, and let go of worry so there’s more space in my heart for laughter.

She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.
Proverbs 31:25

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

In the past several months, I’ve discovered that there is one source of humor that is ever-present: myself. I can’t tell you how many times this year I made it halfway through my day at work before realizing I had spit-up on my shirt. There was the time I got halfway to dinner with friends before realizing I was almost at work instead. And then there was the day I congratulated myself on getting dinner in the Crockpot by 8 a.m., only to realize when I got home that I hadn’t turned it on.

In the past, these might have been prime opportunities for me to feel frustrated or annoyed. But I’m trying to change my default setting to laughter. If I can embrace the humor inherent in being a flawed and foible-prone human being, I will have an ever-regenerating, built-in source of laughter.

We can best take ourselves seriously if we are free to laugh at ourselves, and to enjoy the laughter of God and his angels.
Madeleine L’Engle

3. Create space for laughter.

It seems to me that there is a direct correlation between the margin in my life and my ability to laugh. Laughter flourishes best in an environment where it has some elbow room—it doesn’t want to be shoehorned into a few orchestrated moments here are there. So I’m actively trying to carve out some margin to let laughter grow.

4. Be generous with your laughter.

As I’ve watched Graham explore the world and discover what tickles his funny bone, I’ve marveled at how funny ordinary things can be. He has taught me this important lesson: Don’t be stingy with your laughs.

And so we’ve been recording the things that have cracked us up this year—not just the big laughs but the little giggles too. We’ve been writing them down and putting them in a laugh jar—partly so we are more aware of them, and partly so we can pull them out again at the end of the year and laugh about them all over again.

I know not all that may be coming,
but be what it will,
I’ll go to it laughing.
Herman Melville

5. Gain perspective

Perhaps the best way to grow our laugh muscles is to get perspective on who we are and who God is. When we rest in the truth that God is holding us (and that he has a sense of humor himself), we are able to laugh alongside him.

It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.
George MacDonald

***

I’d love to hear from you. What helps you to be more open to laughter? What has made you laugh recently?

Number Our Days

Dear Graham,

You are one year old now. Only a year . . . and already a year.

Time has become a slippery eel of a thing ever since you were born. On the one hand, I can’t believe you’ve only been with us for one revolution around the sun. I can hardly remember life before you. What filled the Graham-shaped spot in my heart for all those years?

On the other hand, how is it possible that an entire year has flown by? If I close my eyes, I can believe you are still the size of a loaf of bread, with tiny fists closed above your head as you slept. But when I go into your room in the morning, I marvel at this jabbering, smiling, squawking person you have become, the boy who toddles single-mindedly toward the potted plants.

After we brought you home from the hospital, all manner of seasoned parents echoed the same advice to us: “Enjoy this—it goes so fast!” I tried to soak in the wisdom, but it didn’t make sense to me at the time. The days stretched on, a blur of feeding and changing and wiping spit-up, eclipsed only by the even longer nights. Time didn’t seem fast—it seemed like it was standing still.

But now it’s starting to make sense. It turns out the best part of parenting is also the hardest: no season lasts forever. When one stage ends, it’s replaced by something else, something equally worthy of being cherished. Case in point: you don’t fall asleep on our chests anymore, and there’s a tote full of tiny onesies you’ll never fit into again. But now you pat us on the back of your own volition, and if we catch you at the right moment, you’ll give us the most delightful slobbery kisses.

By no choice of our own, we have traded rubies for emeralds. They are equally lovely, but we do not have the luxury of holding both at once.

Psalm 90 says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” What would it look like, I wonder, for your dad and me to number our days with you? Here are some of the numbers from the first year of your life:

  • 1 ER visit
  • 14 pounds gained
  • 365 times we’ve tucked you into bed at night
  • 522 books we’ve read together
  • 2,000-plus meals we’ve fed you

That’s the past year by the numbers (I’ve lost track of the number of diapers). But I’m not sure that’s what it really means to number our days. Numbers have their place, but they don’t tell the whole story. They can’t capture things like wonder and joy and delight and love.

You have taught me so much already, little one. You have taught me to slow down, to notice, to pay attention. Before you, I never realized how interesting a dandelion puff is or how delightful bubbles in the sunshine can be. Before you, I never appreciated watching a squirrel scurry across the backyard or watching the garbage truck pick up its weekly haul.

You have taught me the joy of inefficiency, of putting aside my to-do list and just being present in the moment. You don’t agonize over regrets from the past or fret about the unknown future; you are all in for the right-now—for the sweet tang of a ripe blueberry or the hilarity of your dad’s funny noises.

And so even as time is speeding by faster than I get my mind around, I want to take a lesson from you as we celebrate your first year. I want to enjoy this moment and be fully present in it, not pining for past-you or looking ahead to future-you, just savoring the boy you are right now and thanking God for the gift of curious, observant, silly, joyful, active, bananas-in-the-hair you.

Happy birthday, my boy.

Love,
Mom and Dad

A Father’s Secret Language

What if God had a secret language that he used just with you? Not a universal message that he gave to the whole world, but a direct communication intended only for you?

Maybe you believe that God so loves the world. But have you grasped the audacious idea that he specifically loves you?

They say that babies learn to recognize voices and even melodies in utero. Daniel and I didn’t exactly play our baby Mozart before he was born, but we did start communicating with our little guy almost right away. I talked to him, hand on my belly, all the way to and from work—singing songs, praying over him, telling him things he should know about the big world he was about to enter. Daniel had a special wordless language that he used to talk to our baby—whistling, making clicking sounds with his tongue, playing the guitar for him.

This was mostly for us—I don’t think of either of us was really convinced our communication was getting through the amniotic fluid. But to our surprise, from his first day out of the womb, Graham responded to our voices. Whenever Daniel started talking, Graham would turn his head toward him—even when he was eating (which was, hands down, his favorite pastime). Now when he hears his dad whistling or making any number of silly sounds, he invariably grins and squeals and flails his arms around. They have a special bond that only the two of them share.

If God describes himself as our Father, then surely he must feel the same way about his children. And I have to wonder . . . what if our Father God has a special language for each of his children that he uses to communicate his love?

Maybe you haven’t always felt the love of an earthly father, and frankly you’re not quite sure about the love of God. Maybe it’s easier to picture God with a scowl on his face or disappointment creased into his forehead.

If that’s where you find yourself this Father’s Day, I’d like to offer another image: that of a heavenly Father who has designed a specific language just for you.

  • Maybe he painted that sunset right as you stepped outside so he could capture your heart with its beauty.
  • Maybe he prompted a friend to call you exactly when you needed someone to talk to.
  • Maybe he orchestrated that song specifically for you, because he knew it would speak to the depths of your soul.
  • Maybe he brought words from Scripture in front of your eyes at precisely the moment you needed them.
  • Maybe he created a perfectly ripe strawberry with you in mind.

Can you hear him? Your Father is whispering “I love you” at every turn.

***

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

The Three Prayers of Motherhood

I am far from having a PhD in motherhood; in fact, this is my first Mother’s Day with a child in my arms. But that’s long enough for me to know this: being a mom comes with all the feelings.

There’s something about being a mom that takes any given emotion and injects it with steroids. Sure, I experienced worry before I became a mom. But now if my baby so much as sneezes, I’m convinced that this is the twenty-first-century version of the bubonic plague. I used to feel pain, too, but that was nothing compared to the vicarious pain I felt on his first trip to the ER. I felt delight before, but nothing could have prepared me for the way my heart would swell the first time he smiled at me (even if was just gas). . . .

You can continue reading (and find out the three prayers every mom should know) at the Tyndale blog.

***

Happy Mother’s Day to you this weekend, whether you have children of your own or you share your maternal love with other children. You are beautiful, and you are loved.

Better than Perfect

Before I became a mom, during those months of fitfully pregnant sleep, I had recurring dreams that I was bombing mommyhood. I dreamed that I forgot I had a baby and left the child alone somewhere. I dreamed that the baby arrived early and I didn’t have any gear. I dreamed that the baby came out talking and I was so surprised that I never managed to say anything back.

You don’t have to be Freud to figure out what was going on there (HELLO, subconscious). Even during my waking hours, I wondered, What if my baby can sense that I don’t know what I’m doing? What if my baby prefers other moms to me? What if I fail at the most important job I’ve ever had?

It wasn’t until Graham was born that I learned something revolutionary: I might not be the best mom. But I am Graham’s mom. He connects with me not because I rise above the other moms in the lineup or because I’ve passed some kind of motherhood test, but simply because we belong to each other. He is mine, and I am his.

It occurs to me that this is true in every other arena of life too. We don’t have to be perfect to be the perfect person for the job. God calls us and equips us for what he wants us to do right here, right now—and he’s not sizing us up against anyone else.

Perhaps more than any previous generation, we are hounded by the monster of comparison. Our grandmothers might have compared their kids’ birthday parties to the ones thrown by the five other moms in bridge club, but they weren’t stacking themselves up against the entire world wide web.

Everywhere we look, we are faced with the shiny images of someone who is doing it better or prettier or more organically. It’s enough to make a mere mortal (especially those of us with perfectionistic inclinations) want to throw in the towel altogether.

But that’s not how God’s calling works. He doesn’t line us up and then choose only the ones with the top rankings. He gives each of us exactly what we need to do this job, in this moment. With these people, with these gifts.

Has God called you to create? You don’t have to be better than everyone on Pinterest; you just have to create.

Has God called you to study or write or make dinner? You don’t have to be the best student or writer or chef the world has seen; you just have to do the thing you’ve been wired to do.

Has God called you to be a daughter or an employee or an aunt or a teacher or a mentor? You don’t have to measure up to everyone else; you just have to carry out your role with the grace you get each day.

To my surprise, Graham seems to accept me as his mom, no questions asked. And so this little 16-pound person is teaching me that I don’t have to be the best mom. I just have to be his mom. And that is enough.

Each of us has his own endowment from God, one to live in this way, another in that. It is an impertinence, then, to try to find out why St. Paul was not given St. Peter’s grace, or St. Peter given St. Paul’s. There is only one answer to such questions: the Church is a garden patterned with countless flowers, so there must be a variety of sizes, colors, scents—or perfections, after all. Each has its value, its charm, its joy; while the whole vast cluster of these variations makes for beauty in its most graceful form.
Francis de Sales

***

I’d love to get your tips! What new role are you wrestling with right now? How have you gained confidence in carrying out that calling?

Friday Favorites for February

Happy Friday, everyone! Here are some of my recent favorites, from unusual vending machines to fictional hot chocolate recipes to the funniest things I’ve seen this week.

For anyone who has found themselves with time to kill in an airport . . .

Believe it or not, there are vending machines that spit out short stories for those times when you’re waiting around and in need of some mental stimulation. They originated in France, but apparently there are now some in the US too. I want to find one! Vending Machines Dispense Short Stories Instead of Snacks

For anyone who needs cheering up in this winter weather . . .

These book character inspired hot chocolate recipes will warm you up inside and out. I especially enjoyed the Mr. Darcy recipe and the one about Katniss Everdeen. Hot Chocolate Recipes Based on Fictional Characters

For anyone who wonders if they’re doing this parenting thing right . . .

I’m only a few months into this mommy gig, but that’s long enough for me to second-guess myself approximately eleven times within the hour. These tongue-in-cheek charts cracked me up and reminded me that I’m not alone. Parenting Explained in 5 Simple Graphs

For anyone who needs a laugh . . .

My goal for this year is to laugh more (and to give the people in my life more opportunities to laugh), so I was delighted to find this satirical post: The Proverbs 32 Man.