Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Split in Two

To be a woman, I would contend, is to feel split in two. Maybe you’re juggling home and career, or marriage and friends, or kids and calling. Whatever the scenario, we all know what it’s like to try to keep the plates spinning without breaking the ones we care about most.

There’s a famous story about a wise king who settled a dispute by offering to split a baby in two split a baby in two. As the story goes, there was one baby and two women, each claiming the child was hers. Solomon called for a sword and said, “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

At this point in the story, every person with a beating heart cries, “Stop!”There are no circumstances that justify a split-in-two baby. No one wins if Baby is dead.

But what about when it’s the mom who’s split in two?

I recently returned to work after maternity leave, and it seems that wherever I am, I have to leave a piece of myself behind. When I’m at work, my heart is still tethered to the 15-pound cheeky boy who is currently doing tummy time without me and the 3-year-old I promised to build an excavator with when I get back. When I’m at home, I can’t help but wonder what emails are piling up and if my brain will ever recover from its current porridge-like state.

And it’s not just working moms who find themselves tugged in different directions. There are women who are at home full-time while trying to pursue something they feel called to. There are women sandwiched between two generations, caring for kids as well as aging parents. There are single women who are trying to figure out how to follow their passion while also covering the bills.

Some days it feels like there just isn’t enough of us to go around. Not enough energy, not enough time, not enough emotional bandwidth. We need the wisdom for Solomon for this. Is the answer to split ourselves into two (or three or four or five)? If we do, will there be enough of us to go around?

The reality is, it will never work to cut ourselves in half—no matter how sharp the sword or how accurate the slice. We’ll keep giving pieces away until there’s nothing left . . . and it still won’t be enough.

So what’s the answer?

I don’t think there’s an easy solution to this—we may have to reconcile ourselves to living in some amount of tension. But I am learning, by baby steps, that there’s peace in bringing our whole selves wherever we are. Instead of becoming fragmented—separating our work selves from our home selves, our mom selves from our professional selves, our daughter selves from our adult selves—what if we stitched our roles together so we could be all there, wherever we are?

I used to think of integrity strictly in terms of moral uprightness. But what if integrity is about being fully integrated—being the same person, no matter where we are?

I’m still figuring out what this looks like. But maybe it means bringing my editor-self to my parenting and using multi-syllabic words with my toddler. Or bringing my mother-self to my work and letting my baby crash my Zoom calls on occasion.

I wonder what this looks like for you, beautiful woman being tugged in different directions. How are you wrestling with the split-ness of being a woman? What might it look like for you to bring your whole, integrated self to each role you’ve been called to?

However we’re feeling split, may we stitch each part of ourselves together so we can fully love, fully live . . . and be fully ourselves.

The glory of God is a human fully alive.

Saint Irenaeus

We Toil and Spin

As we find ourselves in month three of the world according to COVID, one of the strangest parts has been the time warp of it all. Every day we’ve been sequestered feels like Groundhog Day. Thank goodness for the emergence of daffodils and lilacs, and perhaps even the arrival of ants in my kitchen, to mark the passing of the months. But heaven help me if I know what day of the week it is, or what time it is, for that matter.

I was talking to a friend on the phone the other afternoon, and she said, “Argh! I have a feeling my people are going to expect dinner again tonight.” Come to think of it, I had no dinner plans myself—and most likely, no appropriate combination of ingredients to make said dinner.

I don’t have a problem with dinner per se; my problem is that it’s so daily. “That’s what no one tells you about adulthood,” she said. “The dark secret is that you have to provide sustenance for yourself every single night.” (And perhaps also for toddlers who declare, “That not be good,” before even taking a bite.)

I have a hunch that most of us, when pressed, don’t necessarily mind work itself. There’s a certain satisfaction in accomplishing a task, in having something to show for our efforts, in sweating over a tough assignment and earning a rest. Perhaps the part of work that drives us nearly to despair at 4 p.m. on an indistinguishable weeknight is the unending nature of it . . . the Sisyphean feeling of rolling the rock up the hill over and over, only to watch helplessly as it rolls down again.

In the third century, there was a desert father named Abba Paul. While the other monks of his day made their homes on the outskirts of cities, Abba Paul lived alone in a remote area. Unlike the other monks who could sell their baskets in town, he had no way to make a traditional living for himself.

But every day, he wove baskets, praying all the while. Without exception, he exacted a days’ labor from himself. At the beginning of the year, he collected palm fronds and filled his cave with a year’s worth of work, and each day he committed himself to the task of making baskets. Then, at the end of the year, he’d burn up all the baskets—everything he’d so carefully toiled over.

When I first heard this story, it made me want to cry. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have had the gumption to make all those baskets for no apparent purpose. But I’m almost certain I wouldn’t have had what it takes to intentionally take a match to my labor.

The more I’ve thought about this story, though, the more I wonder if my perspective on work is upside down. What if having an attitude of prayer while we work is more important than what we produce? What if the purpose of work is more because our character needs refining than because the world needs our contributions? What if God doesn’t actually require our labor, but he still delights in our efforts?

Whatever is on your to-do list today—whether it’s a sink full of dishes, a stack of papers to grade, a basement full of laundry, never-ending diapers to change, endless data to enter into a spreadsheet, or dinner to make (yet again)—know that your work is not invisible. Even if you have to start all over and do it again tomorrow, none of it is wasted. God sees the work you do in private. He notices the way you faithfully do the little things, with no accolades and no glory. He appreciates your excellence, day after Groundhog Day.

And all the while, he is using your work to transform you into the person he wants you to be. I suppose that’s better than a cave full of woven baskets.

Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.” It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

C. S. Lewis