Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Serendipity

They say it is coincidence,
The way the sun bursts through the clouds,
The rainbow after the storm,
The check in the mail, like so much manna,
The hope that beats unmerited in your chest.

They say it is random,
Simple happenstance,
The way the right words come at the right time,
The answer to a prayer you’ve barely whispered.
They call it a happy accident,
The shift of the universe,
Atoms in entropy.

But I am a mother now,
I have peeked behind this part of the curtain.
Tiny notes are tucked into lunchboxes,
Scraped knees are tended,
Groceries appear in the pantry,
Feverish brows are tended,
The right gift appears for the occasion,
Lullabies are sung deep into the night.

“It’s my lucky day!” the child exclaims.
And the mother nods, smiles,
winks.

Perhaps it is only chance
For the one receiving it.
Maybe coincidence is really
A divine love note,
A kiss breaking through the barrier of heaven.

Maybe it’s just another way to say
I love you.

There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak . . . even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere.

Frederick Buechner

A Letter to Our Baby

Dear Baby,

Your dad nicknamed you Spark. Months ago, before our scary ultrasound, he decided it was a fitting name. I never figured out how he came up with it, but it didn’t matter. It just seemed right.

And now more ever, the name suits you perfectly.

The doctor said some scary words in that office after your ultrasound . . . words like genetic abnormality and restricted fetal growth and stillbirth and preterm. Baby Spark, we don’t know exactly what’s happening, and as much as the doctors try to pin it all down, they really don’t know the whole story either.

Your dad and I have so many dreams and hopes for you. We wonder what your personality will be like, what you’ll be passionate about, what you’ll like and dislike, what you’ll be gifted at, if you’ll have your dad’s blue eyes or your mom’s single dimple. We’ve imagined so many possibilities for your future.

Spark, we wouldn’t have chosen any of those scary doctor-words for you. We would choose words like healthy and whole and perfect for you if we could. But don’t forget this for a moment: Although we wouldn’t choose this road for you, we choose YOU. No matter what.

And this is likely the first lesson of many to come for us: that as much as we love you, as much as we’re honored that you’ve been temporarily entrusted to us, you are not ultimately ours. You are God’s child, on loan to us. And so we don’t get to map out your life or control what happens to you—we just get to love you and raise you with the wisdom God grants us.

***

That day of the ultrasound, right after we got this news we weren’t expecting, your dad and I were sitting in the lobby of the hospital. Instead of going to a celebratory lunch before we headed back to work, we found ourselves perched on blue plastic chairs, trying to process what we’d heard. I was ugly-crying, not even caring about the stream of people staring at us as they made their way through the lobby.

Your dad was holding my hand, plying me with tissues. After a while he said something I’ll never forget: “I feel like our baby is saying to us, ‘I am a child of God.’”

That moment marked a pivot for me. It was at once obvious and revolutionary. If we truly believe you are a child of God—and we do—then our dreams and hopes and plans for you come second. We choose to surrender all our ideas in favor of what God has in mind for you.

That Sunday, just two days later, your dad played this song with the worship band in church:

From my mother’s womb
You have chosen me
Love has called my name

Spark, we believe that no matter what happens, God is going to use you to shine for him. Maybe that will be because he surprises everyone and you enter this world miraculously healthy. Or maybe you will shine for him precisely because there’s something unique about you that this world would deem less than perfect.

I’m no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God

And so, Spark, we are trying to choose love instead of fear. We believe you are God’s beloved child. And we believe he is going to use you to ignite hearts for him. You are only the size of a cantaloupe, but already you are shining. Already we love you like crazy.

Love,
Mom and Dad

If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.
Julian of Norwich

When Your Greatest Joy Collides with Your Greatest Fear

If someone managed to do an X-ray of the soul, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that our places of deepest joy are located right beside our places of deepest sorrow. I’ve spent the larger part of a lifetime assuming life should come one emotion at a time. A season of joy, then a season of pain. Heartache followed by a dream-come-true. All compartmentalized into neat categories.

But as it turns out, life rarely unfolds that way. The good and the bad often fly at us scattershot: joy and pain in simultaneous explosions. The happiness is so woven in with the tears that we can’t separate them out without losing both.

There’s an old song I love by Rich Mullins called “We Are Not as Strong as We Think We Are”:

With these our hells and our heavens So few inches apart We must be awfully small And not as strong as we think we are

Isn’t that about right? Our hells and our heavens, mere inches away from the other.

And that’s where Daniel and I find ourselves right now—smack dab in the middle of both. Great joy intertwined with deep sorrow.

Twenty weeks ago, God fulfilled a dream I’ve held on to for years—one of the most tender desires of my heart. My body wasn’t cooperating, my biological clock was working against me, and the doctors said it was impossible. But one brisk morning in January, to our speechless delight, Daniel and I found out there was new life growing inside me.

This is our miracle, our answer to prayer, our little piece of heaven on earth.

But just inches away—and weeks away—we bumped into one of our deepest fears.

***

We went into the ultrasound rather giddy about meeting this baby of ours, naïvely thinking the biggest question would be whether to find out the gender. After much contemplation, we decided to be surprised.

We were surprised. But the gender was the least of it.

After the ultrasound was over, the doctor came in and did a second one. That’s when I felt the first niggling of trepidation. Wouldn’t a doctor be too busy to repeat what the tech just did? But I was on such a high after seeing the baby’s button nose and tiny fingers that I was caught off guard when the doctor called us into her office.

“We suspect a genetic abnormality,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she were mentioning it might rain later.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

I’ve heard Psalm 139 countless times, but honestly, I’ve always skipped over the “fearfully” part and moved right on to “wonderfully.” The images we saw in the ultrasound served as incontrovertible evidence of the wonderful part. Before our baby weighed a full ounce, the kidneys and liver were formed. Before this child was the size of an avocado, the heart was thrumming away at 150 beats a minute. Wonderfully made indeed.

But in that doctor’s white-walled office, fearfully took on ferocious new meaning. I am carrying a wonder inside me, yes. But inseparable from that wonder is fear. Fear about what could happen if something is amiss with just one of the 46 chromosomes. Fear about the ramifications if this baby enters the world too soon. Fear about how fragile life is for all of us, but especially for someone who is currently only about one pound.

This baby is, even now, being masterfully and tenderly knit together by the Creator himself. In the meantime, I need to know: How can I hold on to both the fear and the wonder? I don’t want to revel in the wonder alone and deny the legitimate fear. And I don’t want to let the fear eclipse the wonder altogether. So somehow I need to find a way to embrace both at once.

It’s a risk, this business of loving someone. But isn’t that part of what it means to be made in the image of the Creator who knit us together? He knows full well our frailties and weaknesses and humanness. And yet he loves his children with abandon. To love is to risk being hurt. But it’s worth the risk.

As we wait in the unknown these next four months, I wouldn’t choose any other way than the bumpy road of love. Even if it means that our hells and our heavens, our fears and our wonders, are separated by mere inches.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.
C. S. Lewis

10 Things I’ve Learned in My 30s

birthday

It’s my 39th birthday this week, which has prompted me to do some reflecting on my thirties. Whenever people in their twenties ask me about turning thirty, I tell them that the thirties are so much better than the twenties, and I mean it. Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the past almost-decade:

1. It’s not up to you to make people like you.

As a recovering people-pleaser, I’ve spent chunks of decades worrying what other people think of me. Not only is this exhausting, it also makes it hard to tell who likes you for who you really are. Here’s my advice to my fellow people pleasers out there: Aim for pleasing God and being authentic to who he made you to be, and let everything else fall as it may.

2. Wear clothes that make you feel good.

How did it take me until I was thirtysomething to realize that I find dress pants soul-sucking? Take it from someone who wishes she’d had a sartorial epiphany sooner: Find your style. Embrace it. Then jettison the clothes you don’t like.

3. Find a groove that works for you.

In your twenties, you can get by on haphazard sleep and a slapdash schedule. But in my thirties, I’ve found that I need to identify the things that recharge me and then make them a priority. For me that includes things like going to bed by ten, taking walks to the library, carving out time to write, and having regular coffee dates with friends; otherwise I get wonky fast. What are the things that recharge you? Set aside time for those things, and don’t apologize for making them sacred.

4. Get out of your rut.

Okay, I realize I just said “find a groove,” but the flip side is that it’s also important to try new things every once in a while. I’m a creature of habit, so this takes intentionality for me, but I’ve come to realize that some of my most meaningful experiences have come from times I did something out of my comfort zone.

5. Be grateful for the present.

For most of my twenties, I found myself always looking ahead to what was next, whether out of worry or anticipation. Almost as soon as one prayer request was answered, I’d be on to the next one. But how much life do we miss out on when we’re constantly fast-forwarding into the next phase? I hope in my thirties I’ve been able to savor more, to be grateful for the right-now.

6. Love is worth the risk.

Love feels scary sometimes, and I’m not going to promise that love will never hurt. As C. S. Lewis says, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” But I will vouch for the fact that even though love means opening yourself up to pain, the pain is worth it. And sometimes the pain itself increases your capacity for love.

7. Dream big and fail big.

I’m an INFJ by Meyers-Briggs personality type, meaning I’m not a natural-born risk taker. I’d rather play it safe and think something through from every possible angle to make sure I don’t fail or make a mistake. But here’s the truth: sometimes you just have to jump. You have to go all in, not having all the facts, not knowing how it’s going to end. And sometimes you will fail. But you know what? It’s okay. That’s not the end of the story; it just makes for an interesting side plot.

8. Embrace the little people in your life.

One of the best things about my thirties has been being an aunt to seven amazing nieces and nephews. Kids remind you how to laugh, how to ask big questions, and how to wonder again. Whether or not you have children or small relatives of your own, I highly recommend that you find some little people to invest in. I can’t guarantee if the kids will benefit, but you will definitely be the richer for it.

9. Call your mom.

When we’re young, I think most of us have a certain sense of invincibility—not only about ourselves but about those we love. We have this unchecked idea that our people will always be there for us in the same way they are now. But as I get older, I am becoming more aware of mortality—my own and other people’s. So I want to seize the little moments with the people I love—the ordinary phone calls with my mom, the discussions about life and the news with my dad, the trips to the zoo with my nieces and nephews, the Sunday visits with my grandma, the weekly crossword puzzles with my sister.

10. God is bigger and smarter than I am.

I have come up with plenty of scripts for my life over the years—plans for what I’d do and when I’d do it and how it would all unfold along the way. But it turns out that God has much better ideas than I could come up with—and he knows me better than I know myself. It’s usually not until retrospect that I can trace what he was doing, but I’ve been through enough with him by now to know that he’s doing something good, whether I can see it yet or not.

Bonus: Say yes to ice cream.

I’m already at #10 on my list, but Daniel made me coffee ice cream for my birthday, which reminded me of one more thing I need to add: leave a little room in your life for the sweet things.

***

How about you? What are you learning in this decade of your life?

How Long Is Five Years?

wedding walkingDaniel,

We have been married five years now, and all week I have been thinking about the strangeness of time. In some ways, it’s hard to believe it’s been five years already. And in other ways, it seems like we’ve been a team much longer.

As I’ve been pondering how long five years is, this is the best I’ve come up with: Five years isn’t very long. And five years is long enough.

Five years isn’t very long.

It’s not long enough to get old together, not long enough to be the adorable gray-haired couple at the restaurant next to us. They haven’t uttered a word to each other since they sat down, but I get the feeling they’ve had more conversation with their eyes than I’ve managed with all my many words in the past hour.

Five years isn’t long enough to have more years behind us than we have ahead of us, Lord willing. It’s not long enough to know what legacy we’ll leave behind. We saw your grandpa last week, surrounded by his thirteen children, many of whom are gray-bearded grandfathers themselves now. “Grandma Sheila would have loved this,” he said, shaking his head in wonder at the hundred-plus progeny surrounding him, all because he married his high school sweetheart seventy years ago.

Five years isn’t very long.

And yet five years is long enough.

It’s long enough for you to load my toothbrush 2,000 times, long enough to put 60,000 miles on our car, long enough to fall asleep partway through 200 Friday-night movies with you. It’s long enough to attend seven weddings and two funerals and a dozen family vacations together.

Five years is long enough to make ice cream together and walk to the library together and ride our bikes together (you at half your normal speed). It’s long enough to laugh until we almost lose bladder control over things that would make no sense to the general population, and long enough to cry a jar full of tears . . . some in spite of each other and some because of each other.

Five years is long enough to navigate who is going to make dinner and pay the bills and empty the dishwasher, even if it’s not the way our parents did it or the way we figured it out so neatly out on our premarital class worksheets. And it’s long enough to renegotiate when things fall apart because one of us is writing a book or adjusting to a new job.

Five years is long enough to say goodbye to the first place we lived together. It’s long enough to buy a house, and long enough to bail water out of the basement of said house while wondering what, exactly, we’d gotten ourselves into. It’s long enough to dig out a tiny garden, and long enough to eat the first tomato we planted with our own hands.

Five years is long enough to win and fail, to hope and despair, to wait and wonder, to break and heal. It’s long enough to sing and forget the words and remember them again.

Five years is long enough to know that although I loved you with my whole heart the day I said “I do,” I somehow love you more now than I did then. Something mysterious has happened along the way: I still love you with my whole heart, but it turns out loving you has broadened the borders of my heart.

Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. . . . The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. 
Henri Nouwen

Five years isn’t very long. But it’s long enough to know that five years isn’t long enough.

Happy fifth, my love. Here’s to many more years of the Daniel and Stephanie Team.

When Love Is Pronounced “Donut”

donut

Did you know that sometimes people are actually saying “I love you,” even when like the words coming out of their mouths sound altogether different? It’s true. Case in point: Sometimes people try to form the word “love” and it comes out sounding like “donut.”

When I was a kid, we’d go to Washington State every summer to visit my grandparents. There were so many fun memories from those July days: picking raspberries in Grandpa’s garden, going waterskiing on the Columbia River, and playing endless games of shuffleboard in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard.

But one of my favorite memories from those trips was waking up early to the heavenly smell of homemade donuts. Without fail, Grandma would get up before the crack of dawn so she could whip together the first batch. By the time everyone else woke up, the countertops were lined with doughy goodness: traditional circle donuts, donut holes, and donuts dusted with powdered sugar. By the time I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and ambled to the kitchen in all my pajamaed glory, Grandma had been on her feet for hours.

I’m not sure I could have articulated it then, but now I know that what she was saying with those donuts was “I love you.” If Gary Chapman ever adds a sixth love language to his classic book, I’m lobbying for it to be food. Because food is, without a doubt, the way Grandma communicates love.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to realize that love doesn’t have as narrow of a definition as I used to imagine. Maybe I’d watched one too many romantic comedies or Disney-fied fairy tales, but I used to have the notion that love was primarily a happily-ever-after sort of thing that’s found only on rare occasions. And I had the idea that if you loved someone, you probably had to make an eloquent speech about it.

But now I’m starting to realize that there is so much love all around, if only we can recognize it. And there are a lot of ways to express that love beyond the traditional “I love you.”

When your mom says, “Call me when you get home,” she’s really saying “I love you.”
When your dad says, “I can fix that for you,” he’s really saying “I love you.”
When your friend says, “Let’s get coffee,” she’s really saying “I love you.”
When God paints a sunrise for you just as you’re walking out the door, he’s really saying “I love you.”

And of course, when your grandma makes you donuts, she’s really saying “I love you.”

One of the greatest gifts of writing my memoir was getting to relive a chunk of my life and trace all the love that came in unexpected places. No, it didn’t come in the form of a husband and kids during that season of my life the way I’d planned. But even so, God was pouring out so much love onto me that it seeped out through every crack and crevice.

How often do we miss the love because it doesn’t come in the package we expect?

Today is National Donut Day, but I’d like to hereby proclaim it National Look-for-the-Love Day. So whatever form loves comes to you in today, whether via donuts or otherwise, I urge you to recognize it for what it is. Embrace the love, even when it comes in an unlikely package.

***

So what’s your story? When has love come to you in an unexpected way or from an unexpected source?

Share the love . . .

If you share this post, you will be eligible to win TWO Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards—one for you and one to share with someone you love.

Wasted Love

If you had been alive during that first Easter, who would you have been?

Would you have been Peter, bold and brash, defending Jesus in the only way you knew how?

Would you have been John, quiet and steadfast in your heartbreak?

Would you have been one of the women who wiped Jesus’ brow on his agonizing climb to Golgotha, showing love even as your hopes crumbled?

Would you have been Thomas, asking for proof yet keeping a sliver of belief alive?

I’m not sure who I would have been. I like to think I’d cling to hope even before I could see how everything unfolded, but I’m not sure. I’m much better at believing in miracles in retrospect, after I have the whole picture.

But it’s easy to identify the person I would like to be. I want to be Mary, who poured out her perfume on Jesus’ feet.

Just before he died, Jesus went to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. And there, Mary enacted a most extravagant gesture of love. Here’s the story:

Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.
John 12:3

You might think everyone around would have been impressed by Mary’s act of generosity. Instead, she was judged for being wasteful.

Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray [Jesus], said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”
John 12:4-5

According to some scholars, this jar of perfume was likely Mary’s dowry—what would have been given to a suitor to pay the bride price. The perfume was essentially her past and her future . . . and she lavished it on an uncredentialed rabbi from a backwoods town.

Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
John 12:7-8

Sometimes I find myself assuming that Jesus would have been ultra-practical—frugal, even. “Waste not; want not”—that’s in the Bible somewhere, right? Somewhere near “God helps those who help themselves”?

But to my surprise, Jesus didn’t chastise Mary over the apparent wastefulness of her act. He didn’t tell her she should have focused on her savings account or reserved some her retirement. He didn’t even criticize her for not giving to charity.

He told her that her lavish devotion, her extravagant love, was beautiful.

And this Holy Week I wonder: What am I willing to “waste” on God and the people he’s given me to love?

Am I so concerned about being careful and judicious and economical that I fail to shower my love in unpractical ways?

What would it look like for us to show extravagant, “wasteful” love this week?

  • Maybe extravagant love looks like scrapping our to-do list and doing some leisurely Bible reading instead.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like “wasting” the afternoon playing with your favorite little person, even if the proof isn’t captured on Facebook or Instagram.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like doing something for someone who will never be able to pay you back or properly thank you.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like “wasting” the morning by going on a walk and taking in the world God made.

Because here’s what I think—and I have a hunch Mary would agree: If it’s real love, it’s never wasted.

Seven Decades of Love

g-and-g-weddingMy grandparents just celebrated their 70th anniversary. I keep trying to wrap my brain around that number, but I can’t seem to. SEVENTY YEARS. When they got married, there was no Tupperware, no credit cards, no White-Out, no barcodes, no disposable diapers.

They’ve lived through a lot in these seven decades. They rejoiced when Grandpa made it back safely from World War II, and they got married as soon as possible, on a Tuesday morning. They had twelve children in the span of fourteen years. (Remember the part about no disposable diapers?!) They built a huge bench on one side of the kitchen table to accommodate their growing family and made do with a seemingly insurmountable person-to bathroom ratio.

They witnessed the birth of the next generation (their grandchildren) and now the next (their great-grandchildren). They marveled as family reunions numbered in the hundreds . . . and reached unprecedented decibels. They persevered after Grandpa’s stroke, moving into a place that required less upkeep.

Now Grandma and Grandpa have a daily routine of simple love: eating lunch together and then taking naps side by side in their reclining chairs. Grandpa sleeps a lot now and no longer talks much, but Grandma cheerfully carries the conversation.

One of my favorite stories about Grandma and Grandpa is how they got engaged. Grandpa was flying planes in Europe while Grandma spent Thanksgiving with Grandpa’s parents and brother. After dinner, Grandpa’s brother pulled out the ring on his little brother’s behalf, having gotten specific instructions on size, style, and cut. Grandpa may not have been there physically, but his love was. Their love tethered them across an ocean, across multiple time zones, across a war.

In some ways, it’s not so different now. Grandpa is there physically, but he’s not the strong, vibrant, intellectual man he used to be. Still, their love is no less present. Even now, their love tethers them across sickness, age, loss, and change.

When I wished Grandma a happy anniversary last week, she said, “Honey, we’re so blessed. We’ve had so many more happy years than hard years. I wish you and Daniel all the years and all the love we’ve had.”

In 1943, just a few years before my grandparents got married, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a letter to a young bride and groom from his prison cell in Nazi Germany. These were his words of counsel: “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”

Daniel and I just celebrated our 5-year engagement anniversary. In some ways that seems so long—have we really known each other for half a decade? And then I think of Grandma and Grandpa and their seventy years, and I realize we are still so new at this. We don’t know what the future holds in the years ahead, but whatever comes, I pray for that tethering love . . . the kind that sustains through war and age and time. And I thank God because that love isn’t something we have to manufacture ourselves. It’s something that overflows from him.

Only 65 more years to go, my love! (But don’t do the math . . . )

What’s Your Story?

booksI have a secret to tell you about stories. Please don’t tell my publisher, though, because this could really wreak havoc on the publishing world. Here it is: We all have the same story.

Yes, the details are different in every person’s story. And we all have our own setting and characters and timeline. But the truth is, our basic plot is the same: We all flub up this thing we call life. And we all find ourselves in desperate need of God’s grace.

The backdrop of my book is that treacherous pastime we call dating. For me, the thing that broke me and brought me flat on my face was a season of singleness that stretched on much longer than I anticipated. That’s where God showed up and revealed his grace and love to me in ways beyond my wildest imaginings.

But as I’ve listened to your stories, I’ve noticed something. Although the specifics of your story may be different from mine, our gracious God is still the same. And he tends to reveal himself in similar ways, even if the details are different.

  • Maybe you’re not waiting for a husband, but you’re waiting for something else that is breaking your heart. Maybe you’re waiting for a job or a baby or a prodigal or healing. And God seems silent.
  • Maybe you, too, have one prayer that keeps tripping you up.
  • Maybe you, too, have had moments when it feels too dangerous to keep hoping.
  • Maybe you, too, have a desire for something that doesn’t seem any closer to happening than it was a year ago.
  • Maybe you, too, feel stuck when everyone around you seems to be moving on with their life.
  • Maybe you, too, know what it’s like to be lonely, afraid, or invisible.
  • Maybe you, too, have wondered where God is in the midst of your pain.

My book isn’t just about blind dates or being single; it’s about being knocked over by the love and grace of God. And that love and grace are available no matter what circumstance you’re facing.

So I’d like to hear from you. When has God shown up in an unexpected way for you? When have you been amazed by his grace, hemmed in by his love? I would be honored to hear your story.

Write your comment below, and I will give away a free book to one commenter!

My Husband, Good Sam

daniel and steph6One of the nicknames I have for my husband is Sam. Which is weird, when you think about it, since his name is Daniel. But in his case it’s Sam as in Good Samaritan.

Here’s the thing: If you ever found yourself on the side of the road with a flat tire or a skinned knee or an empty tank of gas, Daniel is precisely the person you’d want to find you. In the three years I’ve known him, we’ve given a ride to a woman who was walking home in dress shoes after her car broke down, loaned an Allen wrench to a guy with bicycle troubles, and dropped someone off at the bicycle shop to get a new part for his bike—to name just a few examples.

It’s always a rather startling experience to be with Daniel, I mean Sam, in these situations, because before I’ve even noticed there’s a problem, he has already diagnosed the situation, pulled over the vehicle, and procured the necessary tool.

So it was fully in character for Daniel to stop when he spotted the two guys off to the side of the bike path poring over their map the other evening. Daniel and I were on a bike ride together, reliving our first date from three years prior—our “blind date-iversary,” as we call it. We were pedaling to the park we’d gone to on our first date when we spotted—okay, when “Sam” spotted, the pair of guys, looking weary and a little lost.

“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked, coasting his bicycle to a stop.

It turned out the duo was a father and a son, on a 540-mile trek to celebrate Will’s high school graduation. They’d started in Iowa six days ago, and they were now on the last leg of their journey, hoping to arrive at their friends’ house before dark.

There was just one problem: the paths had changed significantly since the last time the dad had been in the area some thirty years ago. And the map didn’t seem to be matching up with the signs around them.

Daniel went over directions with them, coaching them through the forks in the path and the landmarks they could expect along the way. Then, just as they were getting ready to head out, Daniel said, “Hey, we could ride with you for this leg. That would at least get you past this tricky part.”

Their sweat-streaked faces lit up at the offer. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

But as it turned out, we were the ones who reaped the real benefits. As we rode together, they regaled us with tales from the journey—how they narrowly made it to shelter just before a spontaneous storm struck, how they pushed through the pain of the brutal Wisconsin hills, how they managed to pack light enough to carry all the belongings they needed for a week.

As we rode together, I thought about what a gift it is to have friends who travel with us on various legs of our journeys. No one can journey with us all the way from the start to the finish line, but God has a way of sending fellow pilgrims just when we need them . . . when we’re climbing that big hill, when we feel too weary to go one more mile, when we’re lost and in need of directions.

daniel and steph2

Finally we arrived at the spot where the trail diverged, and we offered our new friends some banana bread (another nod to our first date) before saying our good-byes.

“Bless you,” the dad said, shaking our hands warmly. The son nodded, his mouth full of another large bite.

But we’d already been blessed. That’s the funny thing about hanging around with the Sams of the world. You start out thinking you’re offering a blessing, but the blessings come pouring back to you a hundredfold instead.

Happy three years of knowing you, Sam. I’m so glad God gave us each other for the rest of this journey.