Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace
Thanks to everyone who joined the conversation in my last post. Congratulations to Amy, the winner of Lisa-Jo Baker’s book Surprised by Motherhood! (Amy, I’ll send you a separate message.)
Also: Stay tuned tomorrow for a special announcement from StephanieRische.com!
Last week I went to the Declare Conference, where I was surrounded by hundreds of smart, talented, creative blogger types. I came away inspired, full of ideas, and a little bit turtle-like, as I do believe I’ve used up all my extrovertedness until approximately 2024.
At breakfast on the first morning, when we were introducing ourselves to the other women at our table, someone asked what my blog was about. I said it was about grace . . . and promptly knocked my glass of ice water all over the table and onto my lap. Okay, so maybe I should clarify: my blog is about God’s grace, not so much my own physical grace. Glad I could clear that up once and for all.
I had the distinct privilege of being on a publishing panel on Saturday, where I joined a line-up of editors, agents, and writers to talk about some of my favorite things: books, writing, words, and more words! It was like Christmas (except for the part about how we were in Dallas and it was 110 degrees).
Another highlight was getting to hear my friend Lisa-Jo Baker talk about her new book, Surprised by Motherhood. She was brave and real as she shared stories about being a mom and loving well, and she made us cry and laugh in almost the same breath. (For the sake of full disclosure, I was also Lisa-Jo’s editor. You can thank her for the lyrical beauty of her words, but you can blame me if there’s an errant comma in there somewhere.)
In honor of Declare, I’m giving away a free copy of Lisa-Jo’s book. If you’ve ever had a mom or been a mom, I highly recommend this book. It’s a redemptive story about what God can do through the bond between a mother and a child—and how he reveals deeper parts of himself to us through that relationship.
To be eligible, write a comment below about a highlight of your summer so far. Ready? Go! Be sure to enter your comment by Thursday to be eligible to win!
When do our hearts splinter in a dozen multitasking directions, I wonder? Whether out of necessity or out of a drive to be efficient and productive, we try to do as many things as we can at once. Making dinner while talking on the phone. Checking e-mail while at a meeting. Texting while walking down the hall. Eating on the run. There’s a certain kind of pride that comes from being so proficient at doing two or three things at a time.
But recently I was with my five-year-old niece and my three-year-old nephew, and they taught me a profound lesson about childlike faith. Childlike faith, it turns out, isn’t just about blind trust; it’s about putting your whole heart into something.
The thing about preschoolers is that they don’t do anything at 90 percent or 75 percent or, heaven forbid, halfway. Whatever they’re doing, they’re all in. Lyla and Tyler didn’t walk from place to place; they ran—or, whenever possible, raced. When they were at the park, they played with every ounce of energy in their little bodies. And when it was time to get in the car afterward, they were asleep before we even exited the parking lot, their treasures slowly slipping out of their clutched fingers.
On the last evening we were together, Tyler asked me to play in his band, replete with plastic drums, toy harmonica, and air guitar. He offered this instruction by way of invitation or warning: “In my band, we sing LOUD!” There was only one setting for this kid: wholeheartedness.
The same was true for Lyla. As she played detective, inspired by her newfound magnifying glass and soaring imagination, I was awed by her ability to tune out everything else around her—the dinner that needed to be made, the two dogs sidled up next to her, the cacophony of voices all around. I, on the other hand, was distracted, simultaneously trying to set the table and scoot into adult conversations while I played with her. But Lyla was looking for 100 percent: “I want you to look in my eyes when we’re playing,” she said earnestly.
And so on Sunday, when we were all in church together, it shouldn’t have surprised me that these kids would teach me about wholehearted worship too.
The keyboard struck a few telling introductory chords, and their eyes lit up. “We know this one!” They were dancing in their chairs before the chorus even began.
I know who goes before me
I know who stands behind
These two small voices grew louder and louder, and soon they were belting out the words.
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side
All around us, people started grinning and stealing glances at our volunteer choir. The one who reigns forever He is a friend of mine
Chorus by chorus, these little people were teaching us what worship sounds like: whole voice, whole body, whole heart.
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side
God says, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me” (Jeremiah 29:13). And that’s exactly what I want. I want to be more like Lyla and Tyler. I want to chase after God not with just a distracted fraction of me, but with all of me. With my whole heart.
Just a reminder . . . we’ll be discussing The Invention of Wings on August 29. See the post that introduces the book here. Hope you can add your voice to the conversation!
Have you ever hit the bottom of the prayer barrel?
You’ve been praying about the same thing day after day, month after month, year after year, yet nothing will budge.
You’ve been crying facedown before the Lord, your heart wrenching right in two, yet he seems deaf to your cries.
And now? Now you have no words left. Whenever you find yourself alone with God, the words stick in your throat. There are no eloquent petitions, no pronouncements of trust. Just the hollow beating of your heart. Even if you manage to squeeze out some words, they bounce off the ceiling, right back at you. You never wanted it to come to this, but you have no idea how to get on speaking terms with him again.
I know what it’s like to have parched lips, mute tongue. I know what it’s like to hear nothing at prayer time but the beating of my own heart. Yet the more I read Scripture, the more convinced I am that there’s only one prayer—indeed, one word—that really matters.
Abba. Daddy.
It was the first prayer the disciples learned to pray:
Our Abba in heaven . . . (Matthew 6:9)
It was the desperate cry of the prodigal son returning home to his father:
Abba, I have sinned against both heaven and you . . . (Luke 15:21)
It was the anguished cry of Jesus himself during that final week of his life on earth:
Abba, Father . . . please take this cup of suffering away from me. (Mark 14:36)
Abba, forgive them. . . . (Luke 23:34)
Abba, I entrust my spirit into your hands! (Luke 23:46)
When we cry out “Abba,” we’re not just picking one of God’s names at random; we’re claiming our special relationship to him. We’re saying we know who he is and we know who we are: his own beloved daughters and sons.
In that case, maybe it doesn’t matter so much how we pray; it’s who we’re praying to.
We don’t need to have all the right words—just the one word that makes all things right. Abba.
She said good-bye to her husband ten months ago. Well, that isn’t exactly right. She’d been saying good-bye to him for nine years . . . the slow good-bye of Alzheimer’s. He took his final breath on a blistering day last August, but he’d been slipping away from her, memory by memory, for some time before that.
She misses him. When she walks by his picture, she wags her finger at him. “You stinker!” she says, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Why did you leave first?”
We laugh, but we both feel the undertow of grief.
“I’m homesick for heaven,” she says. It’s barely more than a whisper.
“Do you ever ask God why?” I don’t even know which why I mean—why Bob’s memories were stolen from him, why she had to say a long good-bye to her beloved, why the Parkinson’s is now stripping her of the things she loves. But I need to know. It’s a question that burns in my own gut.
Ruth is many things to me—a mentor, the wife of my childhood pastor, a friend. But most of all, she’s a mirror of the woman I want to become someday. There’s a half-century between us, but our friendship is the richer for it. I want her wise wrinkles, her words that ooze grace, her ability to laugh at herself until tears run down her cheeks, her knack for making each guest who enters her home feel like British royalty.
And so I need to know how she does this. How does she wrestle with those prayers that go unanswered—or unanswered in the way she hoped? I’m dabbling in the shallow end of faith, and I need her to tell me how to do this when the shore is no longer in sight.
She smiles at my question—gentle, patient. “The older I get, the less I ask God why,” she says. “More and more, I’m in awe that he would entrust these wounds and difficulties to me.”
I stare at her, dumb. I’m more aware than ever that I have a single toe in the water while she’s out in the deep-blue sea. “You mean God works in spite of the wounds?”
She shakes her head ever so slightly. “The wounds are the gift.”
I’m not even Peter, sinking in the raging waves. I haven’t gotten out of the boat.
“I used to think we would bring our medals to God one day,” she says. “We’d get to heaven and show him all our successes, all the good things we’ve done. But I don’t think so anymore.”
I stare at her, wondering if she notices the waves crashing around her.
“God isn’t impressed by our achievements,” she says. “He wants our wounds. I have a feeling he’d tell us, ‘Look at my Son. He just came to me with his scars.’”
When it’s time to go, I hug her good-bye, surprised that someone so frail could squeeze so tight. As I make my way to the car, soul still reeling, I feel a question bubbling up inside me.
Why, Lord?
But this time the question is fueled by awe.
Of all the people in the world, why do I get to be her friend?
I don’t know why. But like Ruth, I’m starting to realize that maybe that’s not the most important question. Maybe it’s time to leave the shore behind and follow her into the deep.
You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep My faith will stand.
—From “Oceans” by Hillsong United
And now . . . for a few of my favorite things for July. Enjoy!
For anyone who has ever tried to articulate whether they like a book . . .
These book reviews by kids are part insightful and part hilarious. Case in point: “This was a good book but it didn’t make much sense.” Book Reviews by Kids
For bookmark aficionados . . .
I realize a scrap of paper or a receipt would work just as well, but I do love a good bookmark. These are fabulous—especially the bedside lamp bookmark. Creative Bookmarks
For anyone who has wondered if their marital status makes them less valuable . . .
Shauna Niequist nails it again: “Marriage doesn’t make you me more special. It’s not a status symbol.” You Are Significant with or without a Significant Other
For anyone who likes to devour books . . .
These cakes are literary and culinary masterpieces. Just wait till you see the Narnia-themed one! Gorgeous and Delicious Literary Cakes
Thanks to everyone who participated in our discussion about This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, which we discussed here. Congratulations to Megan for winning a free book!
And now . . . announcing the next book club! We’ll be reading The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.
Here’s the description from the author’s site:
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees: a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world.
Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimkes’ daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is mean to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
Sue Monk Kidd’s sweeping new novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday in 1803, when she is given ownership of ten-year-old Handful, who is to be her waiting maid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement, and the uneasy ways of love.
As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.
Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in search of something better, and Charlotte’s lover, Denmark Vesey, a charismatic free black man who is planning insurrection.
This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at one of the most devastating wounds in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.
We will discuss this book at the end of August.
{Remember, there will be a free book giveaway for one lucky commenter!}
Thanks to everyone who read our book for this month. We’ll be discussing This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, which I introduced here.
Here’s how it works: I’ll throw out a few topics for discussion, and you can write your responses about these topics (or others you’d like to discuss) in the comment section.
Discussion #1: A Glimpse into the Writing Process
Of all the descriptions I’ve read about the writing process, Patchett’s words are among the most profound and relatable. She captures both the magic and the torture of the process, and I continually found myself saying, “What? You too?” I think a lot of writers have this suspicion that writing comes easily for everyone else, so it’s a huge relief to know that not even Ann Patchett has fairy dust sprinkled over her computer. My favorite part is where she describes an idea for a novel as a beautiful butterfly that she allows to fly free in her imagination for a while, until finally she has no choice but to pin it down with words:
I reach up and pluck the butterfly from the air. I take it from the region of my head and I press it down against my desk, and there, with my own hand, I kill it. It’s not that I want to kill it, but it’s the only way I can get something that is so three-dimensional onto the flat page. . . . Imagine running over a butterfly with an SUV. What I’m left with is a dry husk of my friend, a broken body chipped, dismantled, and poorly reassembled. Dead. That’s my book. . . . The journey from the head to the hand is perilous and lined with bodies.
Have you done any writing? If so, was there anything in Ann Patchett’s descriptions about the writing process that resonated with you?
Discussion #2: What Dreams Are Made Of
I appreciated the way the author describes what it takes to achieve the dream of being a writer—or of achieving any dream, for that matter. Dreams need a spark of wonder to get started, but ultimately they require steady determination if they’re going to go anywhere.
Why is it we understand that playing the cello will require work but we relegate writing to the magic of inspiration? . . . If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say.
Have you found this to be true when pursuing your own dreams? Which comes more easily for you: the inspiration or the hard work?
Discussion #3: Jumping in with Both Feet
People often have the idea that writers hole themselves up in dark rooms and emerge only on rare occasions for interviews or bathroom breaks. With her remarkable gumption, Ann Patchett defies such stereotypes. She’s willing to live out her research—almost to the extent of making her own life an experiment. Cases in point: she joined the LAPD, became a regular at the opera, and took a cross-country trip in an RV—all for the sake of a story. And just when brick-and-mortar bookstores were all shutting their doors, she decided to do her part to buck the trend and opened her own independent store (you can check it out here).
Would you enjoy having a job that allows you to experience alternate lives firsthand? Did this book make you want to visit Ann Patchett’s bookstore?
Discussion #4: Our Friend Ann
I went into this book unsure whether I’d like it or not. I adored Patchett’s Bel Canto, but I wasn’t as taken with her other titles. And not every author is able to pull off writing bothfiction and nonfiction, so I didn’t know what to expect from a collection of essays. But the tone in these pieces won me over immediately. The author comes across as warm, witty, accessible, smart, and above all, very human—like we’d certainly be friends if only we had a chance to meet. I also gained a new insight about her books when I read this. I’d always thought her novels were vastly different from one another (one about a magician, one about an opera singer, and one about a pharmacist in the Amazon jungle), but she explains that all of her books are based on the same premise: people getting thrown together in strange environment. And I have to say, reading this book made me want to read more Ann Patchett.
Did you enjoy the tone of this book? Were you inspired to read more titles by the author?
Rating
I would recommend this book to anyone who writes or anyone who wants to know what goes on inside a writer’s head. It’s like a pleasant chat with an author-friend. (I’d also mention that the title is pretty misleading—there’s one essay about marriage, but that’s not the focus of the book.) I’d give this title five stars (out of five).
How many stars would you give this book?
Remember: There will be a free book giveaway for one lucky commenter!
Shauna Niequist wrote a beautiful post a while back about the old stories we believe about ourselves. Even though God has been at work in us, transforming us and giving us new identities, we continue to buy into old versions of ourselves—or lies we’ve bought into for too long.
In her post “Change the Story” she says:
There are people and situations that take us back to old, old stories, and even though we’re moms now, not children, or even though we’re business owners now, not adolescents, we find ourselves acting out stories that haven’t been true for a long time, or stories that were never true to begin with.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I’ve been reminded of those famous words of Jesus: that the truth will set you free.
One of my friends sees herself as nonconfrontational, fearful of stepping into dangerous situations. But as I’ve watched her parent a son with severe allergies, I see how God is rewriting that story. I first witnessed this growing bravery when she discovered her son’s dairy allergy. She was miles from home and husband, but she confronted every obstacle in her way to find out what was happening to her baby and get him the help he needed. And as I watch her continue to advocate for her little guy at restaurants, at school, and on playdates, making sure he’s safe physically and not being left out, she is growing into many shades of brave.
Another friend holds on to an old version of herself—a story that she is slow to warm up with new people, that no would pursue her or connect with her without a long lead time. But over the years, I’ve seen her stepping out in her job, flourishing in her interactions with clients, stepping into new friendships, making herself rightly vulnerable in relationships new and old. And something amazing is happening: people are seeing her for the beautiful woman she is. God is rewriting her story.
For years I’ve believed that I was destined to live in fear. I worried about big things and little things, about the noise in my attic that was most likely a serial killer and about global warming and about losing the people I loved most. I decided that my condition was chronic—that I’d just have to figure out how to live with it. But somewhere along the way, God began to rewrite that script. Instead of keeping a running tally of my worries, I started to track all the ways I’d seen his faithfulness to me. And ever so subtly, I noticed that fear was no longer in the driver’s seat of my life.
One of the things I appreciate about God is that he loves us just the way we are but doesn’t leave us that way. The evidence is there all through Scripture as he discards old stories and gives people new names, new identities:
I hear God saying the same thing today:
What about you? Is there a story that God has rewritten in your life—or one that he’s rewriting now? Has God given you a new name? I’d love to hear about it, I’d be honored to pray for you on this journey.
