Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

The Divine Palindrome

I’ve always had a weak spot for palindromes. When I learned the word from Mrs. Strukel in fourth grade, I became a little obsessed. I’d sit at my desk daydreaming up all the palindromes I could think of (mom, dad, race car, taco cat), and I’d secretly get a little giddy whenever the digital clock hit a magical number like 12:21.

My love for these quirky words hasn’t abated much over the years. I was ridiculously excited about my 33rd birthday, because after all, palindromic birthdays come only once each decade. I made it a point to ride in my Civic and a Toyota that day, and although I didn’t add random people named Hannah or Bob to my guest list, I will admit the thought crossed my mind.

It never occurred to me until recently, however, that God was a fan of palindromes. Then I read this quote by Eugene Peterson:

The way we come to God is the same way that God comes to us. God comes to us in Jesus; we come to God in Jesus.
Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

Do you see the palindrome there? Us-Jesus-God. God-Jesus-us.

In the Old Testament, people longed to see God face to face. But Scripture was clear: a mortal could not look at a holy God and expect to live (Genesis 32:30). The esteemed prophet Moses saw God’s presence pass by, but even he wasn’t allowed to see God’s face (Exodus 33:20-22).

Yet in his radical grace, God didn’t leave us alone and wishing for connection with him. Instead, he sent us a divine palindrome: Jesus, who mediates between us and the Father. Jesus, who enables us to see the Father’s face and not die. Jesus, who takes on our sin so we can stand in the presence of perfection. Jesus, who intercedes on our behalf before a holy God.

We have access to a gift the ancients longed for but did not see.

I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.
Matthew 13:17

So we dare not miss this rare gift—this divine palindrome that allows us to come into the presence of Love himself.

***

What’s your favorite palindrome? Please share so I can add it to my collection!

Baby Son

nativityI am on a double countdown ’til Christmas this year. My new baby niece or nephew is due any day, and the two calendars are racing. Which will make its debut first? Baby Jesus’ birthday, or the birth day of this new baby?

When my sister was little, she prepared for Christmas like it was her job. She convinced Dad to cut down the tip-top of a pine tree from the woods to put in her room, and Mom helped her string lights from her ceiling. By mid-December, Meghan’s room was a full-blown Santa’s workshop. She’d haul up every craft supply she could find and post a note on the door, with dramatic underlines: “TOP SECRET! Keep out.” She’d spend every waking moment the final weeks before Christmas making all manner of glittery cut-out snowflakes and construction-paper ornaments for the whole family.

This year Meghan is doing a different kind of preparation as the days tick down. She’s getting a room ready for the baby. She’s packing a go-bag for the hospital. She’s making weekly treks to the doctor, checking to make sure the baby is in position. She’s prepping two-year-old Addie to be a big sister (including the possibility that, despite Addie’s adamancy that’s it’s a girl, there’s a chance she may be getting a brother).

There is so much we don’t know about this baby. Besides the gender, we don’t know what this child will look like, what kind of personality is tucked into that curled-up body, what this little one will become someday, or how the world needs this child, specifically. And yet our hearts are full of anticipation. So much longing, so much joy over this tiny person, veiled in so much mystery.

And it occurs to me that Mary must have felt much the same. It’s funny, isn’t it, that some of the biggest miracles come to us in such small packages? I wonder why God would come so tiny, so unobtrusive, when He could have come in pomp and circumstance.

In church last weekend my husband played the song “Baby Son” by John Mark McMillan, and I couldn’t help but think of the baby son (or daughter) my family is waiting to meet. So much future, so much hope, packed into seven pounds of flesh.

We thought you’d come with a crown of gold
A string of pearls and a cashmere robe
We thought you’d clench an iron fist
And rain like fire on the politics

Would I have missed Him that first Christmas, I wonder? Would I have been so busy looking for a flashier miracle that I would have overlooked the ordinary mother and her baby? Would I have deigned to believe that God’s plan to save the world could start with something so small?

But without a sword, no armored guard
But common born in mother’s arms
The government now rests upon
The shoulders of this baby son

A field of daffodils begins with a single bulb. An avalanche starts with a tiny snowflake. A classic novel starts with a solitary word. An epic love story starts with a simple greeting. A person begins as a tiny baby.

And the hope for the world began with someone so small you could hold Him in your arms.

God delights in the small things, the ordinary things, the unexpected things. I always thought that was so everything would be unveiled at the right time and so all the prophecies would be fulfilled just so. But now I think there’s another reason too: because God knows we can only handle so much miracle at once. If He gave us the full-blown itinerary, we would melt into a puddle. And so He births some of His most beautiful, magnificent plans as small beginnings.

Have you no room inside your heart
The inn is full, the out is dark
Upon profane shines sacred sun
Not ashamed to be one of us

So I’m spending this season in anticipation, alongside Mary and Meghan. I find myself waiting . . . waiting for Meghan’s baby son (or daughter). And waiting for God’s own Baby Son, who came once and will come again.

Our hearts are ready. We are longing for you. We have made room. Please come!

God’s coming is always unforeseen, I think, and the reason, if I had to guess, is that if he gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before he got there.
~Frederick Buechner

Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue

Easter is over, but the story is really just beginning. And it’s the best story, with the best possible ending.white flowers

Jesus’ resurrection is God’s promise to the world that the impossible has suddenly been made possible.

The Resurrection isn’t just the promise that something good will happen someday—it’s the promise that every bad thing will be turned upside down, into something good. The Curse will be reversed. Broken things will be restored. Love will win.

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation—this story begins and ends in joy.
—J. R. R. Tolkien

Eucatastrophe: It’s not just the opposite of catastrophe. It’s God rewriting the story, weaving in his threads of grace. It’s the heartbeat of redemption, pulsing throughout the land.

Sorrow will turn into joy.
Wounds will be healed.
Dead things will come to life.
Ugly things will be made beautiful.
Heartbreak will become hope.

In The Return of the King, after the ring is destroyed, Sam awakens and is surprised to see that Gandalf is still alive. This is what he says:

Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?

I have to imagine that’s what the Marys thought when they went to the tomb and found it empty. Everything sad is coming untrue. And I’d guess it’s what the disciples thought when they saw Jesus alive again, sitting down to eat with them. Everything sad is coming untrue.

Death is coming untrue, pain is coming untrue, sadness is coming untrue. All because he lives.

The one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
—Revelation 21:5

The Legend of the Christmas Spider

fireplace3Every year before Christmas dinner, my family reads a Christmas story together. Mom has been collecting a large binder full of stories for decades now, and we used to flip through the pages and decide on one together. But we’ve had enough Christmases together that by now we’ve read all the stories. So this year the dish I’m bringing to pass is a story. I hope you enjoy it!

***

These days Shalom the Spider wasn’t just moving slower or going gray. Now she was officially, without a doubt, old. She’d raised her own brood of spiders—several sets of multiples—and watched her grand-spiders grow up. Now she even had great-grand-spiders. Generation after generation of her family had been born right here in this little barn in Bethlehem. Some of them had stayed in the village, and some had gone off into the world, seeking new lands and new adventures.

But Shalom had been content to stay where she was—right in the barn where she’d been born and where her mother and grandmother before her had lived. This was where they’d taught her to spin and where they’d spun tales of their own.

Although Shalom had never had an itch to explore distant lands, there was one place she wished she could have visited before she died: the holy city. She’d heard tales about this place from the generations before her, as they told stories late into the night. How the tapestries in the Temple were made of rich purple and blue, how the lamps burned bright and warm all through the night. And most of all, how the people gathered at the Temple to wait for the Messiah who had been promised so many harvests ago.

Some spiders from her village came back to recount stories about their trek to the holy city—about the long climb up the mountain and how the pilgrims would sing together as they climbed so it felt more like an eight-legged dance than an arduous journey.

Every spring, Shalom had dreamed of making the trip, but every spring came and went, and she stayed home. There were offspring to care for, dinners to be caught, webs to be spun, and she could never get away. And now it was too late. Four of her knees were failing her, and they’d never carry her to the top of the Mount now.

It really didn’t bother her much anymore though; after all, she was content to be here in the place she loved, surrounded by her family for this final season of her life. But there were nights when the moon shone silver through the slats of the barn and a familiar ache would set in.

Tonight was one of those nights. So she did what she always did when she couldn’t sleep: she pulled out her special thread pile. She’d been collecting bits of string and fabric ever since she was young. Tiny pieces of cloth that fell off the donkey’s saddle. Sturdy threads from the hem of the farmer’s garment. Scraps of fabric from travelers’ satchels. Even precious purple threads that her friends had brought back for her all the way from the holy city.

Night after night she sat weaving the threads together. As tiny as each piece was, the weaving had grown fairly large after all this time—it was almost the size of the cattle trough by now. Shalom’s friends couldn’t understand why she’d go to so much effort for something so useless. “You don’t need a blanket,” they said. “You’re a spider. And it’s not like you’re going to take it to market to sell it.”

But Shalom wove on, her legs almost on autopilot by now. Truth be told, she didn’t know herself why she did it, only that it soothed her. It felt like something she was made to do.

***

The barn animals were all sleeping when she heard unfamiliar voices just outside the barn. Who could it be at this time of night? she wondered.

She saw the woman’s belly first. Oh, poor woman, Shalom thought. Her time is coming soon.

She was right about soon. In a matter of minutes, the usually quiet barn was filled with the squall of a baby’s first cry. A hush rippled through the barn as every animal turned to look at the Child.

What is it about this Baby? Shalom wondered. He looks like any other baby I’ve seen. But her heart wouldn’t stop its wild beating inside of her.

Before she even realized what she was doing, each set of her legs was bending beneath her, bowing before this Child-King.

The mother smiled at the Baby. “This straw will have to do for your bed, little one,” she said. “I’m only sorry I don’t have a blanket for you.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Shalom rose, not even noticing the way her knees creaked beneath her. The blanket! She could give her blanket to this tiny King.

As Joseph wrapped the baby in the blanket, Shalom’s eyes filled with tears. The Messiah has come to us! I didn’t have to trek far and long to find him. He came here, of all places. And now he’s being warmed by my scraps of thread.

The one who couldn’t be contained within an entire holy city was now wrapped in something so small.

God with us. In this very barn. On this very night.

Immanuel.

***

{Author’s note: According to a Polish legend, a spider made a blanket for the Baby Jesus on the first Christmas Eve. As a result, some Polish families decorate their trees with spiders and spider webs.}

The One Prayer You Need

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.

Unveiled

It’s there in every look, every conversation, every relationship—that gauzy veil that separates us from each other. We talk about safe things—the rain, how busy we are, how we can’t wait for Friday. But the moment things start to edge toward vulnerable, we blush over the nakedness of our souls and gather the veil a little tighter around us.

This isn’t a new thing. It’s been the human way for a long time—all the way back to Adam and Eve. They tripped, they fell, they shattered their perfection communion with God. And immediately they looked for a covering, something to hide behind (Genesis 3:8). But our God—he delights in uncovering. They tried to hide from him, but he pursued them, found them, loved them.

Then there was Moses. He kept his face veiled before the people because they couldn’t handle the radiance that reflected from his face. But God didn’t want a veil to separate Moses from him. He alone met with Moses face to face, with nothing between them (Exodus 33:11).

And then there was the greatest unveiling of all, on a Friday some two thousand years ago. As Jesus hung on the cross, he felt the weight of our separation from God. He saw how we are veiled from the Father, how we long to meet with him face to face, but we’re held back by our sin, our shame, our fear. And so, as Jesus breathed his last, he tore away all that keeps us veiled from God. The Temple veil sliced open, and in that single moment, he invited us to meet with our God face to face, without fear (Matthew 27:51).

So what can pull back a veil? It is love—only love.

At that critical moment when people say their wedding vows, it is the one who loves who pulls back the veil of his beloved. Like a groom who lifts the veil from his bride’s face, Jesus comes close to us, peeling away each gauzy layer until we are intimate, exposed . . . until he’s so close we can feel his breath on our cheek.

And we tremble, fearing what he’ll say once our flaws are laid bare before him. But when we finally gather the courage to meet his eyes, we see only love on his face. Pure, unstoppable, unquenchable love. It has been there all along. We just couldn’t see it until the lifting of the veil.

So what is holding you back today?

It’s scary. I know. But I urge you to begin this journey toward vulnerable love. Come close enough to let him pull back the veil. Love is waiting on the other side.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
—C. S. Lewis

Love Is Weird

In the words of that famous theologian Liz Lemon, “Love is patient. Love is weird, and sometimes gross. Love is elusive.” Not quite the words of Paul, but I rather think he would agree.

This month I’ve been memorizing 1 Corinthians 13, trying to marinate in what it means to really love someone. Patiently. Kindly. Unjealously. Hopefully. Enduringly. Unfailingly. I’ve been doing my best to put this into practice with my husband, my family, my friends.

But recently I was struck by this lightning-bolt realization:

I don’t get to choose who to love.

Earlier this week I was an utter jerk to someone. The story isn’t interesting, but suffice it to say that I was petty and selfish and rude and stubborn. Most of the time I’m able to keep the ugly pretty well underground, but on that day it came bubbling right to the surface.

All those good words I’d sealed into my heart about not being rude and self-seeking flew right out a sneaky back door reserved for caveats. Somewhere along the way, I suppose I decided that it was up to me who I showered love on.

But in this week of all weeks, how can I be stingy with love? How dare I decide whether someone is worthy of love? It is, after all, the week of Passion. The week of the profoundest of all loves. The week when Love himself fulfilled his mission. The week he stretched out his arms, extending his love to every last one of us, undeserving as we are.

And so this week, as I look to Jesus’ ultimate act of love on the cross, I wonder what it would look like to love more like he does.

What if I loved like it was my job?
What if I loved till it spilled over the edges?
What if I loved without asking anything in return?
What if I loved believing it could put broken things together again?
What if I loved like it was my one assignment from Jesus?
(Because, of course, it is.)

I want to love the lovable and the less lovely. I want to love the people who are easy to love and the ones who are hard to love. I want to love, period. Even when it’s weird, or gross, or elusive.

 

The Yoke’s on Him

I am weary. Is anyone with me?rest

The laundry is piling up. The sink is full of dirty dishes. The work deadlines are looming. My to-do list is spilling off the page. The technology that promised to make my life easier has just added more items to my list. Oh, and apparently dinner is a thing again today.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to Jesus’ words about how our souls can find rest in him:

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

—Matthew 11:29

As hopeful as that sounds—rest for my soul!—I don’t entirely get it. Isn’t a yoke a symbol of work, not rest? I picture the oxen working the field with that wooden bar across their backs. If I wanted to paint a picture of rest, I’d describe a hammock gently swinging between two trees or a lounge chair on a tropical beach. Somehow the image of oxen doing heavy plowing doesn’t seem to me like the picture of soul-rest.

But recently I attended a conference by Lysa TerKeurst, who described what Jesus’ audience would have understood when he described this scene. Apparently when Jesus said “learn from me” in this context, he was referring to the process where a young, untrained ox would learn to pull a load from a more experienced animal. They shared a yoke so the younger ox could get a feel for what it felt like to pull, but the entire burden was placed on the older ox. Then the two oxen would walk together, side by side, until the young animal gradually grew stronger.

And so it is for us. Soul rest doesn’t mean we escape our reality and our responsibilities. God doesn’t give us a free pass from the things we’ve been called to do. But it does mean he carries the weight for us—the burden is on him. Our job is to walk closely with him, right by his side. It means we are never alone as we carry out the big and small tasks he asks us to do.

There may not be fewer loads of laundry. The dirty dishes may not go away. But maybe I can do these tasks with joy, knowing he’s standing right beside me at the sink, in the laundry room. Maybe my to-do list will seem less daunting, knowing that he’s helping me task by task, day by day.

My burden may not be smaller. But someone stronger is walking through it right beside me. And he’s the one doing all the heavy lifting.

Christmas through the Eyes of a Carpenter

stable1My family has a unanimously agreed-upon no-Christmas-gifts policy, and my dad hasn’t set foot in a mall since circa 1986, so I was surprised when he told me he had something for me in the basement—something I needed to open before Christmas.

Intrigued, I made my way downstairs to find a large lump sitting on the Ping-Pong table, draped unceremoniously with a black garbage bag. I raised an eyebrow at Dad before pulling back the plastic to unveil the mystery item.

When I realized what it was, I’m pretty sure I squealed louder than I did the Christmas I was eight and awoke to find my pink-and-purple banana-seat bike under the tree. “It’s a stable!” I exclaimed. “For my nativity set!”

Ever since I’d gotten a nativity set, I’d been looking for a stable big enough to fit the figures, but I’d had no success. And since I didn’t want Mary and Joseph and the rest of the crew to look freakishly disproportionate in their Bethlehem abode, thus far the crèche figurines had been without shelter. Until now. Dad, being the handyman he is, had come up with a solution to my dilemma: he’d built a custom-sized stable himself.

My dad, Joseph, the carpenter.

He pointed out all the details of the stable: the ladder that led to the loft, the perch where a bird could sit, the spotlight that would shine on Baby Jesus, the place where he’d had to cover the blood after cutting his finger. His voice grew animated as he told me that the whole thing was made of found materials—scrap wood, paint-stirring sticks, twigs he and Mom had found in the backyard, sawdust shavings from the basement floor.

On my way home that night, glancing at the work of art in the seat beside me, I couldn’t help but think of another Joseph, another carpenter, another father. Why did God pick Joseph as Jesus’ adoptive father? I wondered. Mary features prominently in the Christmas story, but we don’t hear much about Joseph, and I guess I’d always pictured him as her silent sidekick. But surely God had a reason to write him into the story too.

As I thought about my dad pounding and sawing for months leading up to December, it struck me that at a carpenter’s very heart is the ability to believe in a crazy, far-fetched dream. A carpenter is someone who can embrace a vision before it’s a reality, someone who can take ordinary scraps and see them not as they are but as they could be one day. A carpenter is someone who believes the impossible . . . and then gets to work building it.

stable2Thousands of years ago, when Joseph heard his fiancée was pregnant, an angel appeared to him in a dream:

 Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. —Matthew 1:20-21

Joseph was given a dream that day—a dream made of ordinary-looking scraps: A pregnant girl. A common laborer. A family without clout or fortune or political connections. A community skeptical of his fiancée’s claims. But somehow Joseph was able to take those found pieces and believe that the God-given vision was true: that this baby really would be the Messiah, the promised one, the one who would save the people from their sins.

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. —Matthew 1:24

In the face of the impossible, Joseph rolled up his sleeves and got to work, doing his part to hammer a miraculous dream into reality.

So every time I see that stable on my mantel, I’ll think of two Josephs. Like those dreamers, I want to see in the scraps around me the visions God is building in my life. The pieces themselves might not be much to look at on their own. But in the deft hands of the Carpenter, they just might become something beautiful.

God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame. —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

God with Us

On the last day my three-year-old nephew was in town for a visit, his grandma and I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to do before he went back home. Without hesitation, he and his big sister replied, “We want to go to BOUNCE TOWN!”

bounce_house_oswego_ilFor the uninitiated (as I was prior to aunthood), Bounce Town is one of those places with giant inflatable slides and tunnels, moon walks, inflatable castles, and air trampolines. In other words, a dream-come-true for anyone under three feet tall.

From the moment we walked in the door, Tyler had my hand gripped in his own chubby fingers. He wanted to go everywhere with “Aunt Eppie,” as he calls me.

“Aunt Eppie go with me!” he exclaimed, racing toward the slide as I tried to keep pace.

After squirming my way through tunnels made me for people one-third my size and maneuvering around pint-sized torpedoes zipping down the slide, I asked Tyler what he wanted to do next. “Go on the Batman,” he said. “With Eppie!”

tyler_at_bounce_townAnd so I followed him to the Batman-themed inflatable, again contorting my body through various child-sized portals.

Next up was the trampoline. Tyler squealed with delight: “Eppie make me bounce in the air!”

By the time our hour had expired, I was sporting two rug burns, several sore muscles, and one headache. But you know what? It was worth every bruise, every bit of pain.

Because here’s the thing: Tyler can’t enter my world of work and e-mail and adult conversation and grown-up things. So I entered his world. It wasn’t comfortable—Bounce Town isn’t made for giants like me. But I scrunched my body through the tunnels and small spaces—all so I could be close to this boy I love, all so I could hold his hand, all so we could breathe the same air.

On the way home, tired but happy, it hit me that traipsing around Bounce Town in my stocking feet is a pretty good picture of Christmas. God wanted to be with us, but he realized how vast the gap was between us and him. So he entered into the awkward space of a human womb, squeezing himself through a narrow birth canal, experiencing unaccountable pain and discomfort throughout his three decades on earth—all so he could be with us, all so he could enter our world.

Immanuel. God with us.

Even in the tight, uncomfortable spaces of our earthly Bounce Town.

“This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all.” —Brennan Manning

Photo Credit: http://mommypoppins.com/newyorkcitykids/bounce-houses-bounce-castles-nyc-kids (top)