Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Temptation in the Form of a Giant Cookie

I learned a valuable lesson about temptation this week…from a four-year-old, no less.

My brother and sister-in-law were having a few families over for a party, and Lyla, being the little social planner she is, had a vision for the party décor that afternoon. And it did not involve the pirate ship. You see, Mom and Dad had decided to put the play ship in the basement so all the kids could play in it during the party, but Lyla didn’t think it would quite jibe with the vision she had for the basement. (She’s really four. I kid you not.)

And when that girl gets an idea in her head, you can be assured she’ll put up a Captain Hook-worthy battle to try to get her way. Sure enough, she argued with Mom and Dad, landing her promptly in her bedroom to take a rest and think about it.

When it was time to get up, she said to my brother, “Daddy, during rest time I told myself, Think, think, think! And then I decided it was a bad choice to talk back about the pirate ship.”

After my brother picked his jaw up off the floor, he and Lyla made their way downstairs to find just the right spot for the pirate ship. He was pleasantly surprised that more was sinking in to this strong-willed girl’s heart than he’d realized.

But.

The thing about four-year-olds is that they remind us, not so gently, of our humanity.

Just a few hours after my niece’s epiphanic moment, my brother noticed that the basement was just a little too quiet, so he went downstairs to check on Lyla and her two-year-old brother. He arrived just in time to see the two of them scampering down from the tall chair Lyla had dragged across the basement floor. Then he looked up on the counter and saw the evidence.

The giant chocolate chip cookie my sister-in-law had made for the party had two sets of little fingerprints smeared all over it…not to mention some undeniable lick marks. (No doubt they thought they’d get away with it since they hadn’t taken a bite, after all…)

I couldn’t help but laugh (one of the perks of being the non-parental figure), but it wasn’t long before I started pondering how much Lyla sounded like me when it comes to dealing with temptation. How is it that in one situation I can tell myself, Think, think, think and overcome a bad choice, only to cave on something else just moments later, having apparently forgotten everything I’d just learned? And who do I think I’m fooling anyway, assuming God will never notice my fingerprints smeared all over a spot I had no business being in the first place?

If the Bible is any indication, Lyla and I aren’t alone in this. The apostle Paul puts it this way:

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. . . . And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

—Romans 7:15-19

Thankfully there is grace the likes of Paul, who wants to do right but can’t.

There is grace for the likes of me, even as I take two steps forward and one step back.

And yes, there is grace for the likes of strong-willed toddlers. Even those of the cookie-licking variety.pirates

February Book of the Month Club: The Meaning of Marriage

meaning-of-marriageThanks to everyone who joined our book of the month club for February! Our selection was The Meaning of Marriage, which I introduced here.

 Here’s how it works: I’ll bring up a few discussion topics, and I’d love to hear your reactions! You can put your thoughts about these topics (or others you’d like to talk about) in the comment section.

Discussion #1: The Purpose of Marriage
I found the Kellers’ perspective on marriage counter-cultural and refreshing. Marriage is not, they claim, about making us happy. It’s about making us more into the people God intended us to be.

 What, then, is marriage for? It is for helping each other to become our future glory-selves, the new creations that God will eventually make us. (page 120)

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here’s what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, “I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that.” (page 121)

What do you think the purpose of marriage is? In what ways have you seen marriage transform you or someone you know into your “future glory-self”?

Discussion #2: Marriage as a picture of the gospel
One of my favorite themes in the book is that marriage, at its core, is a reflection of the gospel. Taken from that perspective, the hardest seasons in a marriage become purposeful, and the good parts become infused with meaning.

When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. (page 95)

Marriage has the power of truth, the ability to reveal to you who you really are, with all your flaws. How wonderful that it also has the “power of love”—an unmatched power to affirm you and heal you of the deepest wounds and hurts of your life. (page 146)

To be truly known and truly loved—this is grace. How have you seen marriage as a picture of the gospel in your life or in the lives of those you know?

Discussion #3: Submission
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the book isn’t prescriptive about what submission should look like in individual marriages. I also appreciated that it rises above the usual skirmishes about surface-level submission and digs deeper into the theology behind it.

I especially resonated with the analogy of the marriage relationship as a reflection of the Trinity. Ideally, God intended marriage to be an invitation for “male and female…to mirror and reflect the ‘dance’ of the Trinity” (page 176). Put in that perspective, submission gets taken out of the context of power and put into the context of choice. Kathy puts it this way:

 Jesus’s willing acceptance of this role was wholly voluntary, a gift to his Father. I discovered here that my submission in marriage was a gift I offered, not a duty coerced from me. (page 175)

What do you think of the idea that submission is a reflection of the interaction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What do you think the authors get right in their exploration of submission, and what would you take issue with?

Discussion #4: Singleness
I was glad to see that this book includes a chapter on singleness since it’s valuable for all of us to have a solid theology of marriage, whether we’re married or not. But I have to say I was disappointed that single people seemed to be categorically lumped into two camps: those who idolize marriage and those who are terrified of it.

I couldn’t help but feel for the healthy, well-balanced people I know who aren’t married but would like to be. They aren’t under the illusion that marriage will be perfect or will solve all their problems, nor are they running away from marriage. Certainly some people fall into those categories, but I found myself bristling on behalf of anyone who reads this and feels like their singleness is being pushed back on them as their own fault.

What do you think? Did this chapter present an accurate picture of singleness in our culture?

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Not including the chapter on singleness, I would give this book five stars. I appreciated that it is both theological and practical, that it casts a sweeping vision for marriage yet is still rooted in the real world. I’d recommend it to everyone I know who is married or is considering marriage.

How many stars would you give this book?

{Reminder: I will give away a free book to one randomly selected commenter!}

Sweet Sundays, Part 2

sweet_sundays_artworkIn this post from January, I wrote about my journey toward embracing a day of rest. Here’s the latest on my Sabbath experiment.

Not long ago I was pulled over for speeding on a Sunday morning—on the way to church, no less. The irony was not lost on me. A day of rest, and I’m rushing to get there? I managed to explain my way out of the ticket, but not the breaking of the heart of the Sabbath.

One thing I’m noticing about the Sabbath is that rest, by its very nature, forces a slower pace. And while on the one hand that sounds appealing, it can also be terrifying when you’ve grown accustomed to the adrenaline-inducing rush that comes with our culture’s frenetic pace.

I’m finding that on Sundays I have to intentionally take my foot off the gas pedal. I have to resist the urge to go faster, even when I’m not going anywhere.

One baby step I’ve taken to slow down the Sunday pace is to reconsider my communication. E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter, by their very design, are fast paced. 140 characters. A jotted note. A quick Send button. I’m realizing, come Sunday, that I need to unplug. I’m not suggesting this as a blanket rule for everyone, but for me personally, media is no friend to rest. So I’ve taken to writing letters on Sundays instead. Old-fashioned, pen and paper letters. The kind with a stamp.

In the charming little book For the Love of Letters: The Joy of Slow Communication, the author talks about the awkwardness of getting back into a letter-writing habit after years of fast communication. He says: “The nib touches the paper. And instinctively I follow the old formula….My writing looks weird. I hand-write so infrequently these days that I’ve developed a graphic stammer—my brain’s way of registering its impatience and bemusement. What are you doing? Just send an email! I haven’t got all night!”

I’ve been surprised to discover that not only is the form slower in letter writing, but so is the content. I write about different things when I’m penning a letter than I do when I’m shooting off an e-mail or a Facebook message. I tend to write about bigger things, deeper things, more permanent things, not just the wispy matters of the right-now.

Catherine Field said in a New York Times article, “A good handwritten letter is a creative act, and not just because it is a visual and tactile pleasure. It is a deliberate act of exposure, a form of vulnerability, because handwriting opens a window on the soul in a way that cyber-communication can never do.”

And that feels in line with the Sabbath to me: slowing down to open a window to the soul.

 “When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.” —Thomas Merton

How about you? What does restful (and not restful) look like for you?

Have you taken any steps toward implementing a Sabbath lately?

A True Story of Love and War and 67 Years

The year was 1946. The Nuremburg war trials had begun. Wartime price controls were being lifted in the United States. And America’s boys were slowly trickling back from the war…including the tall, dark-haired Lieutenant Voiland, having defied the odds and survived countless bombing missions on the European front.

His fiancée, Cay, had been waiting and praying anxiously, day by day, month by month, year by year, longing for her sweetheart to come home. She’d been planning their wedding while he was gone—the ultimate act of hope in the midst of a war in which half a million men who left never returned. With her trademark spunk, she refused to let the scarcity of silk prevent her from having a wedding dress, so she arranged to have a dress made from the unlikeliest of sources (I wrote about the remarkable story here).

For most of my life, I assumed Grandma and Grandpa’s February wedding date had been scheduled around Valentine’s Day. Whenever we gathered to celebrate as an extended family, we marked the occasion with red decorations and a heart-shaped cake, and I never heard anything to indicate otherwise.

It was only recently that I discovered their wedding date was determined not by Valentine’s Day but by Ash Wednesday.

“Ash Wednesday?” I asked Grandma. The dots weren’t connecting for me.

“Things were stricter back then,” Grandma said. “You couldn’t get married during Lent.”

g and g weddingOf course—Lent. The church took seriously this 40-day period of sacrifice, fasting, and repentance, and it was not the time for weddings and feasts.

Grandma winked at me. “I’d been waiting long enough,” she said. “I wasn’t about to wait until after Easter!”

And so, on a Tuesday morning, just a day before Ash Wednesday, they squeezed in a simple ceremony at the campus chapel. I’ve always been enchanted by the lone black-and-white photograph of Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day: Grandma looking beautiful and big eyed in that one-of-a-kind gown, and Grandpa, serious and handsome as ever in his classic suit.

***

This year Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fell one day apart from each other, just a week before my grandparents’ 67th anniversary, and I was struck by the tender intersection of these sacred occasions: Valentine’s Day. A much-anticipated wedding. Ash Wednesday. Lent. An anniversary marking almost seven decades of marriage. And it got me to wondering: maybe Ash Wednesday is the perfect backdrop for a wedding after all. Valentine’s Day offers fine sentiments, of course—an appropriate reminder for us to express our love each year. But real love may be more aptly captured by a day marked by sacrifice and surrender and the choice to lay down one’s life.

Grandma and Grandpa know this well. The war showed them the cost of love from the very beginning: the agonizing separation—both by an ocean and by endless days, when the only threads connecting them were their love and a string of handwritten letters. And just because the war ended, that didn’t mean the sacrifices did. With the ratio of one income to 12 children, they sometimes had more month than they had money.

And now, as my grandparents are in their golden years, they are dealing with the sacrifices of caring for each other’s needs as their bodies and minds aren’t quite what they used to be.G&G

But if you asked them about the cost of love, they’d likely look at you with a bewildered shrug. That’s just what love does. It’s the very nature of love to give, to sacrifice, to lay down one’s life for one’s beloved.

And that is, after all, what we celebrate during Lent. This season marks the greatest romance of all time: the Savior who sacrificed everything to show us his love. The one who fought courageous battles on our behalf. The one who laid down his life for the ones he loves.

Love and Lent. Perhaps they’re more connected than I realized. 

So happy 67th anniversary, Grandma and Grandpa.

And happy VaLENTine’s season, everyone.

***

If you’d like to read more about my grandma and grandpa’s love story, including how Grandma’s dress was passed down to two more generations, check out my aunt Annie’s story here.

To Anyone Who Feels Underloved on Valentine’s Day

I write this with no credentials except that I’ve spent my share of Valentine’s Days solo. And I know firsthand that there’s no way around it: it stinks to feel alone on Valentine’s Day.

I remember being single and having nice people try to cheer me up whenever February 14 rolled around. (Which it inevitably did. Every. Single Year.) I appreciated their kindness, but it kind of felt like getting a stick of gum when you’re ravenous for steak.

All that to say, I won’t pretend that anything I can say will make this day easier. But I feel compelled to say it anyway, just to let you know that you are not invisible. You are not alone. And even when it doesn’t feel like it, you are loved.

Today, if you feel betrayed or abandoned by someone you thought would never leave, this is what God says to you:

I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.

—Hebrews 13:15

Today, if you feel alone in this big world, God says:

Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

—Matthew 28:20

Today, if you feel forgotten, like so many leftovers, God says:

I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

—Isaiah 49:15-16

Today, if you feel like you got passed over when Cupid was flinging his arrows, this is what God says:

I have loved you…with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.

—Jeremiah 31:3

Today, if you feel unnoticed, damaged, unappreciated, devalued, here’s God’s promise:

The Lord your God is living among you.

He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

With his love, he will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

—Zephaniah 3:17

As for me, my love isn’t close to God’s love. It has conditions, it lets people down, it’s forgetful, it’s self-centered and fickle and cantankerous. But my prayer this Valentine’s Day is that God will weed out my own love from my heart and replace it with his love. Love that is unconditional and pure and selfless.

“In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.”

—C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

It’s with that generous love that I want to love God and my husband and my family and my friends and strangers. And it’s with that love that I love you, whoever you are, wherever you are, however alone you’re feeling right now.

Wherever you find yourself on Valentine’s Day, know this:
You. Are. Loved.

Love in the Little Things

Sometimes love is in the big things—gem-studded jewelry, exotic trips, big promises, grandiose gestures. But more often, as I was reminded the other day, it’s the little, everyday actions that string together to make up this thing we call love.

It was a Friday, and I’d just met a big deadline at work, so when I got home, Daniel suggested we go out to dinner to celebrate. We decided to try a new Thai place to replace “our” Thai restaurant that bit the economic dust (you can read the sad story here). When our food arrived, Daniel surprised me by pulling something out of his bag.

“A plate?” I asked.

When I looked more closely, things started to make more sense. The “Your Special Day” plate!

When I was a kid, Mom had a special red plate she pulled out on significant occasions—not just on birthdays, but also on days we accomplished something worth celebrating. A piano recital. A satisfactory report card. A basketball win. Shortly after I moved out on my own, my sister made me a plate like it, and now Daniel has been swept along in the tradition too.

But I certainly wasn’t expecting to have the plate show up in the middle of Tusk Thai restaurant. It was a little thing, perhaps, but it meant something big to me.

The next day I got a card in the mail—an expected burst of yellow amid the junk mail and bills. What’s this? I wondered. Christmas is over, it’s not my birthday…

I tore open the envelope to find a card from my friend Sarah that said, “Thanks for being you. I’m looking forward to another year of being your friend.” A card for no reason at all, just to tell me I meant something to her. It was a series of little things, really…she picked out just the right card, she wrote words with real pen and ink, she put a stamp in the corner so it would make its way to my mailbox. Little things; big love.

How often am I looking to God for grand gestures to prove his love—the impossible miracle, the big answer to prayer, the parting of a proverbial sea? And to be certain, God does offer those large-scale proofs of love at times. But he also gives us undeniable bread-crumb trails of his love through the smaller things too. A ray of sunshine bursting through the cloudy sky. The provision of daily bread. The innocent laughter of a child. An unlikely burst of joy that surges despite all evidence to the contrary.

May my eyes ever be open to those little acts of love. Because who knows—maybe those little things are big things after all.

***

Epilogue: Daniel and I noticed throughout dinner that we seemed to be getting more attention than the other customers. The waiter was extra friendly, and the owner kept walking by our table—not saying anything, but obviously observing us. When we’d finished our meals and were waiting for the check, we were surprised to see the waiter coming out with a plate of sumptuous coconut custard. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if this sweet treat was missing its intended mark. But no, the waiter’s eyes landed straight on me, eagerly awaiting my reaction.

I fumbled out something appreciative, but I was baffled.

“It’s not my birthday!” I whispered to Daniel after the waiter left. And then it hit me. Of course! The plate. He must have assumed “Your Special Day” meant birthday. Hence the free dessert.

I certainly wasn’t going to complain. As I looked at the last bite of custard, which Daniel had saved for me, as usual, it felt for all the world like another little piece of love, right there on my plate.plate

Mishearing God

Have you ever felt like you heard something so clearly, but the message must have gotten garbled somehow along the way?

I have voice recognition software at work that translates phone messages into text, but let’s just say the technology still has a ways to go. Case in point: yesterday it translated “Stephanie” as “Brian” and interpreted “just going to” as “jazz orchestra.”

It’s rather entertaining when communication breakdowns are of the lighthearted, technical variety. But when it comes to spiritual messages, the stakes are a bit higher.

A while ago I felt prompted to buy a Bible, and not just any Bible—one of those big, classic, leather-bound numbers. I didn’t know why or who it was for, but the message was undeniable: Buy this Bible. And so, despite feeling rather foolish, I made the purchase, wondering when I’d get my next set of instructions.

Not long after, my husband and I were packing for a nine-hour train ride to visit his family. We were carrying everything on with us, and our bags were stuffed. Just as I was wrestling with the zipper on my bloated carry-on, another prompting came out of nowhere: Take the Bible with you.

I was pretty sure I’d misunderstood, and I haggled with God over it. Surely he didn’t mean I’d have to take it with me on the train! Couldn’t I compromise and take a smaller Bible, one that wouldn’t cause permanent spinal damage? Or once I met the person I was supposed to give the Bible to, couldn’t I just write down their address and mail it to them? But the directions felt unambiguous, so I obliged.

All through the trip my eyes were peeled, searching for the person in need of a Bible. Maybe it would be someone sitting in the aisle across from us or a fellow passenger we met in the dining car. Maybe it would be one of Daniel’s relatives or his parents’ neighbors. Perhaps it would be a stranger we encountered at some point on the trip. As silly as I felt, I was eager to see what God would do, to have a testimony about how I’d carried that Bible around and then God had led me to just the right person at the precise moment.

It never happened.

I lugged that big Bible home again—all nine hours—and never got another nudge about what to do with it. Did I miss the person I was supposed to give it to? I wondered as our train pulled into the station. Or did I miss the instructions in the first place?

I’ve been pondering this mystery ever since—not just the Bible carry-on, but other times I’ve apparently misheard God over the course of my faith journey, times that have left more significant damage than a sore back. What am I supposed to make of those times I’ve stepped out in faith and everything dead-ended unceremoniously…or blew up in my face?

Then I came across this story, taken from Elisabeth Elliot’s book These Strange Ashes:

One day Jesus said to his disciples: “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.” He didn’t give any explanation.

So the disciples looked around for a stone to carry, and Peter, being the practical sort, sought out the smallest stone he could possibly find. After all, Jesus didn’t give any regulation for weight and size! So he put it in his pocket.

Jesus then said: “Follow Me.” He led them on a journey.

About noontime Jesus had everyone sit down. He waved his hands and all the stones turned to bread. He said, “Now it’s time for lunch.”

In a few seconds, Peter’s lunch was over. When lunch was done Jesus told them to stand up.

He said again, “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.”

This time Peter said, “Aha! Now I get it!” So he looked around and saw a small boulder. He hoisted it on his back and it was painful, it made him stagger. But he said, “I can’t wait for supper.”

Jesus then said: “Follow Me.” He led them on a journey, with Peter barely being able to keep up.

Around supper time Jesus led them to the side of a river. He said, “Now everyone throw your stones into the water.” They did.

Then he said, “Follow Me,” and began to walk.

Peter and the others looked at him dumbfounded.

Jesus sighed and said, “Don’t you remember what I asked you to do? Who were you carrying the stone for?”

The story got me to wondering: maybe it wasn’t that I’d misheard after all. Maybe the truth is that obedience is a reward in itself. Maybe I was supposed to carry this load for Jesus, even if I never understand why. Just because he asked me to.

What if sometimes God just wants to see if I’m willing to say yes?

What burden are you carrying right now?

What would it look like to be obedient, even when you don’t know why you have to carry such a heavy load?

 

 

Imago Dei

With all due respect to the pastors and professors I’ve been privileged to learn from over the years, some of my best lessons in theology have come from children (see these ponderings) or those with childlike hearts.

Not long ago I was having lunch at my friend Luann’s house with our friends Cheryl and Heather. Cheryl has faith of the purest variety, and she radiates joy in a way I can only dream of. She also happens to have Down syndrome. (For more about Cheryl, read this story.)

Cheryl was especially full of joy at lunch that day because she got to meet Heather’s twin babies for the first time. I’m not sure Cheryl understood what a double miracle these babies are (check out the amazing story here), but she was doubly taken with the idea of not just one but two babies.

The moment Heather brought little Claire inside from the cold and unzipped her carrier, Cheryl rushed over to take a look. She leaned in close to gaze at Claire’s big-eyed smile before planting a kiss right on Claire’s cheek. And then, lifting her face to the ceiling, Cheryl whispered, “The face of God.”

Heather and Luann and I just stared at each other. It was truer than anything we could have said ourselves.

The face of God.

Luann finally broke the spell with her trademark humor. “What about me, Cheryl?” she asked, pointing to her own face. “Don’t you think the same thing when you look at me?”

Cheryl broke into a grin. “Yeah, you too,” she said. “Everybody shows us the face of God.”

She’s right, I know. But how often I forget it.

The Bible opens with a statement every bit as radical as Cheryl’s, right from the first chapter of the first book:

God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them.

—Genesis 1:27

Imago Dei: the idea that human beings have inherent value because they’re made in the image of God. Not because of what they can accomplish or contribute, but simply because they reflect their Creator.

What would it look like, I wonder, if I could start seeing people that way? The way Cheryl does?

The person who just cut me off in traffic.

Imago Dei.

The person who is socially awkward or less than beautiful by the world’s standards.

Imago Dei.

The person who is just downright difficult to love.

Imago Dei.

The man without a home, the woman with the mental illness, the leader who broke his promise, the coworker who burns the popcorn.

All of them, Imago Dei.

I once heard a lovely legend about God’s creation of human beings. According the story, God looked into a mirror, and the mirror shattered into millions of pieces. The pieces fell to the earth below, and each one became a unique individual. Now each person reflects a different part of God’s face, and we can’t get the full picture of what he looks like until we seek him in the faces of all those around us.

So thank you for the reminder, Cheryl. When we gaze into the face of a human being, it is no small thing. For in a real way, we are getting a glimpse into the very face of God.

How would it change the way you saw yourself if you knew you were Imago Dei?

How would it change the way you saw other people if you knew they were Imago Dei?

 IMG_0447

What My Two Favorite Toddlers Taught Me about Faith

If I were to imagine how Jesus would describe how we need to come to him, I might expect any number of analogies. Maybe we should come to him like a scholar, eager to study and learn more about him. Or as a martyr, passionate and ready to follow him, even to the point of death. Maybe we should we come as a theologian, with all the right answers. Or as a hero, full of bravery and triumph.

But no . . . Jesus says we should come to him, of all things, like a child.

In the past when I’ve read Jesus’ words about coming to him childlike, I had a sort of fuzzy notion that he was referring to innocence and dependence. And while that may be part of the picture, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to it than that.

I recently had the auntly delight of spending a few days with my four-year-old niece and my two-year-old nephew, and thanks to them, the whole notion of childlikeness is no longer theoretical. Here are some things Lyla and Tyler taught me about how Jesus wants us to come to him.

1. Ask questions. Lots of them.

At four, Lyla is at the stage where she’s taking the pieces of her world and trying to make sense of them. “Why can’t Aunt Eppie play with me instead of going to work?” “Why won’t they let the birdies at the zoo fly?” “How come Grandpa Joe can use potty talk and I can’t?” “What does canoodling mean?” We tend to assume that faith means not having any questions, but maybe it just means we’re secure enough in the relationship to ask the hard questions.

2. Trust your dad.

When we went to the pumpkin farm, Tyler delighted in freefalling off the hay bales into my brother’s arms, utterly confident his dad would catch him. Where I would have been screaming in terror, he giggled in delight. He knew his daddy wouldn’t let him down. And it left me feeling convicted: why don’t I trust my Father that way?

3. Find joy in the right-now.

As adults, we get bored easily, always ready to move on to the next thing. But Tyler followed Fermi the dog around endlessly, squealing in delight every time he was on the receiving end of a slobbery doggie kiss. As for Lyla, she’d say, “Tell me a story!” some eighteen times a day, never tiring of the yarn-spinning, even when my stories started sounding suspiciously like recycled fairy tales. Can I see the good gifts God has placed in my life, or am I always looking ahead, wishing for the next thing?

4. Be close to the people you love.

Lyla was my little shadow for a couple of days, which was just fine with me…except when it was time to use the restroom. “Aunt Eppie, why do you have to shut the door when you go to the bathroom? Why do you need your pribacy?” Restrooms aside, it warmed my heart to know that this precious child wanted to be near me. And I have to wonder…does God wish I would be a little more eager to follow him around?

I have no doubt Jesus had the likes of Lyla and Tyler in mind when he gave this mini sermon about childlikeness:

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.

When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.

—Mark 10:13-16

I want to receive the Kingdom of God that way. Like Lyla and Tyler, I want to come to God with my tough questions. I want to trust him with utter abandon. I want to bubble over with joy at the little gifts he brings into my life. I want to be as close as possible to the God I love.

I want to come to him with my whole heart.

The way a child does.

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.