Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

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

Free Thanksgiving Printable!

give thanks

As a way to say thank you to all my blog readers, I would like to share this free Thanksgiving printable with you, designed by my friend Julie Chen at Life Verse Design. She is amazingly talented, and I encourage you to go to her site to find lovely notecards, inspirational art, plaques, and personalized pieces for your home.

Go to this link to download your printable copy of the piece above.

May your heart (and belly) be full this Thanksgiving! I thank God for each one of you.

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

Shine Where You Are

eclipseA few weeks ago I got up early and watched the lunar eclipse, the bright ball of a moon glowing orange in the inky sky. As I stood outside in the predawn, I got to thinking about the night sky . . . a topic I can’t say I’ve pondered much before (then again, I’m not usually pondering much of anything at o-dark-thirty).

The thing about the moon is that it doesn’t have much to commend it on its own. By itself, the moon is little more than a craggy mass of rock. It’s only when the sun reflects off its surface that it is able to light up the night sky. Without the sun, we’d never see the moon at all—not its fingernail-clipping crescent or its full-orbed harvest glow.

And then there are the stars, which march out one by one to the same spot every night. They twinkle from their designated places, glowing modestly from the formations they’ve stood in for generations. Their beauty comes not so much from being the flashiest or the brightest but from where they shine in the dark sky.

When I think about this media-saturated culture we live in, sometimes I wonder if we all feel undue pressure to Dream Big and to Do Significant Things and to Refuse to Settle for Ordinary. And while yes, it’s important to chase after the visions God has planted inside of us, sometimes I think we can get hung up on flashiness instead of obedience.

What if sometimes God wants us to just shine where we are?

If one day the moon decided it no longer wanted to remain in the line of the sun, we wouldn’t benefit from its nightly glow. If a star in the Big Dipper decided it wanted more of the limelight and stepped out of formation, we’d be deprived of its unique display of light.

So maybe there’s a lesson for us in the night sky. We aren’t called to be the brightest or the best—we’re just called to show up in the ordinary moments and reflect the Light.

  • Maybe you’re called to shine as you do another load of laundry.
  • Maybe you’re called to shine in that same old job, day after day.
  • Maybe you’re called to shine as you listen, really listen, to the cashier at the grocery store.
  • Maybe you’re called to shine as you serve someone who doesn’t seem to appreciate you, to love someone who doesn’t seem to love you back.

Today, I urge to reflect his light—right where you are. Show up and shine—right where you are.

He determines the number of the stars     and calls them each by name.
Psalm 147:4

A Pre-Game Talk for Dad

dad and meToday my dad is being sworn in as a judge. He’d prefer not to have the spotlight on him, and if I tried to say something nice to his face, he would most likely crack a joke. So I’m writing down my words to him instead.

***

Dad, you have always been the one in the stands, cheering for your kids. You still have your “wall of fame” in your office, plastered with yellowed newspaper clippings you saved about our sports events and academic endeavors, along with the calendar we made for you years ago with pictures of us as kids. We’ve tried to tell you that the dates are all wrong now, but you insist on keeping it up.

You were our biggest fan, the dad who would leave work early so he could be there for every game and meet and recital. I always looked up to your spot in the bleachers, and without fail I’d find you there, giving me the secret family signal.

And now here we are in the audience as you stand at the front of the courtroom in a black judge’s robe with your hand on a Bible, so official as you get sworn in.

Before each of my basketball games, you’d give me a pre-game talk. Don’t be afraid to shoot. Be smart. This is your game. Think! The talk always ended with your trademark fist bump. And now, what words can I offer you on this day, as you prepare to discern cases and bring justice to your corner of the world?

I know that God has already given you what you need for this role. I know, because I’ve been on the receiving end of your judicial gifts my whole life. Whenever I had a decision to make, I’d ask you what to do. I was convinced you knew everything, but (to my consternation) you never told me what to do. You’d help me work through it myself and then tell me, “Now go ask your mother.” And whenever I flubbed up, you gave me that rare combination of truth and love, justice and compassion.

So all I have for you in this pre-game moment is a prayer. A prayer that you will lean into this call you’ve been given. A prayer that you will spread your wings inside that judge’s robe and find that it was made precisely to fit you. A prayer that you will have the wisdom of Solomon to get to the heart of things. A prayer that your gavel will be part of making the Kingdom come in this world.

I will be in the stands, cheering you on.

Fist bump.

Announcing the Next Book Club

What Alice ForgotThanks to everyone who participated in our discussion of Glitter and Glue, we discussed here. Congratulations to Nancy, the winner of the free book giveaway! (Nancy, I’ll send you a separate message about getting your book.)

Our next book discussion will be about What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty.

Here’s the description of the book, taken from the back cover:

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child.

So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over—she’s getting divorced, she has three kids and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over.

Hope you will join us!

Book Club Discussion: Glitter and Glue

Glitter and GlueKelly Corrigan says in the prologue, “If you had asked me, after I graduated from college, whose voice I would hear in my head for the rest of my life, I’d have said some combination of my dad’s and my roommate Tracy’s and Jackson Browne’s. I would have continued with ten or twenty or two hundred others before I got to my mom.” But in her early twenties, Kelly traveled halfway around the world only to discover that she was more like her mother than she ever dreamed.

Discussion #1: Are You the Glitter or the Glue?

When Kelly was in high school, her mother summarized the difference between her and Kelly’s father with these words: “Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue.” In other words, her dad might have been the more charming, fun parent, but her mom was the one who held everything together.

In your home growing up, did you have one parent who was the glitter and one who was the glue? In your home now, are you the glitter or the glue?

Discussion #2: Appreciating Your Mother

Kelly didn’t think she was much like her mother and didn’t understand her very well until she became a nanny and found herself quoting her mom and acting just like her as she cared for the children. After a long day full of meeting the needs of people who were dependent on her, she said: “Maybe the reason my mother was so exhausted all the time wasn’t because she was doing so much, but because she was feeling so much.”

Was there a pivotal season or moment in your life when you starting appreciating or understanding your mom in a new way?

Discussion #3: Leaving Home

It took going all the way to Australia for Kelly to discover that she was her mother’s daughter. As she cared for the Tanner children, she realized she was becoming “less smitten with world travelers and their ripping yarns, and more awed by people who have thrown themselves into the one gig that really matters: parenthood.”

Do you think the author would have had the same epiphanies if she’d stayed home? Have you ever had to leave home to find out who you really are?

Rating

I would give this book four stars. Kelly is a born storyteller, and she has a knack for recounting ordinary events in a compelling way. She delves into the complex relationships between mothers and daughters in an authentic, emotive way. I recommend it—whether you’re a daughter or a mother, or both.

How many stars would you give this book?

{Remember: There will be a free book giveaway for one lucky commenter! Just enter a comment with your thoughts about the book below.}

The One Word I Can’t Pronounce

I don’t know how it’s taken me three decades to discover that I have a speech problem, but I do. There’s one word that refuses to squeeze out of my mouth . . . but it’s an important one.

Yes slides out so smoothly, with its smooth y and its slippery s. Okay, with its friendly syllables and happy-go-lucky ways, falls out just as easily. Sure is tip-of-the-tongue, ready to tumble out at a moment’s notice.

But no, on the other hand, regularly remains lodged somewhere in my esophagus. The word does manage to eke out on occasion . . . but only when it’s followed by problem, as in “no problem.”

Last week I met with two amazing people who have an amazing vision and invited me to be part of an amazing project.

My lips were immediately shaping into a yes. But in those fleeting seconds before I opened my mouth, a series of images flashed through my mind: all my current yeses. What would I have to sacrifice to make this new yes happen?

Here’s the thing: there are already some nonnegotiable yeses I’ve committed to. I’ve said yes to following Christ; I’ve said yes to being a wife; I’ve said yes to being a daughter, a friend, an aunt, a sister, a part of a community.

Would saying yes to this good thing mean saying no to those other best things?

And so I said no. I thought the sky would fall, the world would end, fuses would blow. But to my surprise, none of those things happened. I said no and nobody died.

We must learn the practice of saying no to that which crowds God out and yes to a way of life that makes space for God.
—M. Shawn Copeland

If God is calling you to do something, by all means, say yes. But if this yes is crowding out the best thing, then it may be time to say that word that can be so hard to get out.

Practice it with me now: NO.

***

Is there something you need to say no to today so you can say yes to the best thing?

It’s Going to Get Better

A few weeks ago, Daniel and I went out to dinner and got seated by a table of 20 or so kids celebrating homecoming. We sat there and just watched them for a while (not that we had much choice—we couldn’t have heard what the other person was saying above the teenage racket).

Now that we’re about two decades out from homecoming ourselves, we found the scene fascinating, like some kind of sociological study. The guys were all on one end of the table, jockeying to be the loudest or make the funniest joke. The girls were pulling out lip gloss at two-minute intervals, adjusting their teeny dresses and trying to get the attention of the guys, who had eyes only for their burgers.

After they left, Daniel and I looked at each other, slightly dazed, ears still ringing.

“So,” Daniel said finally. “If you could go back and say something to your 17-year-old self, what would you say?”

We laughed as we considered tips for our former selves:

To the former Stephanie: You know, those high-waisted, tight-rolled jeans are not really as flattering as you think they are.

To the former Daniel: Dude, you should really cut your hair.

But most of all, when I think about the 17-year-old me, I want to cup her face in my hands and say, It’s going to get better. Those things that seem to matter so much right now—the girls who are mean to you in the locker room, the boys who seem to think you’re invisible—it’s not going to matter that much someday. There is so much more to life than you can see right now, and those things that make you feel out of step with the rest of the world . . . you will recognize them as gifts one day. Yes, maybe you’ll get teased as the yearbook’s biggest bookworm, but someday you’ll get to read and write books for a living. And there’s going to be a really handsome man (he with the once-long hair) who will love you just the way God knows you need to be loved. And best of all, you’ll be comfortable in your own skin.

***

Last week a beautiful woman from our church was taken from us after the tumor in her brain gained too much ground. She was one of those people who was sunshine in human form—always offering warm hugs and greetings, beaming her genuine smile, making people feel loved and welcomed.

Daniel and I stood in a three-hour line at Kim’s visitation, surrounded by hundreds of other people whose lives had been touched by this woman of God. Story after story poured out about how her life had been marked by love and service—to God, to her family, to her church, and to anyone whose path she crossed.Kim McCart

As we looked at the photos around the room—the one of Kim with her husband’s arm around her, the one of her laughing with her children and grandchildren, the one of her hugging kids on a service trip in Ecuador—it struck me in a fresh way what really matters. I get so caught up in the things that seem urgent, the things that clamor for my attention and keep me buzzing from one item on the to-do list to the next.

I have to wonder if Kim would cup my face in her hands and say, “Things are going to get so much better. And those things that worry you, the things you think are so important? They’re not going to matter all that much one day.”

I’m not so different from those high school students, I’m afraid, so focused on the here and now. But I want to hang on to the legacy Kim leaves behind: Love God. Love people. This is what really matters.

I have no doubt that when Kim went home to her Father, she was greeted just as warmly as she’d greeted people on this side of eternity. And I’m confident these words echoed off the streets of gold: “Well done, Kim, my good and faithful servant.”

Forget the sequined dresses and the loud table talk. That’s the ultimate homecoming.

Do I Have Anything in My Teeth?

When I was in high school, the group of girls I sat with at lunch had a ritual before we headed to our next class: the daily “teeth check.” We’d flash our pearly whites at each other to make sure no bits of sandwich had unceremoniously lodged there.

(Keep in mind, this was the era of braces and retainers, not to mention just a teensy bit of insecurity.)

Most days the teeth check passed without incident, but on occasion, one of us might be known to say something like, “You don’t have anything in your teeth . . . but you do have something hanging out of your nose!”

(Yes, our humor was very sophisticated back then.)

We may have been a little over-vigilant about the post-lunch hygiene, but there’s something to the idea. It’s infinitely better for your friend to point out your social faux pas than to have the popular kids snickering about you behind your back or to have that cute guy see you with a piece of spinach stuck between your front teeth.

Oscar Wilde once said, “True friends stab you in the front.” And I think that’s about right, whether it’s about lunch . . . or your gossip habit or how you’re not being yourself or your tendency to hold back out of fear.

As painful as it can be to have someone tell you that you have the spiritual equivalent of spinach in your soul, how much better is that than to know you’ve been walking around like that for days or weeks or years? And all the better for it to come from someone who loves you.

We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ.
Ephesians 4:15

I’m thankful to have people in my life who give me spiritual checkups. I’ve invited them to stab me in the front when I need it, and they do. They gently point out my blind spots, they tell me the truth in love, they remind me who I am and who I want to be. And they invite me to do the same for them.

As vulnerable as this whole process is, I’d much rather have it this way than go on living with something ugly stuck in my soul.

***

How about you? Do you have a friend who is willing to give you accountability when you need it? What would it take to get there?