Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Tulip Season

“The tulip field,” he said,
Eyes puppy-wide,
Though I almost missed them on account of my screen.
Not today, I thought,
The inbox as full as the sink as the laundry basket as my List of Very Important Things.

It was the pants that caught my eye.
An inch higher than last week, I swear. His brother’s too.
Everyone warned me this would happen, of course.
The way they shoot up, faster than a field of dandelions, without my assent.

By the time spring comes again, I wonder,
Will you be driving a car, getting a job, calling to check in on a Sunday evening?

So I trade deadlines for hastily slathered peanut butter sandwiches
And we picnic with the tulips.

For tulips bloom bright and brilliant,
But the season is short—
Like morning fog.
Like blinking.
Like last year’s pants.

The Blooms You Didn’t Plant

daffsOne dreary Sunday afternoon last month, when I found myself in an unaccountable funk, Daniel motioned for me to join him at the kitchen window. “I want to show you something,” he said. “You seem grumpy, and I think this will help.”

Grudgingly, I shuffled over to the window, not convinced that anything in the bleak backyard would shake me from my Eeyore-like state. My eyes followed where his finger was pointing, but I didn’t see anything un-grumpifying.

Then I looked harder. Was that a shoot of green amid the brown leaves and post-winter detritus?

I gasped. Could it be . . . ?

Daniel just grinned. Sometimes he knows me better than I know myself.

“Daffodils!” I squealed, loud enough for the entire zip code to hear.

Daniel and I moved into our new home last summer, which means this is our first spring here. I haven’t planted a thing, and the other surprises we’ve come across in the house so far haven’t exactly been pleasant ones, so it didn’t occur to me that there might be some mystery perennials in the garden out back.

But when I saw those brave little shoots sticking their heads out of the cold Midwest soil . . . well, it felt like hope you can see with your own two eyes.

***

Long before I met Daniel, when I lived alone in my townhouse, I planted daffodils one November with no shovel, only a dull kitchen knife for assistance. The ground was stubborn, but I was even more so.

I was in a funk that day too. I had prayed about one thing for so long, and I could see no sprouts of hope, no signs that spring would come. I wanted—needed—a tangible symbol of hope.

So I went outside and forced those dead-looking bulbs six inches under the ground.

And then I waited.

Sure enough, spring did come. And that thing I’d been praying for came true too, although in a different way and on a different timeline than I ever could have predicted.

And perhaps most shocking of all was the transformation that happened along the way. Over the course of the long winter, the bulbs transformed from shriveled-up turnipy-looking things into bursts of sunshine outside my window. And somewhere along the way, new life bloomed in my heart, too.

***

Now it’s April, and I marvel at the scene outside my kitchen window—at those clusters of golden, those blooms I didn’t plant myself. And it occurs to me that so often in my life I have benefitted from the perennials other people have planted. They dug deep and packed hope firmly into the soil, and now I bask in the fruits of their labor . . . sometimes long after they’re gone.

There are the parents who planted laughter and love and joy and perseverance.

There are the grandparents who planted faith and loyalty and hard work.

There are the teachers who planted books and words.There are the mentors who planted hospitality and grace.

And I wonder, what are we planting today for the people who come behind us?

They may never fully appreciate the sacrifice.

They may never say thank you.

You may never even meet them face to face.

But somewhere, on some April morning, the bulbs you planted will spring up, like shoots of hope, and those who come behind you will rejoice over the blooms they didn’t plant.

No winter lasts forever.  No spring skips its turn.  April is a promise that May is bound to keep.  And we know it.
—Hal Borland

 

Spring Will Come

daffodil; StephanieRische.comSomehow I don’t think it’s happenstance that Easter falls in the springtime on our calendars. God is a master of metaphor, after all, and he delights in giving us natural whispers that echo deeper truths. And after a long winter like this one, I think we’re all extra attuned to the cues of spring this year.

There’s something about waking up to the melodies of birdsongs that makes you wonder if new life just might be possible. There’s something about feeling the warm kiss of sunshine after record-setting snowfalls that makes you think there really might be such a thing as second chances. There’s something about seeing the first bunch of daffodils poke their golden heads out after a long winter that makes you believe in miracles again.

I just celebrated my ten-year anniversary of living in my house, affectionately dubbed the Nut House. (Whether that’s an allusion to my street address or to its occupant is anyone’s guess.) It’s the first place I lived on my own, and when it came time to move in, I felt scared and alone. Somehow I’d always imagined buying my first place with a husband—getting a cute starter home together and putting up with squeaky faucets and endearingly hideous olive green wallpaper until we could afford to fix it up. What I never pictured was jumping into that milestone solo.

I’d bought the place in an uncharacteristically split-second decision, not knowing much about the city or neighborhood beforehand. I remember going on a walk the day after I moved in, trying to get my bearings (and also to prevent myself from hyperventilating over how many boxes I still had to unpack and how I didn’t even know where the grocery store was).

As I ambled haphazardly along the path, I turned a corner, and all at once I was greeted by a canvas of yellow. Apparently the world had exploded in daffodils while I’d been busy worrying about other things. In that moment, I sensed God whispering to me that it was going to be okay. He was doing a new thing, and there would be new life, and I wasn’t always going to feel like daffodil bulb stuck under the dirt, struggling to break through the surface.

Ten springs have passed since that day, and my home is now brimming with memories and music and love. Over the course of a decade, friends and neighbors and guests and family have crossed the threshold of my door. Secrets and dreams and prayers and meals have been shared between those walls. I have started to grow into my own skin there. And to my great surprise, I now share this residence with a husband (who was entirely worth the wait) and the guitars and bicycles that moved in with him.

Last week Daniel and I went on a walk together to mark the tenth anniversary of the place both of us now call home. The daffodils were bursting gold along the path, just as they always do.

And as the sun streamed between the tree branches and onto my neck, it felt like God was whispering the reminder to me again, a decade in the making:

Winter does not last forever. Spring comes. Spring always comes.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
— Martin Luther

God’s Underground Work

When I was living in my first place after college, I made the rather impulsive decision one Sunday afternoon to buy a package of daffodil bulbs. It was only after I arrived home that I realized I didn’t have anything even closely resembling a shovel. But by that point I was determined to make the bulb-planting happen. Today.

So I pulled out an old knife and thought, How hard can this be? As it turned out, digging 12 inches into the dirt might as well have been muscling to the center of the earth when you’re using a dull kitchen blade. By the time I was ready to drop the final bulb in the ground, my arms were aching and my knees and hands were caked with dirt, but I was feeling pretty satisfied.

Then I took my first real look at the brown, dead-looking thing in my palm. I’d seen plenty of daffodils in the past, and presumably they’d all started out this way, but suddenly I was assailed by doubts. How could something that looked like a rotting turnip be transformed into a sunny, yellow flower? But with a shrug I put the last bulb in the dirt and went inside to retire the now-worthless knife.

I promptly forgot about my little gardening experiment…until the next April. One day I looked out my back window, and to my surprise, a small but tenacious sprout was trying to poke its head out of the cold, unforgiving earth.

Isn’t that a picture of what God does with our lives too? To a casual observer, we look dead, ugly, hopeless. But God doesn’t give up on us. During those seasons when we’re all but buried, when it looks like Satan has won after all—that’s precisely when God does his best redemptive work. He uses those months under the cover of soil to build us up, make us strong, prepare us for who he wants us to be.

And when the first hint of spring arrives, we will stick out our heads, tentatively at first, and then with increasing boldness. As our faces open to the Son, he will transform us. From despair to hope. From death to new life.

And we, turnipy-looking things that we are, will be a tangible display of his glorious grace.