Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Watchers at a Holy Place

It could be argued that the year 2020 has needed a lot of things. At first, the lack was immediate, tangible. We needed toilet paper, bottled water, hand sanitizer. But as the pandemic has dragged on, it’s our emotional reserves that we’ve found most lacking. We paced ourselves for a sprint, then a marathon, only to find that the finish line keeps moving.

We are weary. We are divided. We are out of creative ideas. We are dreading a long winter. And perhaps what we need more than anything else is hope.

***

At the outset, it seemed like a terrifying prospect to be pregnant in a year marked by a pandemic, not to mention social unrest and political upheaval. Besides the imminent concerns of not having Daniel with me at doctor visits and wondering what delivery would look like in the era of COVID, I had other, more existential questions: What kind of world were we bringing a baby into? What kind of fractured cultural legacy were we passing on to the next generation?

But as the months have progressed with Baby Hope (as we’ve nicknamed the baby for now) growing inside me, I think this is actually the best way to weather such a fractious year. With each week that passes, I see Hope growing under my very nose. With each kick beneath my ribs, I reckon with life that marches onward. With each day that brings me closer to meeting this little person, I have no choice but to invest my heart in the future.

And I think that’s what God would want us to do, whether we’re pregnant with a child or pregnant with hope. I think he wants us to keep investing. Keep loving. Keep believing.  

The thing about babies is that, like hope, they tend to grow little by little, almost imperceptibly. We have to be intentional about seeing the hope . . . and recognizing that this place we’re standing, as tumultuous as it may be, is indeed holy ground.

In her book Showing, author and professor Agnes R. Howard writes about the common yet miraculous events that transpire when a baby grows inside the mother:

A pregnant woman is honored as audience and collaborator, a watcher at a holy place, attending God doing something new. She is present at this creation.

Agnes R. Howard

I believe God is at work all around us, unfolding new miracles every day. Even in 2020—maybe especially in 2020. The question is whether we will recognize them or not. Will we be watchers at this holy place?

The pregnant woman gets the revelation first. . . . The rest of us wait to encounter the new person for the first time. The expectant woman is not waiting in the same way. She already has encountered the new person. She already knows something.

Agnes R. Howard

And so it is for those who have heard whispers of the coming Kingdom. We are waiting for the full glory of God to be revealed, but we aren’t waiting in the same way the rest of the world is. We have already encountered the little pulses of hope. We have felt the quickening in our hearts. We already know something.

So as we mark this first week of Advent, I dare you to choose hope. See it. Seek it. Fight for it. And when the fulfillment comes, be ready to cradle it in your arms.

Maundy Thursday Reflections on Toilet Paper

If the grocery store shelves were any indication, you might assume that the best way to treat COVID-19 is with toilet paper and paper towels.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose: in a time when there’s so little we can control, we can at least have the tangible relief of knowing our cabinets are well stocked.

I confess that I’m a saver by nature, even under non-pandemic circumstances. I like to have backups, and backups for my backups. In this season of unknowns, I’ve been fighting my instinct to hoard everything from supplies to money to time to yes, toilet paper. How long will this last? What if we lose our jobs? What if there’s a global food shortage? What if . . . what if . . . what if?

Then I read the account of Jesus’ feet being anointed with oil during holy week, and it struck me in a new way in this Era of Empty Store Shelves.

A few days before he died, Jesus went to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. And there, Mary enacted a gesture of extreme love and generosity.

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

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 Jesus in a single extravagant outpouring.

She didn’t hoard her gift. She didn’t measure it out, a little at a time. She didn’t cling to it as her security. She wasn’t consumed by a scarcity mindset.

She embraced the present moment and seized the sacred now. She poured out what she had—all of it.

And I wonder, what would it look like to pour out extravagant love and generosity in this season?

I want to keep my eyes and my hands and my heart open.
I want to love and give extravagantly.
I want to pour out what I’ve been given.

I’d like to think that if Jesus wanted my last roll of toilet paper, I’d give it to him.

Go peaceful
in gentleness
through the violence of these days.
Give freely.
Show tenderness
in all your ways.

God hold you,
enfold you,
and keep you wrapped around His heart.
May you be known by love.

Northumbria Community meditation

Prisoners of Hope

This pandemic has taken so many prisoners, and my heart is heavy for everyone who finds themselves languishing behind bars right now.

The elderly person who can’t have visitors.
The single parent who is never off the clock.
The person battling anxiety.
The person with a compromised immune system.
The person stuck at home in an abusive relationship.
The person who lives alone and feels the ache of loneliness.

Perhaps this virus isn’t responsible for our chains, but it certainly has exposed them. The truth is, we are all prisoners of something—we don’t have much choice about that. But we do have some say in what we will be enslaved to.

I came across this verse recently, and it struck me in a new way in this season of fear and quarantine:

Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
    even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.

Zechariah 9:12

Prisoners of hope. What would it look like, I wonder, to be a prisoner of hope rather than a prisoner of fear?

I want to be chained to hope.
I want to shackle myself to it and not let go.
I want it to follow me wherever I go.

The fact that hope takes prisoners implies a battle. There’s nothing passive about it. It requires courage. It’s a fight.

Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know, is a fighter and a screamer.

Mary Oliver

Hope means choosing love, over and over again . . . and asking for forgiveness when we fail.
It means doing the next right thing.
It means getting up again.
It means believing there will be manna enough for today.
It means laying down our weapons, and sometimes our screens.
It means writing a note, making a phone call, baking a batch of cookies, playing another round of Scrabble.
It means listening for the birds and watching for the green daffodil shoots peeking out of the ground.

It means we keep living, one moment at a time. The battle has already been won.

Hope and despair stand always side by side, each determined to outlast the other. If we choose hope, we must join the standoff, with hearts and hands wide open, fighting the urge to fade into despair.

Catherine McNiel