Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

The One Word I Can’t Pronounce

I don’t know how it’s taken me three decades to discover that I have a speech problem, but I do. There’s one word that refuses to squeeze out of my mouth . . . but it’s an important one.

Yes slides out so smoothly, with its smooth y and its slippery s. Okay, with its friendly syllables and happy-go-lucky ways, falls out just as easily. Sure is tip-of-the-tongue, ready to tumble out at a moment’s notice.

But no, on the other hand, regularly remains lodged somewhere in my esophagus. The word does manage to eke out on occasion . . . but only when it’s followed by problem, as in “no problem.”

Last week I met with two amazing people who have an amazing vision and invited me to be part of an amazing project.

My lips were immediately shaping into a yes. But in those fleeting seconds before I opened my mouth, a series of images flashed through my mind: all my current yeses. What would I have to sacrifice to make this new yes happen?

Here’s the thing: there are already some nonnegotiable yeses I’ve committed to. I’ve said yes to following Christ; I’ve said yes to being a wife; I’ve said yes to being a daughter, a friend, an aunt, a sister, a part of a community.

Would saying yes to this good thing mean saying no to those other best things?

And so I said no. I thought the sky would fall, the world would end, fuses would blow. But to my surprise, none of those things happened. I said no and nobody died.

We must learn the practice of saying no to that which crowds God out and yes to a way of life that makes space for God.
—M. Shawn Copeland

If God is calling you to do something, by all means, say yes. But if this yes is crowding out the best thing, then it may be time to say that word that can be so hard to get out.

Practice it with me now: NO.

***

Is there something you need to say no to today so you can say yes to the best thing?

It’s Going to Get Better

A few weeks ago, Daniel and I went out to dinner and got seated by a table of 20 or so kids celebrating homecoming. We sat there and just watched them for a while (not that we had much choice—we couldn’t have heard what the other person was saying above the teenage racket).

Now that we’re about two decades out from homecoming ourselves, we found the scene fascinating, like some kind of sociological study. The guys were all on one end of the table, jockeying to be the loudest or make the funniest joke. The girls were pulling out lip gloss at two-minute intervals, adjusting their teeny dresses and trying to get the attention of the guys, who had eyes only for their burgers.

After they left, Daniel and I looked at each other, slightly dazed, ears still ringing.

“So,” Daniel said finally. “If you could go back and say something to your 17-year-old self, what would you say?”

We laughed as we considered tips for our former selves:

To the former Stephanie: You know, those high-waisted, tight-rolled jeans are not really as flattering as you think they are.

To the former Daniel: Dude, you should really cut your hair.

But most of all, when I think about the 17-year-old me, I want to cup her face in my hands and say, It’s going to get better. Those things that seem to matter so much right now—the girls who are mean to you in the locker room, the boys who seem to think you’re invisible—it’s not going to matter that much someday. There is so much more to life than you can see right now, and those things that make you feel out of step with the rest of the world . . . you will recognize them as gifts one day. Yes, maybe you’ll get teased as the yearbook’s biggest bookworm, but someday you’ll get to read and write books for a living. And there’s going to be a really handsome man (he with the once-long hair) who will love you just the way God knows you need to be loved. And best of all, you’ll be comfortable in your own skin.

***

Last week a beautiful woman from our church was taken from us after the tumor in her brain gained too much ground. She was one of those people who was sunshine in human form—always offering warm hugs and greetings, beaming her genuine smile, making people feel loved and welcomed.

Daniel and I stood in a three-hour line at Kim’s visitation, surrounded by hundreds of other people whose lives had been touched by this woman of God. Story after story poured out about how her life had been marked by love and service—to God, to her family, to her church, and to anyone whose path she crossed.Kim McCart

As we looked at the photos around the room—the one of Kim with her husband’s arm around her, the one of her laughing with her children and grandchildren, the one of her hugging kids on a service trip in Ecuador—it struck me in a fresh way what really matters. I get so caught up in the things that seem urgent, the things that clamor for my attention and keep me buzzing from one item on the to-do list to the next.

I have to wonder if Kim would cup my face in her hands and say, “Things are going to get so much better. And those things that worry you, the things you think are so important? They’re not going to matter all that much one day.”

I’m not so different from those high school students, I’m afraid, so focused on the here and now. But I want to hang on to the legacy Kim leaves behind: Love God. Love people. This is what really matters.

I have no doubt that when Kim went home to her Father, she was greeted just as warmly as she’d greeted people on this side of eternity. And I’m confident these words echoed off the streets of gold: “Well done, Kim, my good and faithful servant.”

Forget the sequined dresses and the loud table talk. That’s the ultimate homecoming.

Do I Have Anything in My Teeth?

When I was in high school, the group of girls I sat with at lunch had a ritual before we headed to our next class: the daily “teeth check.” We’d flash our pearly whites at each other to make sure no bits of sandwich had unceremoniously lodged there.

(Keep in mind, this was the era of braces and retainers, not to mention just a teensy bit of insecurity.)

Most days the teeth check passed without incident, but on occasion, one of us might be known to say something like, “You don’t have anything in your teeth . . . but you do have something hanging out of your nose!”

(Yes, our humor was very sophisticated back then.)

We may have been a little over-vigilant about the post-lunch hygiene, but there’s something to the idea. It’s infinitely better for your friend to point out your social faux pas than to have the popular kids snickering about you behind your back or to have that cute guy see you with a piece of spinach stuck between your front teeth.

Oscar Wilde once said, “True friends stab you in the front.” And I think that’s about right, whether it’s about lunch . . . or your gossip habit or how you’re not being yourself or your tendency to hold back out of fear.

As painful as it can be to have someone tell you that you have the spiritual equivalent of spinach in your soul, how much better is that than to know you’ve been walking around like that for days or weeks or years? And all the better for it to come from someone who loves you.

We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ.
Ephesians 4:15

I’m thankful to have people in my life who give me spiritual checkups. I’ve invited them to stab me in the front when I need it, and they do. They gently point out my blind spots, they tell me the truth in love, they remind me who I am and who I want to be. And they invite me to do the same for them.

As vulnerable as this whole process is, I’d much rather have it this way than go on living with something ugly stuck in my soul.

***

How about you? Do you have a friend who is willing to give you accountability when you need it? What would it take to get there?

The First Word of Jesus’ Prayer

Jesus’ disciples wanted to pray, but they weren’t quite sure how to go about it. So Jesus gave them a lesson in prayer—a model that Christians all over the world still use thousands of years later (Matthew 6:9-13).

I’ve said the Lord’s Prayer countless times, heard sermons about it, read books about it. But there’s one word in the prayer that I’ve brushed right by in the past. It’s a small word, just three letters, but it’s a critical one.

How could I have missed it for so long? It’s the first word, for crying out loud. Our.

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name . . .

Why, I wonder, didn’t Jesus instruct his disciples to address their prayers to God individually? “My Father who art in heaven . . .”

But from the very first line of the prayer, it’s apparent that Jesus sees prayer as a communal activity. Certainly we are to spend time with the Father one-on-one, but our default should be to come to him remembering that we are part of a community. He didn’t create us to be lone-wolf Christians, howling our prayers from the isolation of our dens.

Jesus tells us to call God our Father, which means that fellow believers are our brothers and sisters. We have the privilege of linking arms with them as we talk to our Dad about the things that are close to our hearts. Together, we can share our burdens. We can cry out for healing, for peace, for a relationship to be restored, for a prodigal to come home. And together, we can share our joys. We can offer thanks to God for his faithfulness, his goodness, his answers to our prayers.

My friend has a twentysomething-year-old son who cut ties with his family several years ago, leaving no forwarding address. Ever since, she and her family have tried everything shy of hiring a private investigator to find him. She wants more than anything to let him know that he is loved, that he is wanted, that there is a spot reserved for him that no one else can fill. I’ve had the privilege of praying with my friend every Thursday, begging God to reunite them and to show her son how much he is loved—by God and by his mother.

Our Father . . . please.

In Matthew 18:19-20, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” I don’t know exactly what it is about praying to our Father with other people that makes it so sacred. Obviously God’s ears are just as attuned to the prayers we pray in solitude; it’s not as if we need to meet some kind of quorum for him to answer us.

But perhaps communal prayer is more for our sakes than for his. God knows how easily we lose hope, how quickly we get discouraged when we’re left on our own. But when our brothers and sisters stand united with us, they can believe and hope on our behalf when we grow weary.

On Mother’s Day weekend of this year, my friend received the best gift she could ever hope to receive: an unexpected reunion with her beloved son. As she held him in a long-awaited embrace, with tears streaming down both their faces, the hundreds of prayers that had been uttered on his behalf over the years seemed to swirl around them.

When my friend shared this news with me and the other friends who had been praying, I experienced another gift of communal prayer. Not only does it allow us to share our burdens; it also gives us the chance to multiply our joy and our gratitude.

Our Father . . . thank you.

So whatever we find ourselves up against this week, may we embrace the model Jesus gave us in his prayer. In our moments of need, we can come before him as our Father. In moments of rejoicing, we can come before him as our Father.

We can come to him together, as brothers and sisters. For that is exactly what we are.

Grammar Girl

I’m part of a writing group, and our assignment for last month was to write something funny. One of the suggested prompts was to imagine you woke up one day with a superpower. This superhero story is dedicated to all my fellow grammar geeks!

***

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the cape she noticed first, scratchy as it was around her neck. When she peeled her eyes open, the first thing she saw, as she did every morning, was the blasted orange sticker affixed to the skylight.

For “repairs” call 1-800-555-2369!

She glared at it, resenting its smarmy, illogical use of quotation marks. Do they mean the repairs will be ironic? She groaned, reaching for the pillow to cover her head. But before she could snooze for a few more minutes, she felt a tingle down her right arm, like a tiny electrical current. What was that? Did I sleep on my arm funny last night?

She looked at her outreached arm and noticed that her finger was pointing precisely in the direction of the offending sticker. She squinted at the orange rectangle more closely and gasped. The opening quotation mark had vanished! She pointed a tentative finger at the closing quotes, and it, too, evaporated, leaving behind no ink trace or grammatical scar.

She jumped out of bed, rubbing her eyes. Spying the Cheez-It box on the nightstand, she waved a hand in the direction of the cleverly misspelled Cheez. “Bam!” she said, and before her eyes, the z melted into se. Cheese-Its. Much better.

As she stared at her arm in wonder, she noticed a swirl of black behind her. Sure enough, she was wearing a cape—one with a gigantic cursive G in the center. In smaller letters underneath, the tagline read, “Saving the world, one comma at a time!”

Her phone beeped. She picked it up, annoyed to see that it was more spam.

UR eligible 4 a lower r8!

Her finger hovered over the Delete button, but then she paused. “Zing!” she cried, pointing a finger at the screen.

You are eligible for a lower rate!

She grinned smugly and got ready for work. Throughout the day she pointed her finger wherever she spotted grammatical violations. When she was stopped at an intersection, she changed the “Slow Children” sign to “Slow: Children.” When she passed the road-side market, she zapped the sign that read “Peach’s for sale,” sending the errant apostrophe into oblivion. At her desk, she scanned her e-mail messages for there/their/they’re confusion and affect/effect mix-ups. She reconjugated verbs, undangled modifiers, and eliminated all figurative uses of literally.

When she got home, she flopped down on the couch, exhausted but satisfied. Just as she put her feet up, she spotted a yellow envelope on the edge of the coffee table. She picked it up and saw her name on the front. What’s the occasion? She racked her brain, trying to figure out which holiday she’d overlooked. It’s not my birthday, not our anniversary . . .

She opened it up, and on the inside, in her husband’s unmistakable script, was this message:

Your beautiful.

She reached behind her head and removed her cape, setting it on the end of the couch. There were some things that not even Grammar Girl could improve upon. Or should that be “upon which not even Grammar Girl could improve”?

It didn’t matter. After all, there were some things even more important than proper grammar.

Three and Sixty Augusts Ago

3rd anniversary

Our third anniversary, in the park we went to on our first date

Three Augusts ago, Daniel and I stood under a tulle-covered arch, surrounded by a small cluster of family and friends (and one stray cat that made an appearance halfway through), and we said some big vows. With eyes locked on each other and hearts lodged in our throats, we strung words together one by one until they became big promises.

Looking back, I see now that we were like kids dressed in grown-up clothes, arms dangling in too-long sleeves and feet tripping over clown-like shoes. But that’s the only way to commit to something as big as “till death do us part,” I think. You put on the big promises and pray with everything in you that one day you’ll grow into them.

Just a day after our anniversary, Daniel’s grandparents celebrated sixty-one years of marriage. In six decades, they have raised a handful of children, doted on a dozen-plus grandchildren, and rejoiced over the births of several great-grandchildren.

But then, about ten years ago, Gramma Lo started forgetting things. It wasn’t long before the diagnosis came: Alzheimer’s. The disease that’s a thief, only it doesn’t take everything at once. It steals slowly—one memory, one mannerism, one life skill at a time.

In sickness and in health.

The day before Daniel and I got married, Papa Jack pulled out a small velvet bag. “I wish Gramma Lo could be here this weekend,” he said. “But I know she would have wanted to you to wear this.” He pulled out a simple, elegant string of pearls. “She wore this necklace at our wedding.”

For better or for worse.

PJ and Gramma Lo

Papa Jack and Gramma Lo at an Alzheimer’s walk

On more than one occasion Daniel and I have tried to tell Papa Jack how much we admire him for the way he loves Gramma Lo during this season . . . the way he trims her nails, reads children’s books to her, and patiently endures her insistence that he is not her husband. But he brushes off our compliments and smiles as if to say, “This is not heroic. This is just what love looks like.”

Till death do us part.

As I watch Papa Jack and Gramma Lo, I’m starting to think that maybe love isn’t so much the grand gestures, the significant milestones, the scenes captured in photos. Maybe love is those small moments of choosing to love in the healthy times and the sick times, in the good times and the worse times. And maybe those little moments get strung together one by one, like pearls on a string—beautiful, shimmering, timeless. Something that can be passed on to the next generation, and the one after that.

Daniel and I have a long way to go before we grasp the kind of love we see in Papa Jack and Gramma Lo’s marriage. But by the grace of God and the examples set before us, we will wear these big vows until we grow into them.

And so we say it this year, just as we did three Augusts ago:

We do.

For all that is now and all that is to come, we do.

A Book for the Little Princess in Your Life…

my-princesses-learn-to-be-brave-book-coverIf you have little girls in your life, you know that princesses are everywhere—in the dress-up box, at birthday parties, on TV, at the store. And there are good things about this princess era we live in, because it’s important for girls to feel special and beautiful.

But most of us long for more than pretty dresses and tiaras for the girls we love. Our desire is for them to become beautiful on the inside as well. We want them to know where their real identity is found—that since God is their Father, they are daughters of the King. That makes them true princesses.

To read the rest of the article and to find out more about my new book about princesses, bullying, and Queen Esther, you can check out Tyndale’s blog here.

Friday Favorites for September

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It’s that time again . . . time for a few of my favorite things! Enjoy!

For anyone loyal to their home state . . .
If you’ve ever wondered how your home state would be depicted in LEGOs, this post is for you. 50 States in LEGOs

For anyone looking for an excuse to read . . .
Apparently reading helps you read people’s minds and stave off depression. Sold! 12 Health Benefits of Reading

For anyone who gets that a marriage is about more than a wedding . . .
This is a great letter from Kristen Welch to her daughters about her wedding: “I can’t think of a single pin-worthy picture from the day. . . . But I wouldn’t change a moment of it.” What I Want My Daughters to Know about My Wedding

For anyone planning a literary-themed wedding . . .
I know I just said a marriage is about more than a wedding, but you have to admit these book-themed cakes are pretty amazing. You have to check out the one inspired by The Lord of the Rings. 10 Awesome Literary-Themed Wedding Cakes

For anyone who’s a word geek . . .
Apparently this is the longest word in the English language. Dictionary.com

Sojourners Here

A few weeks ago on a brilliant Sunday afternoon, my grandparents’ friends, a couple in their 80s, took their own lives. I didn’t know them personally, but I am grieving anyway. I’m grieving on behalf of their children, on behalf of their friends, on behalf of all those they left behind.

***

You were almost there, almost at the finish line. I know you wanted to end in a sprint, with triumph and vigor, arms lifted high. But somewhere along the way you forgot that finishing well sometimes just means finishing. Even if you have to limp across the line.

I wish you could have seen the crowd in the stands . . . all the people who were cheering you on, urging you forward. All the people who loved you.

I suppose you knew what King David knew—that we are but sojourners here on earth.

We are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. (1 Chronicles 29:15)

Life in these shadowlands is hard, it’s true. The losses take our breath away, the pain doubles us over, and it can be hard to see the finish line through the tears.

But with these encroaching shadows, we needed you all the more. We needed your light. We needed the conversations over Sunday brunch, the phone calls to check in, the recipes to swap. You reflected God’s light in a way no one else can, and now your unique brilliance has been snuffed out.

If you were still here, I would hug you first and then chastise you. Instead, I’m left with the secondary grief of mourning you on behalf of those I love.

“People needed you,” I would have said. “My grandparents needed you.”

You were afraid to be a burden, but this burden you leave behind is so much heavier.

All I have is words, and they come too late for you to hear. And so I write in the hope that someone else will read these words and it will not be too late for them.

I want you to know that you are irreplaceable.
That the world needs your light.
That you can make it to the finish line.

So please. Please, fellow sojourner. Do not end your sojourn too soon.

Announcing the Next Book Club

Glitter and GlueThanks to everyone who participated in our discussion about The Invention of Wings, which we talked about here. Congratulations to Maggie, the winner of the free book giveaway!

Please join us for our next book club discussion on Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan. Here’s the description of the book taken from Barnes and Noble

From the author of The Middle Place comes a new memoir that examines the bond—sometimes nourishing, sometimes exasperating, occasionally divine—between mothers and daughters.  

When Kelly Corrigan was in high school, her mother neatly summarized the family dynamic as “Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue.” This meant nothing to Kelly, who left childhood sure that her mom—with her inviolable commandments and proud stoicism—would be nothing more than background chatter for the rest of Kelly’s life, which she was carefully orienting toward adventure. After college, armed with a backpack, her personal mission statement, and a wad of traveler’s checks, she took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting.

But it didn’t turn out the way she pictured it. In a matter of months, her savings shot, she had a choice: get a job or go home. That’s how Kelly met John Tanner, a newly widowed father of two looking for a live-in nanny. They chatted for an hour, discussed timing and pay, and a week later, Kelly moved in. And there, in that house in a suburb north of Sydney, 10,000 miles from the house where she was raised, her mother’s voice was suddenly everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked. Every day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, straining to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its spiral.

This is a book about the difference between travel and life experience, stepping out and stepping up, fathers and mothers. But mostly it’s about who you admire and why, and how that changes over time.

We’ll be discussing this book at the end of October. Hope you will join us! (And remember—there will be a free book giveaway for one lucky winner!)