Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Yellow Jacket Invasion, Part 2

beekeeper[See Yellow Jacket Invasion Part 1 for the first part of this story.]

A month into our home ownership gig, it seemed like Daniel and I were losing: Calamities 2; Daniel and Stephanie Team 0. First there was the flood of epic proportions; now the yellow jackets. We were certainly learning a lot, and we were wrangling our house into a home, but we would be content to stop the plagues at two.

Meanwhile, I was grateful to be on the other side of the glass while the beekeeper worked his disappearing act on two hundred-some yellow jackets.

Daniel and I stood safely outside with our noses pressed to the window while our apian hero vacuumed up hundreds of the stinging little monsters and removed chunk after chunk of the yellow jacket nest. I’m pretty sure I counted to six football-sized pieces before I blacked out.

An hour or so into the removal process, I’d seen all I needed to see. Now that the initial shock had worn off, I was starting to get fidgety as the daylight ticked away and no progress was being made on my to-do list. Vacuum the carpet—nope, couldn’t do that right now. Clean the bathrooms—also an inside job. Shoot, even the to-do list was inside.

The only thing I could do was sit on the back porch. And sit.

Taking the Sting Out

We’d put up a hummingbird bird feeder the day before, but so far the birds had been a little skittish about dropping by. We’dhummingbird seen a few of them take a sip, drive-thru style, but none of them had stopped to perch.

I admired the birds’ beauty and delicate wings, but it made me weary to see them flittering and skittering, never pausing to rest. Don’t you guys need to gear up for a super-long migration to Mexico? I asked them silently as they flitted by. We provided this rest stop just for you, with homemade food and everything. Don’t you want to stop and rest for a while?

And then the irony hit me with such force that I laughed at loud. “Okay, God, I get it.”

Ceasing Our Fluttering

It was the Sabbath, and I’d been flitting around like a little hummingbird all day long. Lots of motion . . . but for what?

God seemed to be telling me, not so subtly, that there was nothing else to do in that moment except sit rest. It was time to forget about my to-do list for a while and embrace the rest he was giving me (forcing on me?) on that sacred day. The vacuuming could wait. The to-do list could wait. For now, my job number one was to sit and enjoy the world he’d made. Hummingbirds and yellow jackets included.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
—Leo Tolstoy

***

In case you’re wondering, the yellow jackets were all taken care of, and I didn’t see another one until the next morning, when Daniel donned his yellow cycling jersey (an odd choice for professional work attire, I thought). He kept looking at me expectantly after he got dressed, as if waiting for me to catch a punch line.

Finally it hit me: sure enough, it was another yellow jacket.

Teach Me to Savor

fallI went on my final bike ride of the season a couple weeks ago—one of those sun-kissed days when the light bounces off the red maples and the golden poplars, the sky is an impossible shade of blue, and the air is rich with the smell of earth and bonfires. Every time the breeze blew, the sky rained leaves, the yellow and red confetti falling in fistfuls as I rode.

Of course, at the time I didn’t know it would be the last ride of the year. But here in the Midwest, November is notoriously fickle, and winter has a way of sneak-attacking you.

My husband and I have ongoing discussions about the merits and demerits of fall. He is Mr. Summer, relishing the long, hot days so he can ride his bicycle to his heart’s content. I tell him the things I love about fall, but he shakes his head, unconvinced. As I tick off the highlights of the season—apple crisp, walks in the woods, s’mores over an open fire—he logically points out that you can do all those things in the summer, but with warmer weather and longer days. “Fall is just the warning that winter is coming,” he says.

It wasn’t until I was riding my bike that day that it finally hit me that that’s precisely its appeal.

The particular beauty of fall comes because you know it won’t last.

Summer, with its endless days and languorous nights, its extravagant greens and lush flowers, seems to stretch on without end. But in the fall, reminders are everywhere that this beauty is fleeting. The trees chameleon overnight. Branches shed their leaves in a single storm. The nip in the air arrives out of nowhere one morning. Without warning, it’s time to pull the sweaters out of hibernation.

Here’s what I think: Autumn is God’s reminder to savor.

It’s a wake-up call that no season, no matter how wonderful, no matter how painful, will last forever. Fall is God’s way of saying, “Each day is a gift. Don’t take it for granted—but don’t hoard it either. Just see the beauty of today and soak it in.”

If you find yourself in a season of bliss right now, don’t fear the changing seasons ahead. Savor the gifts of the right-now. And if you are going through a painful season, look for beauty amid the dying. Savor this—yes, even this.

Autumn . . . the year’s last, loveliest smile.
William Cullen Bryant

Fireflies of the Soul

At first glance, it may seem that God sprinkled the Midwest with the leftovers when he was distributing nature’s gifts. We can’t see the purple mountains’ majesty from here, and our shorelines boast no waving palm trees. We don’t waken to the sound of crashing ocean waves or plunging waterfalls, and our rest stops don’t sell postcards of stately lighthouses.

 

But over the years I’ve come to suspect that God had a few secrets up his sleeve when he made the heartland, a few gifts to compensate for an otherwise lackluster showing. These gifts aren’t big or loud or dramatic, and only those with a discerning eye notice them. But once you discover them, like so many clues on a treasure hunt, you just may find yourself settling in and calling the place home.

 

There are the sunny daffodils that peek sleepy heads out of the ground after a long, cold winter. There’s the never-ending canvas of sky, alternately dotted with cotton-ball clouds and painted with fiery oranges and pinks as the sun dips below the horizon. There’s the beautiful dying of the trees as they explode in a final display of color before hunkering down for the winter.

 

And then there are the fireflies that make their appearance on hot summer evenings. Maybe most of all, the fireflies.

 

firefly1

 

My friend and I were walking along the trail at dusk the other night, and it was one of those evenings that succumbed to nightfall in a whisper of a second. One moment we could see the path beneath our feet, and the next we were treading into darkness.

 

Maybe the cover of evening makes it easier for truth to leak out, but it was in that sacred moment of dusk-to-darkness that my friend’s secret spilled over the edges. Her happy, surprising news that just couldn’t stay bottled up inside her anymore.

 

The words were barely off her lips when the fireflies ignited in a symphony of lights, illuminating the sky with their pulsing. Just one moment earlier they were nowhere to be found, yet with the single flip of a switch, we were surrounded by thousands of tiny flashlights, small enough to fit in the palm of our hands.

 

And I wondered: Had they appeared out of nowhere, on cue somehow? Or had they been there all along, and I just couldn’t see them without the curtain of darkness?

 

firefly4

 

Most of the time I fear the darkness, shrink away from it, attempt to push it back. But what if some of those secret bursts of light God has hidden in my heart can only show up against the backdrop of darkness?

 

I don’t want to miss anything in this ordinary, glorious landscape of my Midwestern soul. So if the darkness needs to come as a backdrop to those little divine beacons, then let it come. Let it come, so I can see the flickering light, so I can hold it in the palm of my hand. I don’t want to miss a single firefly of the soul.

 

“We do not truly see light, we only see slower things lit by it, so that for us light is on the edge—the last thing we know before things become too swift for us.”

—C. S. Lewis

God the Romantic

It was the longest my husband, Daniel, and I had been apart since we got married—approximately 61 hours (not that I was keeping track). I’d been out of town for work, and although the conference was well worth my while, by the time my coworker dropped me off at my car, I was ready to be heading home.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I looked to my right and saw a guy on a bicycle. Wow, I thought, that looks a lot like Daniel’s bike. I checked to see if the light had changed, then glanced at the cyclist again. Hmm, he’s built a lot like Daniel too. I did a double take. Wait…that IS Daniel!

Sure enough, he had ridden the 20 miles from our home just so he could see me at the soonest possible moment. On a pragmatic level, it didn’t make much sense. All that time and energy could have been poured into something more productive, more practical. Something that would have offered a more tangible payoff than merely the look of shock and wonder on my face.

Once we got Daniel’s bicycle loaded in the back of my car and the decibel level of my squealing came to a decrescendo, we headed home together. The sun was just starting to set, and we were driving straight toward it. It was one of those skies you’d be hard pressed to describe with definable colors, even with the help of one of those 150-crayon Crayola boxes. The clouds out the passenger window were on fire with iridescent oranges and yellows. Straight ahead, rays of light were bursting through a curtain of purply clouds.

And in that moment I was reminded that, like Daniel, our Creator is a romantic. Sure, he made this world operational and scientifically coherent, but I appreciate that he also made it beautiful. Impractically so. He could have made a perfectly functional black-and-white world…one without sunsets and 20,000 varieties of daisies and 339 species of hummingbirds.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?
—Psalm 8:3-4

I have to wonder if God, too, delights in surprising us. He must figure it’s worth all the effort to create something so breathtaking that we are jolted out of our routine, forced to double-take, compelled to look at him with fresh eyes.

That night as our car rolled westward, I found myself amazed that the Creator-God, who could have been doing anything at all in our great big universe, would choose, in that moment, to be with “mere mortals” like us.

In the presence of such majesty, we can only join with David in his psalm of praise:

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
—Psalm 8:9

***

What part of God’s creation causes you to do a double-take?

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.