Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

A Letter to My Son: On Coming into the World Broken

Dear Milo,

Someday, precious boy, you will ask me the story of your birth. How much will I tell you, I wonder? You only recently marked one month in this world, so this kind of pondering is admittedly premature. But how will I be able to communicate to you that your arrival was pure miracle, yet simultaneously tinged with brokenness?

The short version, beloved child, is that they had to break you to get you out. Your shoulders were simply too large for my bones. But our doctor was a pro, and she sprang into action immediately when she recognized what was happening. Knowing that time was of the essence, she chose the lesser of two traumas, cracking your tiny matchstick of a humerus.

And so, in the weeks since, your dad and I have been wrapping your little arm with yards and yards of bandage and asking God to mend the bones he knit together in the first place.

“Babies are like starfish,” the orthopedic surgeon assures me as I look at the jagged bones on the X-Ray screen. You will never remember this, I know. And I’m not sure how much pain you can even register at this point. But we will remember, your dad and I. And we feel the pain like a fracture to our hearts.

As I gaze into your blue-gray eyes that seem at once innocent and wise beyond their years, I wonder if the pain we feel isn’t just about this particular injury. As hard as it is to see such a tiny body hurting—especially a vulnerable someone who is entirely dependent on us—it feels even weightier than that.

The truth is, this is merely the first of many encounters with brokenness you will face. The broken bone on the first day of your life is but a foreshadowing of fractures to come. We are frail and human, made of tender bits like bone and tendon, heart and soul. This means we have the capacity to feel deeply and love with abandon, but it also leaves us susceptible to profound wounds.

And as much as I want to protect you from injuries of all sorts—body, mind, and heart—I am aware of my own frailty as much as yours. I would take on a grizzly bear in hand-to-hand combat if the occasion arose, but despite my best efforts, I won’t be able to stop you from getting hurt. And it wouldn’t be good for you if I could.

They say a broken bone grows back stronger after it heals, and I have to think the same is true of the other parts of us too. The places where we’ve been hurt can rebuild us with more resilience, while somehow making us more tender in all the best ways too.

My prayer for you, today and as you grow, is that you will know that brokenness is not an end point. It is the beginning of your story of redemption. If we let them, the broken places can ultimately be entry points for grace.

I love you, my broken and beautiful son.
Mom

Man is born broken; he lives by mending. The grace of God is the glue.

Eugene O’Neill

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!

Surprise Me!

addie_stephanie_rische_blog_authorI love going places with my sister where there is ordering of any sort involved. That’s because almost without fail, when she places her order, she drops the line “Surprise me” at some point in the conversation.

If she’s getting a cappuccino and the barista asks what flavor she’d like, Meghan will give her trademark dimpled grin and say, “Surprise me!” If she’s ordering a salad and is offered various dressing options, her response is the same: “Surprise me!” If I’m getting her something to drink out of Mom’s fridge, I can almost guarantee her refrain will echo once again: “Surprise me!”

I always stare at her, wide eyed. “What if you get something you don’t like?”

She just flashes a grin at me and shrugs. “That’s part of the fun of the surprise.”

Me, I’m a planner. I like to map it all out, write a script. I cling to the illusion of control. Truth be told, I’d rather do the surprising than the being surprised.

But this sister of mine, she lives with her arms wide open. She embraces life, holds out her hands to accept the surprises God has for her, just the way she does with her coffee.

So when the time approached for Meghan’s baby to born, I should have expected that this surprise-loving sister of mine would make room for as many surprises as possible.

“Girl or boy?” I asked over the phone, breathless, after her ultrasound.

addie_new_life_baby_stephanie_rische“We’re going to be surprised!” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

“What names are you thinking about?”

“We’re keeping it a surprise!”

And of course, the details of the birth itself were a surprise. Two days before her due date, Meghan went to the doctor. “You’re progressing right along,” he said. “It should be any day now.”

But the next day nothing happened. And nothing the next day either, or the day after, or the whole week after.

And then, ten days past her due date, just when the doctor was ready to speed things along, surprise! The baby decided to make a grand appearance. And the new mom and dad unwrapped their surprise package right there in their hospital room…a little gift of a girl named Addie Mae.

And when I first looked into the face of that sweet surprise, I wondered what other surprises God might have up his sleeve. What do I miss out on when I try to make the plan and script it all out myself?

stephanie_rische_with_baby_neiceThis little girl, this eight-pound bundle, she is teaching me already. Her life whispers, as soft as breathing, This is life! This is joy! This is a whole new world of divine surprises.

So here I am, God, with my eyes squeezed shut and my arms wide open. Surprise me.