Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

An Irish Blessing

My grandmother, who claims some Irish blood herself, says that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Whether you’re Irish for real or Irish for a day, I hope these words from a famous Irishman will soak deep into your soul. They’re from Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, and I pray they will serve as a shield of armor across your heart, whatever the day ahead will hold.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

—St. Patrick’s Breastplate

Happy Birthday, Blog (Plus a Free Giveaway!)

birthdayWe are a people who mark occasions—not just on the day they happen but on subsequent years afterward. Birthdays. Death days. Anniversaries. Class reunions. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. The commemoration of special events. The day a war started and the day it ended.

And why is that, I wonder? Why don’t we just celebrate or mourn on that day, as the occasion calls for?

There’s something significant about an anniversary, I think. It puts a stake in the ground and lets us see where we are now, and where we’ve been. And this isn’t just nostalgia; God commands us to remember:

Remember the days of long ago; think about the generations past. Ask your father, and he will inform you. Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you.
—Deuteronomy 32:7

So why do we need to remember?

I think we need cues to remember because we’re so forward-focused that we forget the milestones from last month, last year, last decade. We’re so busy forging ahead that we forget the things (the good ones and the hard ones) that made us who we are today. We need a reminder to slow down, to look in the rearview mirror, to thank God for where we are and where we’ve come from.

I think there’s another reason God instructs us to remember. It’s because the emotions of the thing we’re recalling are often too big to be absorbed in a single day. We can’t take in all the joy required when a person is born, so we spread it out and mark that day on each ensuing year. We can’t take in the enormity of a loss on the day we lose someone we love, so we come back and revisit it later. We can’t do justice to all that being a mother stands for on that one day of labor, so we set aside a day to commemorate motherhood every year.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this website, StephanieRische.com, and it’s gotten me thinking about remembering in general and about staking the mile markers of God’s faithfulness.

I’ve been thinking about how we’re pretty good at remembering the big anniversaries, but we often overlook the less obvious but no less significant ones. I want to do a better a job remembering, savoring, taking note, saying thank you. I want to be aware of God is doing in the moment, and I want to be intentional about thanking him afterward.

I have a lot of remembering to do, but here’s a small start. This month marks five years since I’ve been praying with my Tuesday prayer buddy. Just a few weeks ago marks the day four years ago when the man of my dreams got down on one knee on the cold pavement and asked me to marry him. Last week marks the day my little niece was baptized and charmed the whole congregation with her big eyes and fluffy white gown. This February marks my college roommate’s birthday—the 18th one I’ve celebrated with her.

I don’t want to take these mini-celebrations for granted. I want to come to God in gratitude for all of them—for his faithfulness in the moment they happened and for all they mean to me now.

***

What about you? What small celebrations do you want to commemorate? I’d love to hear about them.

In honor of my blog birthday, I’m giving away two gifts to two new subscribers! Type in your email address on the right to be eligible for a $10 Starbucks gift card or a $10 Barnes & Noble gift card. I’ll choose two randomly selected commenters on Wednesday.

10 Sacred Love Notes

cake topperValentine’s Day can be fraught with so many emotions other than love . . . no matter what stage of life we find ourselves in. If you don’t have someone to celebrate with, the incessant jewelry commercials can feel like multiple carats of pain. And even if you do have a valentine, there are plenty of opportunities for ugly things like guilt, comparison, and unmet expectations. Social media only seems to make us feel worse, as there’s always someone out there whose life looks happier, prettier, or more romantic.

My sister recently asked me to share a fun Valentine’s Day memory, and to my surprise, the one that came to mind was the Valentine’s Day I was in fourth grade, home with strep throat. I was heartbroken to miss the school party—and the valentine exchange in particular—but to my delight, my neighbor brought my decorated shoebox home on the school bus for me. My mom sat on the edge of my bed and we opened them together, one by one. My fiery throat was momentarily forgotten, and it didn’t even matter that I had no appetite for the chalky candy hearts. As my mom sat there reading valentines with me, I felt supremely and unequivocally loved.

Wherever you find yourself this Valentine’s Day, my hope is that you will know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you are loved. If you’re feeling loved already, he’s inclined to pour on even more love—the excessive, abundant, prolific kind. And if you’re having a rough Valentine’s Day, I think he’d like to just sit there beside you and let you know you’re not alone.

These are some of my favorite love notes from God, and I hope they will speak to you today too. (Chalky hearts not included.)

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. ~Zephaniah 3:17

For his unfailing love for you is higher than the heavens. His faithfulness reaches to the clouds. ~Psalm 108:4

May you have the power to understand how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love for you is. ~Ephesians 3:18

He has loved you with an everlasting love. With unfailing love he has drawn you to himself. ~Jeremiah 31:3

Surely his goodness and unfailing love will pursue you all the days of your life, and you will live in the house of the Lord forever. ~Psalm 23:6

The Word became human and made his home among you. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. ~John 1:14

Even before he made the world, God loved you and chose you. ~Ephesians 1:4

In his unfailing love, your God will stand with you. ~Psalm 59:10

See how very much our Father loves you, for he calls you his child, and that is what you are! ~1 John 3:1

Nothing can ever separate you from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither your fears for today nor your worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate you from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate you from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus your Lord. ~Romans 8:38-39

*Note that I have taken the liberty of changing some of the pronouns in these verses to make the application more personal. I trust that I have done so while keeping true to the meaning of Scripture.

The Legend of the Christmas Spider

fireplace3Every year before Christmas dinner, my family reads a Christmas story together. Mom has been collecting a large binder full of stories for decades now, and we used to flip through the pages and decide on one together. But we’ve had enough Christmases together that by now we’ve read all the stories. So this year the dish I’m bringing to pass is a story. I hope you enjoy it!

***

These days Shalom the Spider wasn’t just moving slower or going gray. Now she was officially, without a doubt, old. She’d raised her own brood of spiders—several sets of multiples—and watched her grand-spiders grow up. Now she even had great-grand-spiders. Generation after generation of her family had been born right here in this little barn in Bethlehem. Some of them had stayed in the village, and some had gone off into the world, seeking new lands and new adventures.

But Shalom had been content to stay where she was—right in the barn where she’d been born and where her mother and grandmother before her had lived. This was where they’d taught her to spin and where they’d spun tales of their own.

Although Shalom had never had an itch to explore distant lands, there was one place she wished she could have visited before she died: the holy city. She’d heard tales about this place from the generations before her, as they told stories late into the night. How the tapestries in the Temple were made of rich purple and blue, how the lamps burned bright and warm all through the night. And most of all, how the people gathered at the Temple to wait for the Messiah who had been promised so many harvests ago.

Some spiders from her village came back to recount stories about their trek to the holy city—about the long climb up the mountain and how the pilgrims would sing together as they climbed so it felt more like an eight-legged dance than an arduous journey.

Every spring, Shalom had dreamed of making the trip, but every spring came and went, and she stayed home. There were offspring to care for, dinners to be caught, webs to be spun, and she could never get away. And now it was too late. Four of her knees were failing her, and they’d never carry her to the top of the Mount now.

It really didn’t bother her much anymore though; after all, she was content to be here in the place she loved, surrounded by her family for this final season of her life. But there were nights when the moon shone silver through the slats of the barn and a familiar ache would set in.

Tonight was one of those nights. So she did what she always did when she couldn’t sleep: she pulled out her special thread pile. She’d been collecting bits of string and fabric ever since she was young. Tiny pieces of cloth that fell off the donkey’s saddle. Sturdy threads from the hem of the farmer’s garment. Scraps of fabric from travelers’ satchels. Even precious purple threads that her friends had brought back for her all the way from the holy city.

Night after night she sat weaving the threads together. As tiny as each piece was, the weaving had grown fairly large after all this time—it was almost the size of the cattle trough by now. Shalom’s friends couldn’t understand why she’d go to so much effort for something so useless. “You don’t need a blanket,” they said. “You’re a spider. And it’s not like you’re going to take it to market to sell it.”

But Shalom wove on, her legs almost on autopilot by now. Truth be told, she didn’t know herself why she did it, only that it soothed her. It felt like something she was made to do.

***

The barn animals were all sleeping when she heard unfamiliar voices just outside the barn. Who could it be at this time of night? she wondered.

She saw the woman’s belly first. Oh, poor woman, Shalom thought. Her time is coming soon.

She was right about soon. In a matter of minutes, the usually quiet barn was filled with the squall of a baby’s first cry. A hush rippled through the barn as every animal turned to look at the Child.

What is it about this Baby? Shalom wondered. He looks like any other baby I’ve seen. But her heart wouldn’t stop its wild beating inside of her.

Before she even realized what she was doing, each set of her legs was bending beneath her, bowing before this Child-King.

The mother smiled at the Baby. “This straw will have to do for your bed, little one,” she said. “I’m only sorry I don’t have a blanket for you.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Shalom rose, not even noticing the way her knees creaked beneath her. The blanket! She could give her blanket to this tiny King.

As Joseph wrapped the baby in the blanket, Shalom’s eyes filled with tears. The Messiah has come to us! I didn’t have to trek far and long to find him. He came here, of all places. And now he’s being warmed by my scraps of thread.

The one who couldn’t be contained within an entire holy city was now wrapped in something so small.

God with us. In this very barn. On this very night.

Immanuel.

***

{Author’s note: According to a Polish legend, a spider made a blanket for the Baby Jesus on the first Christmas Eve. As a result, some Polish families decorate their trees with spiders and spider webs.}

The Third Week of Advent: Joy

fireplace3As a kid, I never understood why all the Christmas decorations were red and green except the Advent candles. Now don’t get me wrong, as a girl growing up in the 80s, I was a big fan of the pink and purple combo. But for Christmas?

Recently, though, I was doing some digging about Advent, and I discovered that each candle’s color has a specific meaning. In the liturgical calendar, purple symbolizes penitence and repentance, and it’s used for both Lent and Advent. Those three purple candles stand as tall, solemn reminders that this world is broken, that we are broken. Advent, a time of mourning.

Long lay the world
In sin and error pining . . .

But those candles in the wreath don’t remain cloaked in sadness. On Christmas Day, all the purple candles are replaced with white ones. White—the color of joy. Our mourning is over. The Messiah is here!

Joy to the world!
The Lord is come
Let earth receive her King!

So what about the one stray pink candle in the mix? According to tradition, the pink candle got its start centuries ago when monks were making Advent candles. As they mixed wax for the purple candles, it was almost as if the joy of Christmas couldn’t be contained. The white spilled over into some of the wax, creating the lone pink candle.

And isn’t that what Advent is? Mourning tinged with joy.

In my own life, there’s no doubt about it: sadness can creep into my joy. One minute everything is going great—I’m singing in the shower, dancing in the kitchen, bursting to start a new day. But the sadness can creep in so fast—with a single failure, disappointment, sharp word, or unmet expectation.

But joy? What if joy could creep in too?

Joy is stealthier than sadness, I think. It doesn’t always come with trumpets and fanfare. Sometimes joy sneaks in, more like melted wax. You may not even notice it’s there until you look down and see a rosy hue where there once was a melancholy purple.

That’s how Jesus came too—he who is Joy himself. His incarnation wasn’t brazen; it was quiet, small. But that quietness didn’t diminish the joy. Because joy has the power to seep in and permeate all the mourning, all the sadness.

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found

Christmas reminds us of one of the best gifts of all: that joy can creep into our sadness too.

It’s as if the third week of Advent is telling us, “Hang on for one more week. Joy will creep in.”

Joy always finds a way to creep in.

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 First Week of Advent: Hope

fireplace3Right now I’m reading Lila, the brilliant novel by Marilynne Robinson, and although it’s not a Christmas book, Advent fairly drips from the pages.

When we meet Lila, she is newly with child. This turn of events is so surprising, so unforeseen, that she barely allows herself to hold on to the news, let alone speak it aloud.

I imagine her expression must have looked something like young Mary’s at the Annunciation:

How can this be?

She’s been alone for such a long time. Too long, maybe. And she’s never stayed anywhere long enough to let anyone get close to her.

How can she dare to hope that this good man loves her . . . will keep on loving her? Surely if he knew everything, he would ask her leave. Or install barbed wire around his heart.

And now . . . a baby? To think that she could be part of bringing something good into this world after dwelling in so much darkness? She can’t allow her heart to crack open even a sliver for such a hope. And so she tries to seal herself off, to make sure no hope leaks in:

She thought a thousand times about the ferociousness of things so that it might not surprise her entirely when it showed itself again.

But as the story goes on, hope wears her down, wrapped in an overcoat of unrelenting love, and she finally surrenders to it.

Let it be to me as you have said.

***

There’s a song I love that goes like this:

Hope hears the music of the future
Before it’s played
Faith is the courage
To dance to it today

The first week of Advent stands for hope, and I think it’s the hardest candle of all to keep lit. Hope asks big things of us. It requires that we let go of the ferociousness we imagine and instead cling to the promises we’ve been given.

Here’s the other thing about hope: it makes us look like fools at times. Have you ever seen someone dancing to music no one else can hear? It’s ridiculous, at best. Hope means tuning our hearts to the melody God has placed inside us, long before the notes hit the air. But hope like this is worth the price, because this kind of hope does not disappoint.

During this Advent season, may we dance to the hope of his promises, even amid the silence.

Hope is imagining God’s future into the present.
N. T. Wright

Teach Me to Savor

fallI went on my final bike ride of the season a couple weeks ago—one of those sun-kissed days when the light bounces off the red maples and the golden poplars, the sky is an impossible shade of blue, and the air is rich with the smell of earth and bonfires. Every time the breeze blew, the sky rained leaves, the yellow and red confetti falling in fistfuls as I rode.

Of course, at the time I didn’t know it would be the last ride of the year. But here in the Midwest, November is notoriously fickle, and winter has a way of sneak-attacking you.

My husband and I have ongoing discussions about the merits and demerits of fall. He is Mr. Summer, relishing the long, hot days so he can ride his bicycle to his heart’s content. I tell him the things I love about fall, but he shakes his head, unconvinced. As I tick off the highlights of the season—apple crisp, walks in the woods, s’mores over an open fire—he logically points out that you can do all those things in the summer, but with warmer weather and longer days. “Fall is just the warning that winter is coming,” he says.

It wasn’t until I was riding my bike that day that it finally hit me that that’s precisely its appeal.

The particular beauty of fall comes because you know it won’t last.

Summer, with its endless days and languorous nights, its extravagant greens and lush flowers, seems to stretch on without end. But in the fall, reminders are everywhere that this beauty is fleeting. The trees chameleon overnight. Branches shed their leaves in a single storm. The nip in the air arrives out of nowhere one morning. Without warning, it’s time to pull the sweaters out of hibernation.

Here’s what I think: Autumn is God’s reminder to savor.

It’s a wake-up call that no season, no matter how wonderful, no matter how painful, will last forever. Fall is God’s way of saying, “Each day is a gift. Don’t take it for granted—but don’t hoard it either. Just see the beauty of today and soak it in.”

If you find yourself in a season of bliss right now, don’t fear the changing seasons ahead. Savor the gifts of the right-now. And if you are going through a painful season, look for beauty amid the dying. Savor this—yes, even this.

Autumn . . . the year’s last, loveliest smile.
William Cullen Bryant

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

New Thursday

Perhaps no other week in the year is as full of dramatic turnarounds as this one.

Good Friday turns into Easter.
Winter melts into spring.
Sadness turns to joy.
Despair is trumped by hope.
Death is trounced by life.

Christianity is marked by those defining moments when everything changes: Creation. Exodus. Incarnation. And so it is with Maundy Thursday. On that night, the whole tilt of the earth shifted. On that night, Jesus made a proclamation that reframed all that was and all that will be:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
—John 13:34

The English word Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum (mandate or command), the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new command I give you . . .”).

The Old Testament records some 600 laws and rules. Yet in that seismic shift the night before his death, Jesus installed just one new law that covered all the old ones. Love, he said. Love, love, and more love.

But before new could replace old, before life could replace death, before Easter morning could dawn in all its glory, there had to be that long, dark night between Good Friday and resurrection.

According to Watchman Nee, the same is true for us:

God must bring us to a point—I cannot tell you how it will be, but he will do it—where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched, and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves. . . .

We would like to have death and resurrection put together within one hour of each other. We cannot face the thought that God will keep us aside for so long a time; we cannot bear to wait. . . . All is in darkness, but it is only for a night. It must indeed be a full night, but that is all. Afterwards you will find that everything is given back to you in glorious resurrection; and nothing can measure the difference between what was before and what now is!

—Watchman Nee

Do not fear that dark night. It must come to make space for new life. For Easter. For resurrection.