Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Friday Favorites for January

Happy Friday! Here are a few of my recent favorites, from how long it takes to write a novel to Facebook satire to fun vocabulary words. Enjoy!

For anyone who is having trouble finishing something . . .

This is a fascinating infographic about how long it took these writers to finish their famous novels. If you’re feeling stumped on your project (whatever it is), take heart that Gone with the Wind took a decade to complete! How Long It Took 30 Writers to Finish Their Novels

For anyone with a love/hate relationship with Facebook . . .

This satire points out just what an odd world Facebook is . . . and how hard it is to escape it. A Night at the Facebook Hotel

For anyone who wants to increase their vocabulary for the new year . . .

My favorite on this list of underutilized words is sesquipedalian, which refreshingly reflects its meaning. 28 Underused English Words You Really Need to Start Using

For anyone who wants a live-longer plan that doesn’t involve diet and exercise . . .

Apparently readers are 17 percent less likely to die than nonreaders. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go eat my cookie while I read my book. Read Books, Live Longer

For anyone who wants a peek behind the curtain of marriage . . .

Sarah Bessey’s words about choosing your spouse, over and over again, are beautiful: “When it came time to choose between the life we thought we wanted, the life we thought we were destined for, the life we were taught to sacrifice everything to ensure: we chose us instead.” Choices

Piecing Together a Book

The quilt has words hidden in it, word search style!

One of the most common questions I get when people hear I wrote a book is “How did you go about the daunting task of writing a whole book?” (Other common questions include “Since you’re an editor, did you have to get edited?” and “What tools does every writer need?” Answer: backup files, Pilot fine-tip pens, and large quantities of prayer and chocolate.)

It’s hard for me to answer the question about what it’s like to write a book, because the process was so much messier and less linear than I ever imagined. I’ve been around books all my life, first as a reader and for the past fourteen years as an editor. In that time, I’ve had a pretty straightforward process for tackling books: more or less starting at the beginning and making my way to the end (I have a strict no-spoilers policy).

So I was surprised when I started writing and discovered that my book couldn’t be wrangled into such a neat step-by-step process. It was stymying at first—I couldn’t quite nail down where I needed to go or what came next.

Here’s the best way I’ve found to describe what the writing felt like: at the beginning I was trying to follow a sewing pattern. I wanted rules and formulas; I wanted structure and organization and measurements. But it didn’t work. I had to throw away the pattern. And when I did, I realized that I was actually making a quilt.

And so I wrote stories, one after the other, like quilt squares, not worrying at the moment about where they would go or how they would fit into the whole. Then I literally spread these stories out on the floor of our spare bedroom. That enabled me to see where the overall direction of the book was headed. It also showed which stories didn’t fit with the colors and pattern of my quilt-book. And it helped me see which story squares worked well beside each other. Only then could I stitch it all together.

For someone who likes to know I’m doing things “right,” this approach felt a little like a literary freefall: terrifying at first, but ultimately exhilarating. And it struck me that it’s a little like life, really. So often I try to make a script for my life and follow a step-by-step pattern. But even if I could find such a set of instructions, it wouldn’t work—life just isn’t that predictable and easily pinned down.

God invites us to follow him into a life of mystery and wonder . . . into a terrifying but exhilarating freefall. We don’t know exactly how our life will turn out or where exactly he is calling us; he simply invites us to tackle one quilt square at a time. It’s not until later that we can see what he was creating in us and through us.

Now I should confess at this point that these sewing metaphors are purely hypothetical for me. My maternal grandmother is a master seamstress. She sewed all three of her daughter’s wedding dresses and the accompanying bridesmaid dresses, and she made afghans for each of her grandchildren when we graduated from high school. But much to her consternation, her eldest granddaughter has dropped the sartorial baton. My sewing skills are limited to reattaching errant buttons, and even at that, the backside would make a sparrow’s nest look tidy.

Recently I received a gift that feels like the visual equivalent of what it felt like to write a book. My friend Lory, a quilter and a writer herself, made me a beautiful writing-themed quilt. It’s been put together piece by piece, stitch by stitch, and I can feel the love threaded into every part.

There’s something gratifying about putting love and planning and work into something, whether it’s a quilt or a book or a song or a meal, and then being able to see it or taste it or hold it in your hands. And then to be able to share it with someone else? Well, that’s almost like a piece of glory in your own living room.

When God made us, I have to believe he experienced that same kind of delight in his creations. He stitched together our DNA, planned out hair color and personality traits, and planted dreams and desires in us. And he no doubt revels in what he’d made. His creations are no assembly-line productions; there are no two the same. You are a one-of-a-kind creation, and he is utterly delighted by you.

We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10

***

What masterpiece are you working on as we begin a new year? What would it look like to throw away the pattern and embrace the messy work of creating?

Waiting with Joy

One year ago, exactly, I was waiting for a phone call. I was ready, bursting with anticipation, my phone glued to my hip all day and all through the night. My sister was expecting her second baby, and the plan was for Mom and me to jump in the car as soon as we got the call. We’d make the two-and-a-half hour drive so we could watch big sister Addie while her mom and dad were in the hospital.

It was an Advent like no other, waiting for this baby son to come into the world.

Oh come, Oh come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

The call came at 2:00 a.m. in the dark quiet of a snowy morning. I leaped out of bed before the second ring. “It’s time,” my sister said. “We’re headed to the hospital.”

After all the waiting, all the expectation, all the hope, it was time. This long-awaited baby was coming.

Rejoice, Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, Oh Israel!

The arrival came with pain, to be sure. But when Baby Grant came into the world, there was indeed much rejoicing.

This Advent I found myself waiting again. But this time, instead of waiting for a birth, I was waiting for a death.

Once again I kept the phone beside me night and day, waking and sleeping. But this time my heart weighed three hundred pounds each time the phone rang.

My grandfather had lived a good life. He was a man of the greatest generation—a hard worker and a man of quiet but deep faith. He never would have abided my saying so, but he was a hero: first as a B-17 pilot over Europe during World War II and then as the faithful father to twelve children. He had been married to my grandma for almost 71 years—a lifetime in itself. His was quite a legacy: a legacy of faithfulness and wit and wisdom and love and dozens upon dozens of people who share his name.

And now he was ready to go home. I kissed his cheek last Sunday, aware that it would likely be the last time on this side of heaven.

I knew it was time—we all did. And yet somehow 94 still seemed too young. God has planted eternity in our hearts, which means that death always comes too soon. We are made for life, not death.

Oh come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Thy people with Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight

The call came one evening after dinner, and somehow I missed it. I must have been in the basement, throwing a load in the wash. My dad’s voice was on the message: “I have good news and bad news,” he said. “It’s bad news for us, because we’ll miss him. But it’s all good news for him.”

At Advent we celebrate the gift of Emmanuel. God with us, to comfort those who mourn in lonely exile. God with us, to disperse the gloomy clouds of night. God with us, to put death’s dark shadows to flight.

As we inhabit this weary world, we grieve and we wait and we ache. But we also rejoice, because death isn’t the end of the story. The pangs of death make way for new life—the kind of life that never ends.

Until then, we wait. And we wait with joy.

God with us. Us with God. Emmanuel.

Rejoice, Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, Oh Israel!

Backdoor Blessings

autumnSometimes God shows off when he’s answering your prayers. He comes straight through the front door—bold, undeniable, in your face.

You knock, and the door opens.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7

Other times you pound on the door of heaven—asking, begging, pleading for a miracle. You plant yourself on his doorstep, vowing not to budget until you get the answer you came for. You stay the night, alternating between shouting loud enough to wake the neighborhood and whispering your desperation through the keyhole.

He told you to knock, so you knock.

He told you to ask, so you ask.

For healing.
For a job.
For love.
For a child.
For a way out of the darkness.

And sometimes you get the storybook ending. The front door flings wide open. Prayers are answered. Miracles happen. Dreams are fulfilled. Hopes are quenched.

But there are other times when the front door remains firmly shut. Day after day passes, followed by night after silent night. Your knocking seems to go unheard—or unheeded. Before long your voice is hoarse and your arms lack the strength to even reach the door knocker.

Spent and prayerless, you slump on the front porch.

***

My friend Mary moved from the Midwest to Florida several years ago to become a full-time caregiver for her mother, who was suffering from dementia and could no longer live alone. She was glad to be able to help her mom after her mom had done the same for her, but she missed her job and her friends back home. The homesickness for the Midwest struck particularly in the fall. I wish I could see some fall colors, she thought wistfully one October day.

That evening, at the end of a long day of caring for her mother, their role reversal becoming more evident with each passing day, Mary took a rare moment to stand on the balcony. Before her eyes the sunset sky was filled with the colors of home—sugar-maple red, poplar yellow, feisty orange.

It wasn’t the beauty she’d been looking for, but it was beautiful. It was enough.

Sometimes God’s answers come through the back door.

He heals a soul instead of a body. He doesn’t remove the darkness; he reminds you he’s in it with you. He says no, but he says it in love. He sends a fall scene in the unexpected from of a sunset.

Whatever it is you are knocking about today, know that the blessing will come. The answer will come. But don’t forget to check the back door too.

Adventures in Book Clubbing

Every time my grandmother sees me, she asks, with a twinkle in her eye, “How many book clubs are you in now, dear?”

It’s a valid question.

At any given time, I am most likely participating in between three and four book clubs: my virtual book club on this blog, a book club at work, my Sunday evening book club, and the occasional temporary book club with friends.

Now that I spell it all out like that, it does sound like a bit of a problem.

Every year in October, my Sunday evening book club has a tradition of dressing up like a book character, and the rest of us try to guess the book. This year I was feeling uninspired by our selections from the past year, and I was lamenting my lack of ideas to Daniel. That’s wbook-clubhen he came up with this ingenious idea: to dress up as myself.

And that’s what I did. I dressed up as the me on the cover of I Was Blind (Dating), but Now I See. People hardly even recognized me.

Here’s a picture of my wonderful book club friends. (You’ll also notice costumes from The Snow Child, A Man Called Ove, and The Goldfinch, plus my aunt in an apron from some unspecified book).

***Blind Dating

If your book club is interested in reading my book and having me talk to your group, I’d be happy to participate, either in person or via Skype! Just send me a message through this site, and we can talk about details. Happy reading, everyone!

 

Friday Favorites for October

friday_favorites_header1

Happy Friday, everyone! Here are a few of my recent favorite finds, from literary costumes to the most popular book the year you were born to the oldest picture book. Enjoy!

For anyone still looking for a Halloween costume . . .

These literary-themed costumes are adorable (and some aren’t that hard to pull off). Will someone please try the Curious George/Man with the Yellow Hat combination? 19 Book-Inspired Halloween Costumes for Kids and Adults

For anyone who likes to trace trends . . .

This is a fascinating glimpse into what Americans have been reading, year by year, since 1930. (It’s also interesting to note the changing book cover trends.) What Was the Most Popular Book the Year You Were Born?

For anyone who likes old things . . .

The oldest picture book for children dates back to the 1600s and featured—believe it or not—animal sounds! I guess some things don’t change. (Although apparently animal noises do: 17th-century ducks said kah kah, and chickens said pi pi.) The Very First Picture Book

For anyone who has pinned a pretty verse on Pinterest . . .

This post is simultaneously hilarious and sobering. “Beware the Instagram Bible, my daughters—those filtered frames festooned with feathered verses, adorned in all manner of loops and tails, bedecked with blossoms, saturated with sunsets, culled and curated just for you…” The Instagram Bible

For anyone who has wondered about the mystery of marriage . . .

This post is a poignant and honest glimpse into one couple’s relationship: “Marriage is not one + one = two. It isn’t even one + one = one. Marriage is (one – one) + (one – one) = one.” The Strange Math of Marriage

The Sweetest Things

Is it just me, or does it seem like our world is a bit lacking in the sweetness department right now?

  • My newsfeed is filled with more political travesties than a person can ingest in a single sitting.
  • Swaths of the East Coast are still reeling from the aftermath of the hurricane.
  • At every turn, it seems, there’s a shooting in Chicago or a bombing in Aleppo or another racial injustice or a refugee crisis.

There is bitterness at every turn. Where, oh where, is the sweetness?

***

One of my best literary friends is Anne of Green Gables. She and I met when I was in fourth grade, and the friendship is one I never outgrew. In one of those mysteries unique to book-world, she seemed to grow with me. Each time I reread the series, I’d connect with parts of her and her story that I’d missed before. She hadn’t changed; I had.

One of the things I loved most about those books was the way “Anne with an e” savored the little things. Her story isn’t fueled by drama or intrigue or jaw-dropping plot twists; it’s made up of the little moments that become more beautiful simply by the noticing. Maybe that’s why I love this quote from Anne of Avonlea so much:

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
L. M. Montgomery

Anne has gotten me to thinking that my question—“Where is the sweetness?”—may not be the right one to ask. Maybe the problem isn’t that there isn’t enough sweetness in the world; maybe I’m just not noticing it. And maybe there are some things I can do to make the world a sweeter place.

***

Tomorrow is Sweetest Day. I’m not one for Hallmark holidays, where people either feel guilted into proving their love with their wallets or feel left out because they don’t have a certain someone to celebrate with. But I am a fan of sweet things.

And if there was ever a year we need more sweetness, it must be this one.

When I started digging into the history of this holiday, I was surprised to discover that Sweetest Day wasn’t originally about romance at all.

The first Sweetest Day dates back to 1921, and apparently there was even a committee for the holiday. A dozen candy makers got together and called themselves “the Sweetest Day in the Year Committee.” (I have to believe those were the best board meetings ever.)

On October 10 of that year, they distributed more than 20,000 boxes of candy to people all over Cleveland, Ohio, who were in need of a little sweetness: newsboys, orphans, the elderly, and the underprivileged.

It wasn’t a big thing, perhaps. The distribution of candy surprises didn’t solve poverty or improve social conditions or change the economic infrastructure of the city. But like Anne said, sweetness isn’t always found in sweeping gestures or the grandiose declarations. Sometimes the little things can be the sweetest ones. Like pearls slipping off a string.

How will you make the world a little sweeter today? Maybe you can give someone a genuine compliment or buy a stranger’s coffee or mail a card to somebody who’s lonely. The thing about sweetness is that when you give it to someone else, it leaves a sweet aftertaste in yoflourishur own mouth too.

***

Your turn! Tell me something sweet you did for someone else or something sweet someone did for you, and you’ll be eligible to win a Sweetest Day package from me: Margaret Feinberg’s new book, Flourish, about how to “live loved,” plus a bag of Ghiradelli chocolates.

Happy Sweetest Day!

10 Things I’ve Learned in My 30s

birthday

It’s my 39th birthday this week, which has prompted me to do some reflecting on my thirties. Whenever people in their twenties ask me about turning thirty, I tell them that the thirties are so much better than the twenties, and I mean it. Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the past almost-decade:

1. It’s not up to you to make people like you.

As a recovering people-pleaser, I’ve spent chunks of decades worrying what other people think of me. Not only is this exhausting, it also makes it hard to tell who likes you for who you really are. Here’s my advice to my fellow people pleasers out there: Aim for pleasing God and being authentic to who he made you to be, and let everything else fall as it may.

2. Wear clothes that make you feel good.

How did it take me until I was thirtysomething to realize that I find dress pants soul-sucking? Take it from someone who wishes she’d had a sartorial epiphany sooner: Find your style. Embrace it. Then jettison the clothes you don’t like.

3. Find a groove that works for you.

In your twenties, you can get by on haphazard sleep and a slapdash schedule. But in my thirties, I’ve found that I need to identify the things that recharge me and then make them a priority. For me that includes things like going to bed by ten, taking walks to the library, carving out time to write, and having regular coffee dates with friends; otherwise I get wonky fast. What are the things that recharge you? Set aside time for those things, and don’t apologize for making them sacred.

4. Get out of your rut.

Okay, I realize I just said “find a groove,” but the flip side is that it’s also important to try new things every once in a while. I’m a creature of habit, so this takes intentionality for me, but I’ve come to realize that some of my most meaningful experiences have come from times I did something out of my comfort zone.

5. Be grateful for the present.

For most of my twenties, I found myself always looking ahead to what was next, whether out of worry or anticipation. Almost as soon as one prayer request was answered, I’d be on to the next one. But how much life do we miss out on when we’re constantly fast-forwarding into the next phase? I hope in my thirties I’ve been able to savor more, to be grateful for the right-now.

6. Love is worth the risk.

Love feels scary sometimes, and I’m not going to promise that love will never hurt. As C. S. Lewis says, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” But I will vouch for the fact that even though love means opening yourself up to pain, the pain is worth it. And sometimes the pain itself increases your capacity for love.

7. Dream big and fail big.

I’m an INFJ by Meyers-Briggs personality type, meaning I’m not a natural-born risk taker. I’d rather play it safe and think something through from every possible angle to make sure I don’t fail or make a mistake. But here’s the truth: sometimes you just have to jump. You have to go all in, not having all the facts, not knowing how it’s going to end. And sometimes you will fail. But you know what? It’s okay. That’s not the end of the story; it just makes for an interesting side plot.

8. Embrace the little people in your life.

One of the best things about my thirties has been being an aunt to seven amazing nieces and nephews. Kids remind you how to laugh, how to ask big questions, and how to wonder again. Whether or not you have children or small relatives of your own, I highly recommend that you find some little people to invest in. I can’t guarantee if the kids will benefit, but you will definitely be the richer for it.

9. Call your mom.

When we’re young, I think most of us have a certain sense of invincibility—not only about ourselves but about those we love. We have this unchecked idea that our people will always be there for us in the same way they are now. But as I get older, I am becoming more aware of mortality—my own and other people’s. So I want to seize the little moments with the people I love—the ordinary phone calls with my mom, the discussions about life and the news with my dad, the trips to the zoo with my nieces and nephews, the Sunday visits with my grandma, the weekly crossword puzzles with my sister.

10. God is bigger and smarter than I am.

I have come up with plenty of scripts for my life over the years—plans for what I’d do and when I’d do it and how it would all unfold along the way. But it turns out that God has much better ideas than I could come up with—and he knows me better than I know myself. It’s usually not until retrospect that I can trace what he was doing, but I’ve been through enough with him by now to know that he’s doing something good, whether I can see it yet or not.

Bonus: Say yes to ice cream.

I’m already at #10 on my list, but Daniel made me coffee ice cream for my birthday, which reminded me of one more thing I need to add: leave a little room in your life for the sweet things.

***

How about you? What are you learning in this decade of your life?

Are You a Catastrophizer?

messy ballOkay, time for a show of hands. When you start a sentence with “What if . . .” how many of you are picturing something wonderful happening? And how many of you are envisioning the bottom dropping out in a thousand different (but equally catastrophic) ways?

If you are in the first category, you are my hero. And also: we need to be friends. If you are in the second category, you are not alone. Here’s the truth: My “what ifs” are always worst-case scenarios.

What if Daniel isn’t home from his bike ride yet because he was swept up by a funnel cloud and then attacked by a bunch of thugs?

What if the pain in my side is appendicitis or, more likely, some unpronounceable kind of cancer?

What if gluten/GMOs/social-media-induced narcissism/the two-party political system will be the demise of us all?

What if I run out of time or money or energy or friends or grace?

What if I’m missing out on what God is calling me to do?

Yep, my worry gene is on constant overdrive.

But lately I’ve been wondering . . . what if my imaginings were best-case scenarios?

What if, instead of catastrophizing, I serendipitized instead?

What if my “what-ifs” were about all the amazing, incredible, wonderful, serendipitous things that God might just have in store?

I adore this poem by Mary Oliver:

I Worried

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

I can relate to Oliver’s worries about things like which direction the rivers will flow and if the earth will turn the right way—things we humans have no business controlling, not to mention any power over. And I love her remedy, which at first seems like a bit of a non sequitur: go out into the morning and sing.

***

When I started riding my bike with Daniel, he shared this rule of cycling with me: Don’t look at what you’re trying to avoid; look at where you want to go. This sounded terrifying at first, because it means you have to loosen your perceived control over this thing you want to protect yourself from. But in reality, this letting go is freedom.

When you take your eyes off your object of worry, it loses its power over you. As counterintuitive as it sounds, you’re much more likely to crash into something when your eyes are fixed on it.

So just for today, in the face of worry, I want to sing. Every time a worry comes crashing into my brain and my heart, I want to fight back . . . not with striving or many words, but with a song.

Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.
Psalm 90:14

***

Are you a worrier? What do you tend to catastrophize about? What helps you combat worry?

The Divine Palindrome

I’ve always had a weak spot for palindromes. When I learned the word from Mrs. Strukel in fourth grade, I became a little obsessed. I’d sit at my desk daydreaming up all the palindromes I could think of (mom, dad, race car, taco cat), and I’d secretly get a little giddy whenever the digital clock hit a magical number like 12:21.

My love for these quirky words hasn’t abated much over the years. I was ridiculously excited about my 33rd birthday, because after all, palindromic birthdays come only once each decade. I made it a point to ride in my Civic and a Toyota that day, and although I didn’t add random people named Hannah or Bob to my guest list, I will admit the thought crossed my mind.

It never occurred to me until recently, however, that God was a fan of palindromes. Then I read this quote by Eugene Peterson:

The way we come to God is the same way that God comes to us. God comes to us in Jesus; we come to God in Jesus.
Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

Do you see the palindrome there? Us-Jesus-God. God-Jesus-us.

In the Old Testament, people longed to see God face to face. But Scripture was clear: a mortal could not look at a holy God and expect to live (Genesis 32:30). The esteemed prophet Moses saw God’s presence pass by, but even he wasn’t allowed to see God’s face (Exodus 33:20-22).

Yet in his radical grace, God didn’t leave us alone and wishing for connection with him. Instead, he sent us a divine palindrome: Jesus, who mediates between us and the Father. Jesus, who enables us to see the Father’s face and not die. Jesus, who takes on our sin so we can stand in the presence of perfection. Jesus, who intercedes on our behalf before a holy God.

We have access to a gift the ancients longed for but did not see.

I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.
Matthew 13:17

So we dare not miss this rare gift—this divine palindrome that allows us to come into the presence of Love himself.

***

What’s your favorite palindrome? Please share so I can add it to my collection!