Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

For Those Who Keep Vigil at Night

This is a word for those who find themselves awake when the rest of the world sleeps.

  • For the one plagued by worry
  • For the one caring for someone who is ill
  • For the one haunted by insomnia
  • For the one begging for their prodigal to return home
  • For the one toiling on the night shift

And, yes, for the one trying to comfort an inconsolable infant in the wee hours.

As anyone who has stood sentry at night knows, everything seems bleaker under the blanket of darkness. Shadows grow menacing. Minutes feel like hours. Anxiety morphs into full-blown fear.

I’m not sure why this is, exactly. We have artificial light, after all, and we’ve long outgrown our fear of the dark. But something about those middle-of-the-night hours releases our monsters from their hiding.

I have a hunch that one of the reasons nighttime is so hard is because it has a way of isolating us. It makes us think we’re the only ones marking this bleak and desolate hour. In the absence of our usual defenses, we feel alone, and rather small.

If you find yourself doing battle by night, I want you to know that you do not keep this vigil alone. There is someone who sits by your bedside, someone who waits with you, someone who toils alongside you. There is someone whose love is not bound by time, someone who sticks by you even when it’s inconvenient, someone who doesn’t clock out when the sun goes down.

The psalmist puts it this way:

The one who watches over you will not slumber.
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
    never slumbers or sleeps.

Psalm 121:3-4

Even when the rest of the world is asleep, God is awake. And because of that, you can rest . . . even if you can’t sleep.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

Yellow Jacket Invasion, Part 2

beekeeper[See Yellow Jacket Invasion Part 1 for the first part of this story.]

A month into our home ownership gig, it seemed like Daniel and I were losing: Calamities 2; Daniel and Stephanie Team 0. First there was the flood of epic proportions; now the yellow jackets. We were certainly learning a lot, and we were wrangling our house into a home, but we would be content to stop the plagues at two.

Meanwhile, I was grateful to be on the other side of the glass while the beekeeper worked his disappearing act on two hundred-some yellow jackets.

Daniel and I stood safely outside with our noses pressed to the window while our apian hero vacuumed up hundreds of the stinging little monsters and removed chunk after chunk of the yellow jacket nest. I’m pretty sure I counted to six football-sized pieces before I blacked out.

An hour or so into the removal process, I’d seen all I needed to see. Now that the initial shock had worn off, I was starting to get fidgety as the daylight ticked away and no progress was being made on my to-do list. Vacuum the carpet—nope, couldn’t do that right now. Clean the bathrooms—also an inside job. Shoot, even the to-do list was inside.

The only thing I could do was sit on the back porch. And sit.

Taking the Sting Out

We’d put up a hummingbird bird feeder the day before, but so far the birds had been a little skittish about dropping by. We’dhummingbird seen a few of them take a sip, drive-thru style, but none of them had stopped to perch.

I admired the birds’ beauty and delicate wings, but it made me weary to see them flittering and skittering, never pausing to rest. Don’t you guys need to gear up for a super-long migration to Mexico? I asked them silently as they flitted by. We provided this rest stop just for you, with homemade food and everything. Don’t you want to stop and rest for a while?

And then the irony hit me with such force that I laughed at loud. “Okay, God, I get it.”

Ceasing Our Fluttering

It was the Sabbath, and I’d been flitting around like a little hummingbird all day long. Lots of motion . . . but for what?

God seemed to be telling me, not so subtly, that there was nothing else to do in that moment except sit rest. It was time to forget about my to-do list for a while and embrace the rest he was giving me (forcing on me?) on that sacred day. The vacuuming could wait. The to-do list could wait. For now, my job number one was to sit and enjoy the world he’d made. Hummingbirds and yellow jackets included.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
—Leo Tolstoy

***

In case you’re wondering, the yellow jackets were all taken care of, and I didn’t see another one until the next morning, when Daniel donned his yellow cycling jersey (an odd choice for professional work attire, I thought). He kept looking at me expectantly after he got dressed, as if waiting for me to catch a punch line.

Finally it hit me: sure enough, it was another yellow jacket.

Yellow Jacket Invasion, Part 1

hive

On a Sunday not long ago, I woke up with my mind buzzing, making a mental list of all the things I needed to do that day. We’d recently moved into our new home, and we were getting ready for six houseguests and a dozen or so dinner guests later that week.

This meant it was probably time to locate the floor of the guest bedroom, which had been strewn with all manner of Things I Don’t Know What to Do With since we moved.

But I had a deadline, and I was motivated. I’d vacuum, mop floors, scrub toilets, organize, unpack—nothing was going to stop me. I was pretty sure I would put Martha Stewart to shame.

The Best-Laid Plans of Critters and Women

Around 6 p.m., I was making some progress on my ambitious to-do list, if not as big of a dent as I’d hoped. That’s when I walked into the living room and heard a strange humming sound. I headed toward the corner where the noise seemed to be coming from . . . and promptly went into cardiac arrest.

The windows were covered with yellow jackets. ON THE INSIDE.

I looked up to see the tiniest hole in the ceiling where the devilish little creatures were filing into the living room, one after the other. It was like a horror movie, minus the popcorn.

At that point I did what every independent, self-sufficient modern woman does: I ran outside to find my husband.

Daniel looked at my face and immediately stopped what he was doing. “Are you okay?”

I nodded automatically. “Yes . . .”

And then it hit me: NO, I AM NOT OKAY. There are hundreds of large flying insects with stingers on them, and they are INSIDE OUR HOUSE. I will never sleep here again. On second thought, I may never sleep again, period.

Thankfully Daniel came up with a plan, because my brain couldn’t get past “GET OUT!” and “LOCK THE DOOR BEHIND YOU!”

Here was the plan: Daniel would scope out the situation in the living room and see if he could duct-tape over the yellow jackets’ Gateway to Paradise while I went online to look for the nearest beekeeper/environmentally friendly insect remover/who-am-I-kidding, someone to fumigate the entire zip code.

I made a beeline (sorry, couldn’t pass that one up) for the computer upstairs, slamming doors behind me and lying to myself that surely those flimsy slabs of wood would keep the critters out, despite the glaring fact that not even drywall could stop them.

Count Your Yellow Jackets; Name Them One by One

After about five phone calls to no avail (apparently it’s wise to schedule your bee-related emergencies for non-weekend hours), I finally got ahold of someone who was willing to leave his dinner on the table and come to our assistance. (There’s a teeny chance I sounded a little deranged by this point, so he might not have felt like he had much of a choice.)

The beekeeper arrived in his head-to-toe bee suit and confirmed our suspicions. “Yep, you’ve got yellow jackets. Probably two to three hundred in your house, and that’s a lowball.”

As I darted to the relative safety of the great outdoors, it occurred to me how quickly my priority list had been turned upside down. When my feet hit the ground that morning, my main concern had been having a sparkly-clean home for our guests, but now, suddenly, all I cared about was that it was bee-free.

Toilet scrubbing isn’t a bad thing, of course, but it can be if it becomes all-important. And I had to wonder: What else needs to shift in my priorities so I can keep the main things the main things? One thing was certain: God would go to great lengths to get my attention. And I had two hundred yellow jackets to prove it.

[Stay tuned tomorrow for the rest of the story!]

Week 2 of Advent: Peace

frog and toadOne of the holiday traditions at my in-laws’ is the annual Rische Family Book Club. At Thanksgiving this year, inspired by our charming two-year-old nephew Colin, we all brought books we’d enjoyed as children. I remembered loving the Frog and Toad books as a kid, but I honestly couldn’t remember much about them.

So off I went to the library, feeling tall and rather foolish as I crouched beside the pint-sized bookshelves to find Frog and Toad Together. I read the first story planted right there on the carpet, instantly transported back several decades as I paged through the classic brown and green illustrations.

When I got to the end of the story, I grinned, remembering why I loved these books.

I am Toad.

The story “The List” is about a day in the life of Toad that sounds a lot like days I’ve had myself, minus the tweed jacket. When Toad wakes up in the morning, he realizes he has lots of things to do, so he decides to write everything down on a list.

On his list of things to do that day, he includes such important things as wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, play games with frog, and go to sleep. “There,” Toad says. “Now my day is all written down.” Then he goes about his day, relishing each time he gets to cross something off his list.

When Frog and Toad are taking a walk (item #5 on his list), a strong wind suddenly whisks the list out of Toad’s hand. Frog suggests that they run after it, but poor Toad, paralyzed with disbelief, says, “I cannot do that!” After all, running after his list was not one of the things he’d written down to do that day. Frog, ever the faithful friend, chases after the runaway paper but isn’t able to catch it.

“I cannot remember any of the things that were on my list of things to do,” Toad says. “I will just have to sit here and do nothing.” So Toad sits there and does nothing, and Frog sits beside him.

***

It is the second week of Advent: the candle of peace.

Somehow it doesn’t seem coincidental that we would have a sacred reminder about peace in the midst of one of the busiest week of the year. My typical approach is to wait until everything on my list is accomplished before I embrace peace, but it never works. The list, after all, is never all crossed out. It only gets longer as the days march toward December 25.

Do you really expect me to find peace in the midst of all this? I ask God. Can’t you make things settle down and then I can rest? But as I think about that first Christmas, I’m reminded that peace didn’t come because everything was calm and quiet, with each item ticked off the list. Joseph was trying to check into a hotel. Mary was trying to remember her Lamaze. The shepherds were pulling another night shift. The wise men were lugging gold across the Sahara. Not exactly a silent night.

So maybe what God is trying to tell us about peace is that we can’t wait for everything to be in place before we seize it. We have to actively carve out space for peace right in the middle of the chaos. And sometimes that means throwing out our to-do lists (or at least forgetting about them for a while).

So today I invite you to toss aside your lists—the gift list, the grocery list, the baking list—and let them blow away in the wind. Hear your friend Jesus say to you, “Sit here with me and do nothing.”

Sit in the glow of the Christmas lights or the flicker of the candlelight, and just be.

Be at peace. Be still. Be loved. Be.

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.

Sweet Sundays: Part 6

sweet_sundays_artworkI woke up to the sound of rain last Sunday, and the to-do list started pummeling faster and harder than the drops against the skylight.

  • The sink has acquired that nasty yellow scum line on it again. Must clean this afternoon.
  • When’s the last time I got in a good workout? Must connect with the treadmill at some point today.
  • Oh yeah, I’m scheduled for coffee duty at church. Must get out of bed and caffeinate the congregation.

As the day wore on, the rain let up, but not so my inner taskmaster.

  • The well-meaning friend at church described the dinner she was making for her husband that night. (I couldn’t pronounce most of the ingredients, let alone do any sort of alchemy with them in the kitchen.) Must cook something more exotic than tacos tonight.
  • The freelance project deadline is looming. Must make a dent in that today.

But finally, ever so quietly, I heard a subtler voice beneath the deluge of my to-do list. It was a voice reminding me that today was the Sabbath. The day that flies in the face of productivity. The day that in some counterintuitive way recharges me to be whole and refreshed so I’ll be ready to face the six days ahead. The day that’s intended to be devoted to Someone else’s agenda rather than my own.

C. S. Lewis knew what it’s like to be pummeled with “fussing and frettings” from the moment our feet hit the ground:

It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussing and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

It was a battle—I’m not going to lie. For once, though, the Sabbath won, and this was a battle I was happy to lose. The sink still sports its yellow ring, the treadmill accumulated dust all day, the freelance project was categorically ignored, and I reheated leftovers for dinner. And you know what? Nobody died. The world didn’t end.

I’m writing this down in hopes that I’ll remember. Next time, when all the to-dos rush at me like so many wild animals, I want to take my cues from Lewis and let that larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. I invite you to join me.

Come on in, out of the wind . . . and rest awhile.

 

Friday Favorites: August

On this August Friday, here are are some of my recent favorites:

 

For introverts (and those who are mystified by them)…

I saw myself all over this list—maybe you will too. (Or maybe this will explain a lot about an introvert you love!) 23 Signs You’re Secretly an Introvert

 

ff August

 

For all productive types…
I loved Shauna Niequist’s challenge: Waste five minutes today. It’s All about the Heart Not the Hustle

 

ff August2

 

For everyone who’s feeling nostalgic about back-to-school time…

This is a rare recording of A. A. Milne reading Winnie the Pooh in 1929. Hear the Classic Winnie the Pooh Read by the Author

 

ff august3

 

For personality-type geeks…
These tongue-in-cheek prayers based on personality types cracked me up. Is it any surprise that the prayer for my INFJ type is “Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)”? Prayers for Myers Briggs Types

 

ff august4

 

For all the book lovers out there…
This quirky post marries two of my things: books and ice cream. My favorite book-inspired flavor: Clockwork Orange Dreamsicle. Book-Inspired Ice Cream Flavors

ff august5

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.

Sweet Sundays, Part 4

sweet_sundays_artworkIt’s startling how much I define my identity based on what I’ve accomplished in a day, on the tangible evidence I have to show for myself by the time I turn in for bed.

God designed a day of rest to be the antidote to this frenetic appeal to define our worth by what we produce. Each week I hear the Sabbath whispering in my ear, reminding me that I’m loved because I’m a child of God, not because I crossed four things off my to-do list.

On a Sunday a while back, my hubby was sick—the first time he’d had anything more devilish than a cold since I’ve known him. He’s the hardworking, highly active type, riding circles around me (literally! on his bicycle!), so it was disorienting to see him flat on his back for a week, ingesting nothing but Sprite and the occasional Ritz cracker.

But perhaps the bigger surprise was how I responded to the sick day. I should have seen it as a gentle nudge from on high, reminding me that this was the day to slow down. But I was antsy that the day was slipping by, that the laundry was piling up, that my in-box was filling up with unread messages. And for most of the afternoon, I confess that I did not rest. In body or in soul.

Later that evening, when I saw my husband piled under blankets, eyes glazed, I realized I had a chance to redeem what was left of the Sabbath. And so I pulled out the newspaper—the old-fashioned kind with paper and ink—and read it out loud to him (even those tedious NBA box scores, which flies in the face of productivity if anything ever did). Then I sat in my big comfy chair and cozied up with a cup of tea and a book I was reading—not for any of the three book clubs I’m in, but simply out of sheer delight.

It felt dizzying and terrifying and, to my surprise, even sacred.

The church Fathers often spoke of Otium Sactum, “holy leisure.” It refers to a sense of balance in the life, an ability to be at peace through the activities of the day, an ability to rest and take time to enjoy beauty, an ability to pace ourselves. With our tendency to define people in terms of what they produce, we would do well to cultivate “holy leisure.” —Richard Foster, A Celebration of Discipline

Sweet Sundays, Part 3

sweet_sundays_artworkFor the first time this Easter, it struck me just how many key events of the Christian faith are crammed in the span of a single week.

Holy Week starts with a bang on Palm Sunday, replete with a triumphal entry and jubilant hosannas. The next few days are filled with action—tables are turned, miracles are witnessed, final teachings are delivered.

Then comes Maundy Thursday in all its drama…a foot washing, a supper steeped in meaning, a wrenching betrayal, prayers of agony in a garden.

Close on its heels is Good Friday, with the dark march toward Golgotha, nails pounded into flesh, the rending of a curtain.

Then, after a whirlwind of a week, Saturday comes. And with it…silence.

At the close of Salvation Week, as with Creation Week, God rested.

It is finished.

No more striving.

No more scurrying.

No more trying.

It is finished.

Even in the busiest week of the church calendar, Jesus took a day of rest.

There was nothing more he could do to add to the completed work of grace on that silent Saturday. So I wonder…what kind of audacity leads me to think there’s more I must do?

Let us rest in the completeness of that perfect day of rest.

It is finished.

{For more on my Sabbath musings, see this post and this post.}