Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Imperfect Love

I was recently at a bridal shower, and the bride-to-be was counting down to her wedding. The day was fast approaching—just 20 days left. After asking all the requisite questions about the wedding, I said, “How are you feeling about the being married part?”

“A little nervous,” she admitted. “I just want to do it perfectly from the very beginning!”

I understood what she meant. In fact, a younger version of me might have uttered those very words.

In the moment, I didn’t say anything. But I’ve been thinking about her statement ever since, and this is what I wish I’d said.

***

Dear sweet bride-to-be,

The best moments of marriage aren’t the times you do it perfectly. The best moments are the times when you make a crack wide enough for grace to slip in. Or at least that’s how it’s been for me.

Like the time I left the bag of chicken in the trunk of the car. For three days.

Or the time I made a financial mistake that set us back $5,000.

Or the time I made a crockpot dinner . . . and forgot to turn it on.

Or the time we’d been gone all day and had a cranky toddler on our hands and it was dinnertime, and we arrived home only to realize I’d locked us out of the house.

Or the time our son’s hand got burned on my watch.

Or the time we got the news that we’d lost our unborn baby and I cried and cried until it looked like I’d been in a boxing match.

The times you do it perfectly aren’t the times that bind you together. If I’d done it perfectly from the very beginning, we would have missed so much.

We would have missed driving home from the car wash with the car mat on top of the roof, our arms burning with the effort and our sides splitting with laughter.

I would have missed getting a hug when I felt like I deserved a financial lecture. And we would have missed seeing the ways God would provide.

We would have missed conspiring about creative ways to dispose of two gallons of pot roast.

We would have missed the chance to pray together in the ER and learn how to wrap six feet of bandages on a tiny, squirming person.

We would have missed the sacred gift of shared pain, of loving a child who made it to heaven before we did.

Sweet bride, there is something better than perfection. It’s called grace.

***

The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the “I do” of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married.  

Kathleen Norris

Friday Favorites for January

Happy Friday! Here are a few of my recent favorites, from how long it takes to write a novel to Facebook satire to fun vocabulary words. Enjoy!

For anyone who is having trouble finishing something . . .

This is a fascinating infographic about how long it took these writers to finish their famous novels. If you’re feeling stumped on your project (whatever it is), take heart that Gone with the Wind took a decade to complete! How Long It Took 30 Writers to Finish Their Novels

For anyone with a love/hate relationship with Facebook . . .

This satire points out just what an odd world Facebook is . . . and how hard it is to escape it. A Night at the Facebook Hotel

For anyone who wants to increase their vocabulary for the new year . . .

My favorite on this list of underutilized words is sesquipedalian, which refreshingly reflects its meaning. 28 Underused English Words You Really Need to Start Using

For anyone who wants a live-longer plan that doesn’t involve diet and exercise . . .

Apparently readers are 17 percent less likely to die than nonreaders. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go eat my cookie while I read my book. Read Books, Live Longer

For anyone who wants a peek behind the curtain of marriage . . .

Sarah Bessey’s words about choosing your spouse, over and over again, are beautiful: “When it came time to choose between the life we thought we wanted, the life we thought we were destined for, the life we were taught to sacrifice everything to ensure: we chose us instead.” Choices

Friday Favorites for October

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Happy Friday, everyone! Here are a few of my recent favorite finds, from literary costumes to the most popular book the year you were born to the oldest picture book. Enjoy!

For anyone still looking for a Halloween costume . . .

These literary-themed costumes are adorable (and some aren’t that hard to pull off). Will someone please try the Curious George/Man with the Yellow Hat combination? 19 Book-Inspired Halloween Costumes for Kids and Adults

For anyone who likes to trace trends . . .

This is a fascinating glimpse into what Americans have been reading, year by year, since 1930. (It’s also interesting to note the changing book cover trends.) What Was the Most Popular Book the Year You Were Born?

For anyone who likes old things . . .

The oldest picture book for children dates back to the 1600s and featured—believe it or not—animal sounds! I guess some things don’t change. (Although apparently animal noises do: 17th-century ducks said kah kah, and chickens said pi pi.) The Very First Picture Book

For anyone who has pinned a pretty verse on Pinterest . . .

This post is simultaneously hilarious and sobering. “Beware the Instagram Bible, my daughters—those filtered frames festooned with feathered verses, adorned in all manner of loops and tails, bedecked with blossoms, saturated with sunsets, culled and curated just for you…” The Instagram Bible

For anyone who has wondered about the mystery of marriage . . .

This post is a poignant and honest glimpse into one couple’s relationship: “Marriage is not one + one = two. It isn’t even one + one = one. Marriage is (one – one) + (one – one) = one.” The Strange Math of Marriage

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.

What It’s Like to Be Married to an Author

book signing 1On the day I brought home a real-live copy of my book to show Daniel, I exclaimed, “Look! We wrote a book!”

He was quick to point out my pronoun usage: “No, YOU wrote a book.”

But I hadn’t misspoken. This has been a Daniel-and-Stephanie Team project from the beginning.

***

I will never forget one woman’s response after Daniel and I got engaged. While everyone else in the room was squealing and asking things like “When is the wedding?” “What will your colors be?” “How did he propose?” she posed a different question altogether: “Do you make each other better people?”

I remember staring at her rather blankly. I stammered something I hoped was vaguely positive, but the truth was, I didn’t really know. I knew that Daniel was a good man and that I wanted to be on his team forever, but did he make me a better person? Did I make him a better person? I hoped so.

Four years and a book contract later, and I now know: He absolutely makes me a better person.

***

Not long after Daniel and I got married, I got this harebrained notion that God was stirring up words inside my brain and heart and that I needed to find some way to get them out. It was Daniel who encouraged me to start the blog, and it was Daniel who convinced me to press “Publish” on that very first entry when I got cold feet.

A couple of years later, it was Daniel who encouraged me to pay what seemed like an extravagant expense for a “real” website.

Then, when I discovered I had a book inside me, it was Daniel who assured me I could do it. When I took days off from work to write, he didn’t complain when he came home to find that not only was the house a mess and there were no thoughts of dinner being circulated, but I had very little actual writing to show for myself.

When the book was finally about to make its debut into the world and I panicked that people would actually be reading it, it was Daniel who prayed for me and reminded me that this was God’s book, not mine.

Yes, WE wrote a book.

So it only seems fitting, now that the book has made its way into the world, that Daniel joined me for one of my radio interviews.

Recently I was interviewed by Frankie Picasso on The Good Radio Network. The morning of the interview she contacted me with an inspiration: “What do you think about having Daniel call in at the end of the show?”

He was game (can we say “Husband of the Year”?), and it was absolutely my favorite interview I’ve done. I’ve been telling my side of the story all this time (all 293 pages of it), and I loved being able to hear his side of things.

Thank you, Daniel—you do make me a better person.

A marriage made in Heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone.
–Frederick Buechner

***

To listen to the interview, you can download it or listen online at FrankieSense and More.

The Other Irish Saint

Top o’ the morning to you! I hope that you are wearing green or drinking a Shamrock Shake or eating corned beef or doing whatever it is you do on a day when everyone is Irish.

So most of us have heard of Saint Patrick, but today I’d like to introduce you to a lesser-known Irish hero: a monk named Saint Dallan. You’ve probably never heard his name, but you just might know his work: he’s the author of the hymn “Be Thou My Vision.”

In the sixth century, a hundred or so years after Patrick landed in Ireland, Dallan dedicated his life to the Lord and to the people of his country. His given name was Eochaid, but most people called him Dallan, which meant “little blind one.”

That’s right. The man who wrote “Be Thou My Vision” was blind.

For generations, the Old Irish version of “Be Thou My Vision” was used as a prayer and chanted by monks throughout Ireland. It wasn’t until 1905 that the words were translated into English. The poem was set to music several years later, in 1912.

The simple yet profound lyrics of this song are just as relevant today as they were when they were penned some fourteen centuries ago:

Be Thou my vision,
O Lord of my heart.
Naught be all else to me,
Save that Thou art.

Almost five years ago, I walked down an aisle on a dewy August morning toward Daniel, grinning like a schoolboy in his gray striped suit, while a handful of our closest family and friends sang these words:

Thou my best thought,
By day or by night,
Waking or sleeping,
Thy presence my light.

The words seemed more fitting than other song we could find. As we entered into this covenant, this promise that was bigger than either one of us, we couldn’t see what lay ahead. We knew God had a plan to knit our stories together into one, but there was so much we couldn’t see. We had to cling to the belief that he would see us through the days and years ahead—that he would be our vision when we couldn’t see.

Be Thou my wisdom,
And thou my true word,
Thou ever with me,
And I with Thee Lord.

The truth is, even if we have eyes, we lack vision. In those moments when our dreams blind us or our trials cloud our ability to see or the darkness makes us lose our step, we don’t just need better vision. We need the Lord himself to be our vision.

Thou my great Father,
And I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling,
And I with thee one.

Today I invite you to join me in praying the words of this blind monk:

Be Thou my vision at work.
Be Thou my vision at home.
Be Thou my vision in my relationships.
Be Thou my vision in my decisions.
Be Thou my vision in all I do today.
Amen.

And if you’re feeling especially festive, you can attempt the Old Irish version:

Rop tú mo baile, a Choimdiu cride:
ní ní nech aile acht Rí secht nime.

 

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 . . . )

How Do You Say Goodbye to a Place?

home

I sat on the bottom step in my living room last week, looking around at my-house-that-wasn’t-really-my-house anymore. The U-haul was parked at the end of the driveway, filled with every earthly possession my husband and I own. Everything had been packed. Every surface had been cleaned. There was nothing left to do but wait for the closing.

As I sat there, memories of the past decade flashed through my mind. I knew it was time to leave my condo and move into our new home—the first place my husband and I picked out together. But a wave of nostalgia swept over me now that it was time to say good-bye to this place—this place that had played such a significant part in my story.

I longed for some way to mark the moment, for some tangible closure, but I wasn’t sure what that would even look like. How do you say good-bye to a place that had been the staging ground for so much life?

I tried to imagine handing over the keys to my home of eleven years. I didn’t know much about the buyer—only that her name was Veronica, and what her signature looked like. Then the thought came to me, out of the blue: write her a note.

I hesitated, certain she’d think I was crazy. Then again, I’d never have to see her again, right? So I pulled out a yellow pad of paper and a blue felt-tip marker—the only writing implements I could find that weren’t packed away.

Dear Veronica,

Welcome home! I bought this condo when I was twenty-five, wide-eyed and terrified by the ream of papers I was signing without really understanding all the fine print. I was doing this on my own, and I never imagined I’d buy a place by myself. But it turned out to be the perfect spot for me—home to fondue parties with friends, Easter brunches with family crammed into the living room, and slumber parties with my sister. This is where I grew brave and grew up. It’s where I learned to paint a room and cook a lasagna and plant tulip bulbs.

And then something unexpected and delightful happened—I got married, and my husband moved in, along with his three bikes, four guitars, and a dozen houseplants. It’s the place we came back to after our honeymoon, the first home we lived in together. The walls are filled with four years of laughter and words and music, with growing pains and good memories from our newlywed days.

I heard someone say once that your home is a character in your story, and I think that’s true. I don’t know how long you’ll stay here or how your story will unfold, but I pray that this home will be a wonderful character in the story of your life too.

So here’s my benediction, over you and this house: May God bless each moment you spend here, and may he bless each person who walks through these doors.

Stephanie

Then I put the yellow sheet on the counter, right under the spare set of keys, feeling relieved that she wouldn’t read this note until she moved in and I was several cities away.

What I failed to account for was that the walk-through. Meaning she read the note right before I saw her at the closing.

When I entered the huge conference room, I realized my tactical error immediately. I also realized that this was not the place for sappy notes. The room was filled with serious-faced lawyers and professional-looking loan officers and a bunch of other people who looked distinctly unsentimental.

But then I saw Veronica hanging back, motioning for me to come closer. She looked just as wide-eyed as I’d been in her shoes eleven years ago. “Thanks for the note,” she whispered. And I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Congratulations,” I whispered back.

As I learned in snippets during our paper-signing marathon, she was me—a decade ago. Twenty-five. Single. An eighth-grade teacher.

At the end of the closing, I handed her the keys, and I sensed that something inside me had settled. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, and then it hit me: closure. This was full circle—the closing of a chapter for me as a new one started for her.

I smiled at her and then took Daniel’s hand. It was time to introduce ourselves to the new character in our story.

Happy house to you, Veronica. Happy house.

Friday Favorites for June

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Happy Friday! Here are a few of my favorite things recently. Hope you enjoy!

For personality-type fans . . .

I admit it: I’m a personality-type junkie, so I found this description of the worst-case scenarios for various personality types fascinating. I’m an INFJ (but the description of ISFJ is pretty spot on for me too). The Definition of Hell for Each Myers-Briggs Personality Type

For anyone who wants the inside scoop on authors’ snacking habits . . .

Did you know that Agatha Christie drank heavy cream—without coffee!—while she wrote? Or that Emily Dickinson made homemade bread each morning? 9 Famous Authors’ Favorite Workday Snacks

For anyone who wonders what it’s like to get old alongside someone else . . .

What if you could fast-forward in time and see what it would be like to get old together with another person? This video simulates the experience: Young Couple Gets Increasingly Aged with Make-up and Revealed to Each Other

For Scribble aficionados . . .

In case you’re wondering, onesie, shizzle, hashtag, and cakehole are now legitimate on the Scrabble board: Go Forth and Pwn for Shizzle Say Scrabble Word List Guardians

For anyone making a big decision . . .

Summer seems to be a time of big decisions: graduations, weddings, moves, and the like. This article offers a practical checklist for when you’re facing a tough choice: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/4-questions-ask-when-making-big-decision

 

Three and Sixty Augusts Ago

3rd anniversary

Our third anniversary, in the park we went to on our first date

Three Augusts ago, Daniel and I stood under a tulle-covered arch, surrounded by a small cluster of family and friends (and one stray cat that made an appearance halfway through), and we said some big vows. With eyes locked on each other and hearts lodged in our throats, we strung words together one by one until they became big promises.

Looking back, I see now that we were like kids dressed in grown-up clothes, arms dangling in too-long sleeves and feet tripping over clown-like shoes. But that’s the only way to commit to something as big as “till death do us part,” I think. You put on the big promises and pray with everything in you that one day you’ll grow into them.

Just a day after our anniversary, Daniel’s grandparents celebrated sixty-one years of marriage. In six decades, they have raised a handful of children, doted on a dozen-plus grandchildren, and rejoiced over the births of several great-grandchildren.

But then, about ten years ago, Gramma Lo started forgetting things. It wasn’t long before the diagnosis came: Alzheimer’s. The disease that’s a thief, only it doesn’t take everything at once. It steals slowly—one memory, one mannerism, one life skill at a time.

In sickness and in health.

The day before Daniel and I got married, Papa Jack pulled out a small velvet bag. “I wish Gramma Lo could be here this weekend,” he said. “But I know she would have wanted to you to wear this.” He pulled out a simple, elegant string of pearls. “She wore this necklace at our wedding.”

For better or for worse.

PJ and Gramma Lo

Papa Jack and Gramma Lo at an Alzheimer’s walk

On more than one occasion Daniel and I have tried to tell Papa Jack how much we admire him for the way he loves Gramma Lo during this season . . . the way he trims her nails, reads children’s books to her, and patiently endures her insistence that he is not her husband. But he brushes off our compliments and smiles as if to say, “This is not heroic. This is just what love looks like.”

Till death do us part.

As I watch Papa Jack and Gramma Lo, I’m starting to think that maybe love isn’t so much the grand gestures, the significant milestones, the scenes captured in photos. Maybe love is those small moments of choosing to love in the healthy times and the sick times, in the good times and the worse times. And maybe those little moments get strung together one by one, like pearls on a string—beautiful, shimmering, timeless. Something that can be passed on to the next generation, and the one after that.

Daniel and I have a long way to go before we grasp the kind of love we see in Papa Jack and Gramma Lo’s marriage. But by the grace of God and the examples set before us, we will wear these big vows until we grow into them.

And so we say it this year, just as we did three Augusts ago:

We do.

For all that is now and all that is to come, we do.