Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

A Letter to My Son on His First Day of Preschool

Dear Graham,

I dropped you off for your first day of preschool this morning. When I caught a glimpse of your profile, with your little blue backpack perched on your shoulders and your head with its cowlicky curls (combed, for once), my stomach did one of those renegade back flips.

You’ll only be gone a couple of hours, I know. But as I watched you march toward your own adventures, apart from me, I felt like I was standing at the top of a huge sledding hill. Once we start, gravity and velocity will inevitably take hold, and there will be no turning back, no slowing down. As I waved goodbye, your future flashed before my eyes—your first overnight away from home, your first solo drive, your first day of college. And me waving from the driveway, quelling the back flips in my stomach.

In the four years I’ve been your mama, I’ve been learning something about the mysterious tether that connects me to you. When you were an infant, you were tied to me by a literal cord; you went everywhere I went. When you were a newborn, you were, in a real sense, tied to my breast. As you grew, the tether extended to the carrier I strapped you in when we went on walks and made dinner together.

These days you still like to hold my hand, but I’m all too aware that this connection may be mere blinks from extinction. Already you are straining for microfreedoms. Already you are faster than I am. Already you aspire to go places I cannot go.

I am tempted to make grand promises as you step into your world apart from me:

I will protect you.
I will keep you safe.
I will fight off any would-be bullies.
I will make sure you have someone to play with.
I will always be there for you.

But of course I can’t promise those things. I can’t always be with you—and I shouldn’t.

And then I remember there is a better promise.

“Hold out your hand,” I say to you, my brown-eyed boy. And one by one, I take your fingers, reminding you of the One who will never leave you: I. Am. Always. With. You.

I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

Psalm 73:23

I (thumb)
am (pointer finger)
always (middle finger)
with (ring finger)
you (pinkie)

It is a promise you can hold in your hand, even after I’m gone. A tether that can never be broken.

As I head home, my vision blurry, I carry the promise in my hand too, my own umbilical cord: I. Am. Always. With. You.

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart . . . I’ll always be with you.

Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne)

Toddler-Style Lament

I’m no expert in child development, but I have had a front-row seat to my share of toddler tantrums lately. Based on my unscientific analysis, I would venture to say there are two categories of tantrums: the clinging kind and the flinging kind. (Of course, in the middle of said tantrum, it feels like the categories are loud or louder; public or more public).

After the tsunami-force winds die down, I try to catch my breath and take stock of what just happened. It seems like my son goes one of two directions in the midst of his big feelings: he either launches himself away from me or glues himself to me. If it’s a flinging tantrum, he squirms out of my reach and throws himself onto the floor. If it’s a clinging tantrum, he wraps his little arms around my neck or leg—all the while sobbing as if to fill a small bathtub.

I’ve been reading the Psalms recently, and I’ve been struck anew by the chord of lament that runs through so many of them. I’ve had my own seasons of lament . . . times of waiting, times when God seemed silent, times when I had to reckon with a “no” to a deeply longed-for prayer.

In my seasons of lament, I confess that at times I’ve responded with a flinging tantrum. I have launched myself out of God’s arms. For reasons that defy logic, I choose a dirty floor over his loving arms. I refuse to bring him my tears, my confusion, my weariness.

I’m so grateful for the Psalms, because there are no verses that say “Thou shalt suck it up” or “Thou shalt get a grip.” Instead, these ancient songs encourage lament . . . when we do so in the context of holding on to our Father. 

Faithful lament, I would maintain, is akin to a clinging tantrum. It’s beating our Father’s chest with our fists and letting our tears soak his shirt. It’s grabbing him and holding on for dear life.

The other day I was comforting Graham in the midst of a clinging tantrum. I can’t remember what sparked the meltdown—perhaps all the green bowls were dirty or I insisted he wear pants or I parked the car in his imaginary friend’s spot. At any rate, as I held him, I wiped a tear from his cheek. This resulted in a fresh waterfall. “Put my tear back!” he wailed. “I wanted it there!”

So we sat on the floor of the kitchen, the two of us, as the afternoon sun streamed through the window. At last he let out a ragged sigh and rested his head on my shoulder. I silently wondered what it would be like to do the same with my heavenly Father. No more throwing myself out of his reach. No more demanding that he take away the pain. Just allowing myself to be held by him.

If I’m going to pitch a fit, it might as well be the clinging kind. I want to hold on to him until my prayer is answered . . . or until my tantrum subsides.

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.

Frederick Buechner

A Place to Call Home

ManchesterMy husband, Daniel, and I just bought our first house together, which means I’ve been thinking a lot about home lately.

When we started the adventure of scoping out open houses and looking at realtor.com and making our list of would-likes and must-haves, it felt rather daunting. We knew a house is just a bunch of lumber and drywall, but it seemed so much weightier than that. It felt like where we lived said something about our future, our hopes and dreams, our very identity. That’s a lot of pressure for a piece of real estate.

My friend Brooke told me about this quote she heard somewhere: “Our homes are characters in our stories” (more on that here). And my apologies for the terrible pun, but that sentiment really hit home for me. We weren’t just finding a place to put our stuff or go to sleep at night; we were finding a spot that would become a key part of our story for the next undetermined number of years.

If there’s anyone who knows about longing for home, it’s Brooke. Last summer she and her family packed up their essential belongings, rented out their house, and bought a mobile home so they could embark on a yearlong, 48-state tour of the country. Her home has been on wheels for the past year, meaning that in some ways her home is always with her, and in some ways she’s never home. She knows what it’s like to have roots and to tear them up, how freedom is the other side of loneliness, and how home is both the place and the people.

I think God hardwired us to long for home—to want to put pieces of ourselves into the soil of a place, to make memories there, to let the love and the laughter soak so deeply into the walls that they are heavy with moments and days and years.

But here’s something else I’m learning: our desire for an earthly home is never going to be enough to fill the longing in our souls. Even if we manage to find the perfect paint swatches, line the walls with just the right decorations, and fix all the leaky faucets, it won’t be enough. That longing for a haven, a place to truly belong—that only comes when we make ourselves at home in Christ.

I’ve always loved this psalm, but it makes more sense to me now:

Lord, through all the generations
you have been our home!
—Psalm 90:1

It seems appropriate that this psalm was written by Moses, the wanderer. The guy who grew up with a family not his own and in a country not his own, the guy who spent forty years exiled in the desert, the guy who led his people to a Promised Land he never got to enter. I have a hunch this nomad never really had a place to put his feet up and get comfortable in.

But still, he found home. He learned the lesson we all need, whether we’re putting down roots or pulling them up: When you make your dwelling in God, you will always find home.

***

You never know where you’re going if you’re going by faith. If you’re going by faith, you’re always a stranger in this world, because your home is God.
—John Ortberg

Question for today: What’s something you wished you’d known when you moved into a new home? What’s something you learned from moving to a new place?

In honor of my recent move, I’m giving away a copy of Home Is Where My People Are by the talented and charming Sophie Hudson! It’s a wonderful book about the unexpected places and people that make up home, and what God teaches us along the way. To be eligible, tell me about your moving experience in the comment section below. I’ll give a free copy to one randomly selected commenter.

How to Wait Well

alarm_clock_leftIn the course of any life, I think, there are seasons of waiting. As much as we want to fast-forward to that thing we’re anticipating, we find ourselves faced with factors we can’t control, leaving us helpless against a clock we can’t set or predict.

It’s a vulnerable place to find yourself at the mercy of a calendar that’s not your own.

Maybe you’ve been looking for a job for so long that the taste of rejection is more familiar than your morning coffee. You send yet another résumé into cyberspace, and you wait . . . and wait some more.

Or maybe you’ve watched as all your friends have found love, and you find yourself alone . . . still waiting to be chosen, pursued.

Maybe you’ve been longing for a child—one from your own body or one from across the globe. You’ve jumped through all the hoops, and now there’s nothing left to do but wait.

Or maybe there’s something else you’re waiting for: for your house to sell, for the medical test results to come in, for a relationship to be reconciled, for deliverance from whatever demon has been plaguing you.

We all wait—there’s no avoiding it, no matter our life stage. Even if we get the thing we’ve been waiting for, it only means graduating to a new phase of waiting we hadn’t anticipated. So the question isn’t if we will wait; it’s how we will wait.

As I look back on various seasons of waiting in my life, I realize my waiting style leaves something to be desired. I’ve waited like a child in line at the grocery store: impatient, antsy, so focused on the line that I couldn’t appreciate anything else around me. I’ve waited like a robot, deciding it was too painful to admit my desires and hopes, so I tried to shut down my heart.

But the psalmist provides another alterative when it comes to how to wait: We can wait on God the way a handmaiden waits on her mistress:

As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Psalm 123:2

What would it look like, I wonder, to be that attentive to God in my waiting? What if, instead of being so focused on my circumstances or my worries or my fears, I was focused on every little move God was making?

What if I was intent not just on what God would do for me during the waiting as on what I could do for God?

I don’t just want to wait for him. I want to wait on him.

***

The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people.
Charles Spurgeon

10 Minutes With God: The Way of Salvation

alarm_clock_leftThis week I wrap up my writing of the online devotions for my church. After being immersed in Psalm 119 for the past six weeks, I have a new appreciation for this longest chapter of the Bible and a deeper love for God’s Word.

Here’s a peek at today’s devotion:

Imagine you’re a pilot, taking your small plane out for a quick flight. When you took off earlier in the day, the sun was shining and conditions seemed ideal for flying. But now the wind is starting to pick up, and before you know it, a dense fog has rolled in. Visibility is low, and it’s becoming more difficult to see landmarks—particularly the horizon.

Then it happens: suddenly your body is saying you’re going one direction, while the instruments are telling another story.

You’re heard warnings about this before—spatial disorientation, they call it. Which voice will you believe? Your inner ear, which is convinced that you’re flying straight, or the plane’s instrument panel, which clearly says you’re banking left? What will you use as your standard to determine which way is up? Your choice could very likely mean the difference between life and death. . . .

To keep reading, click here. And to hear the audio version, read by me and recorded by the talented Daniel Rische, click here.

May you, too, fall in love with God’s Word!

10 Minutes With God: Obedience

alarm_clock_rightI had the privilege of writing the devotions for my church’s website again this week. Here’s a peek at one of the posts about obeying God’s commands.

Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees! Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands. —Psalm 119:5-6

Let’s just say for a moment that the standard for getting into heaven is being able to long-jump all the way across the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. (It’s not, of course, but just humor me for a moment here.) Imagine that the standard has been set, and everyone knows the expectation. Some people train for this moment from early childhood, building their muscles and doing exercises to improve their jumping abilities. Some athletic types are inherently better suited for the event than others. And some people have longer legs, giving them an inborn advantage over their peers.

When it comes time to jump, however, no one could ever come close. Maybe the person with short legs who hadn’t trained at all would make it a few feet. Perhaps the person with the strong quads would make it a foot farther than the average person. And maybe the Olympic long jumper would set a world record, launching his body a whopping 29 ½ feet.

But do you know what? It wouldn’t matter, because none of them would come anywhere near the goal. None of them would get far enough to even see the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, let alone jump there. Even if one person jumped three times as far as everyone else, they would all be so far from the target that the difference would be practically indiscernible. Whether you made it one foot across the ocean or 30, the more important issue is the thousands of nautical miles you have yet to go.

To read the rest of the devotion (or to listen to the audio), click here.

10 Minutes With God, Part 2

alarm_clock_leftI had the privilege of writing the devotions for my church’s series on Psalm 119 again last week. The theme for the week was “The Way of Understanding.”

Here’s a peek at the beginning of one of the devotions:

The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. —Psalm 119:130

As we look back over the course of human history, it’s striking how universal the quest is to find direction for our lives.

  •  Horoscopes and the zodiac calendar have been around since the sixth century BC as methods of divination.
  • According to some estimates, Americans spend about $300 million a year on psychic hotlines.
  • Around one million Magic 8 balls are sold each year.

These attempts at seeking guidance range from pure nonsense to practices God has specifically commanded his people not to dabble in. But their very existence indicates two truths about human nature: (1) we want someone wiser than we are to show us the way and (2) we want the quick answer, the shortcut….

To read more, you can click here. You can listen to the audio version here.

 

10 Minutes with God

alarm_clock_rightOver the past week, I’ve had the privilege of writing daily reflections about Psalm 119 for my church’s 10 Minutes with God initiative. You can read the devotions (or listen to an audio recording of me reading them) here.

Here are some things I’ve been learning along the way:

  • Did you know that Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible?
  • Did you know that Psalm 119 mentions God’s Word in some form in all but one of the 176 verses?
  • Um, really? That’s what my voice sounds like?
  • There are apparently a lot of words I know how to read in my head but don’t know how to pronounce out loud. My apologies to Noah Webster and my first grade phonics teacher for any butchering of the English language.

Here’s a sneak peek from one of this week’s devotions:

The Way of Truth

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
—Psalm 119:103

If you looked down the aisles at a grocery store, you’d likely find a smattering of products with the word delight in them: Kellogg’s Chocolatey Delight Crisps, International Delight Iced Coffee, Quaker True Delights Bars, Yoplait Parfait Delights, Hershey’s Air Delight Kisses, and the list goes on.

Likewise, if you leafed through the pages of a cookbook, you’d find countless recipes featuring the word as well (AllRecipes.com turned up 917 results with the word delight in the title—everything from Chocolate Delight to Raspberry Delight to Turkish Delight).

It seems that in our culture, delight is something we tend to associate with food, with our taste buds, with sweetness.

And in a way, that’s precisely what the psalmist says about taking delight in God’s Word. In part of his long prayer to God in Psalm 119, he exclaims, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

You can continue reading here.

Stay tuned!
I’ll be writing the devotions to go along with this whole sermon series (for the next five weeks).

Where Is God?

This summer our small group is taking a break from our usual routine of studying and discussing and making our way through a book together. In an attempt to go deeper with each other, we decided that at each gathering we’d have two people share about what God has done in their lives.

 

All the stories are different—some of us grew up knowing about God; some of us didn’t meet him until later in life. Some of us went down such dark paths we probably shouldn’t be here to tell about it; some of us were more subtle in our sins of choice. But there’s one thing we all have in common: we’re all broken and in desperate need of grace.

 

As we started sharing our stories, we noticed a pattern woven throughout each one. As we looked back, the places we could see God at work most clearly were the lowest points in our lives—our most grievous sins, our darkest seasons of failure, our struggles through grief and loss and loneliness.

 

After one person finished her testimony, there was a moment of sacred silence. Finally Daniel broke in: “Isn’t it amazing to think how we’re hemmed in and held, even when make the wrong choice . . . even when we don’t do the right thing?”

 

I thought of the three men in the Old Testament who were thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3)—how if I’d been in their shoes, I’d no doubt have asked God to take me out of the fire. But as it turned out, God was right there in the midst of those flames.

fire2

And I thought of Peter walking on the water to Jesus as the storm raged around him (Matthew 14). Scaredy-cat that I am, I surely would have asked God to calm the storm. But Jesus surprised Peter with something even more profound: he was right there in the midst of the waves.

storm3

 

So what about my own life? I beg for the fire to be quenched, for the storm to be stilled. Sometimes he does just that. But other times Jesus is right there with me—in the midst of the flames, in the midst of the waves.

 

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me. . . .
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
—Psalm 139:1, 5

 

Even in the storms and the fire—maybe especially in the storms and the fire—we see the face of Jesus. It’s then that we are hemmed in, held.

 

God is here.

Sweet Sundays, Part 5: Multitaskers Anonymous

sweet_sundays_artworkHello, my name is Stephanie, and I’m a multitasker.

I haven’t always been this way. When I was a kid, I’d get so caught up in whatever I was doing that I was prone to lose all track of time and occasionally even miss my bus stop. Maybe it comes with the territory of adulthood or womanhood, or maybe it’s exacerbated by the various technologies itching at our fingertips, but whatever the reason, it can feel foreign and disorienting to only do one thing at a time. (Let alone rest!)

The other day I was reading Psalm 92 (while finishing my breakfast and drinking my coffee and doing the laundry), and I was struck by the epigraph at the beginning of the psalm: “A song to be sung on the Sabbath Day.”

And it got me to thinking: What is so special about music that God would have us set aside certain songs for the Sabbath?

One of the bonus gifts I received with the Daniel-package is the gift of music. On any given day, our home is graced with strains of live music—anything from the Beatles to Bob Dylan to worship music. Daniel plays the bass guitar for our church band, and on the Sundays he goes early for practice, I like to go with him. In the spirit of efficient multitasking, I usually I bring along something I’m working on—a book to read, a letter to write, some scribbles I’ve been wanting to put to paper.

But after reading Psalm 92, I decided to just do one thing on a recent Sunday: soak in the songs for the Sabbath Day.

As the melodies and chords washed over me like so much grace, it occurred to me that music engages our hearts in a way that short-circuits our swirling minds and goes straight to our souls. The church father Athanasius suggested that God paired the words of the Psalms with melody to serve as a metaphor of sorts. Music, he said, serves as “a symbol of the spiritual harmony in a soul.” As a Christian sings praises, Athanasius said, he “brings rhythm to his soul and leads it, so to speak, from disproportion to proportion.”

While I sat there listening, I noticed something interesting about the rest notes. As lovely as the music is, the rests make you appreciate the melody all the more.

Just like Sundays.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to the Most High.
It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning,
your faithfulness in the evening,
accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp,
and the melody of a lyre.*
—Psalm 92:1-3

 *Or an ice-blue Fender bass guitar.