Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Where Are You?

If there were a rite of passage for parenthood, I’d venture to say it’s not a baby shower or a milestone birthday or watching your child take their first step. Maybe, instead, it’s that first trip to the ER.

Our ER adventure started with the most innocuous of summer events: a bug bite. But by day two, the swelling was getting worse and the Benadryl wasn’t doing the trick. By the time our little boy woke up from his nap, both eyes were swollen completely shut. The pediatrician sent us straight to the ER—forget dinner, let alone combing your hair.

Once Graham and I were on the road (Daniel couldn’t go, per COVID regulations), I heard Graham’s little voice pipe up from the backseat, “How you feeling, Mama?” Before I could come up with a reply that was both honest and calming, he replied, “I feeling happy.” This from a boy whose eyes looked like jet-puffed marshmallows and who could no longer see out the window.

Once we were whisked into our hospital room, Graham was given a tiny gown with rocket ships on it and pumped with even more Benadryl. He let the doctor pry open his eyes and dutifully responded when asked, “Does this hurt? How about this?”

He was a champ . . . under one condition: that he knew precisely where I was. And since his visibility was at practically zero, that meant physical contact. If I took my hand off of him for even a second, he would say, “Where are you, Mama?” So I’d rub his back or put my hand on his arm while singing every hymn I could access from the cobwebs of memory.

By hour three in the ER, as we waited in vain for the Benadryl to kick in, it was well past bedtime. After dozing off in the too-big hospital bed, he’d wake up, startled. “What is you and I doing, Mama?” he asked. I’d hold his hand and remind him where we were. And then he’d breathe a sigh and lean back on the pillow again.

Thankfully, Graham’s eyes recovered (although we never did figure out the rogue bug that got him). The main thing he remembers about his hospital visit was the bed with wheels, which he thought was the coolest thing since Thomas the Tank Engine. But I can’t stop thinking about the kind of childlike faith that requires only presence, not answers.

By all counts, this year has been a year of reckoning for our nation, for our world. Everywhere we turn, there’s pain, suffering, injustice, division. Every day the news headlines bring a new reason for lament. With my jaded, grown-up faith, I ask God, “Why? How long? What are you going to do about all this?”

I want to be more like my little boy, with just one pressing question: Where are you, Papa?It may not make the pain go away. It may not change the circumstances. It may not answer all my whys.

But I’ll be reminded that he’s right here, holding my hand. Always has been, always will be. And for now, at least, maybe that’s enough.

But as for me, God’s presence is my good.
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
so I can tell about all you do.

Psalm 73:28

Maundy Thursday Reflections on Toilet Paper

If the grocery store shelves were any indication, you might assume that the best way to treat COVID-19 is with toilet paper and paper towels.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose: in a time when there’s so little we can control, we can at least have the tangible relief of knowing our cabinets are well stocked.

I confess that I’m a saver by nature, even under non-pandemic circumstances. I like to have backups, and backups for my backups. In this season of unknowns, I’ve been fighting my instinct to hoard everything from supplies to money to time to yes, toilet paper. How long will this last? What if we lose our jobs? What if there’s a global food shortage? What if . . . what if . . . what if?

Then I read the account of Jesus’ feet being anointed with oil during holy week, and it struck me in a new way in this Era of Empty Store Shelves.

A few days before he died, Jesus went to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. And there, Mary enacted a gesture of extreme love and generosity.

Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.

John 12:3

According to some scholars, this jar of perfume was likely Mary’s dowry—what would have been given to a suitor to pay the bride price. The perfume was essentially her past and her future . . . and she lavished it on Jesus in a single extravagant outpouring.

She didn’t hoard her gift. She didn’t measure it out, a little at a time. She didn’t cling to it as her security. She wasn’t consumed by a scarcity mindset.

She embraced the present moment and seized the sacred now. She poured out what she had—all of it.

And I wonder, what would it look like to pour out extravagant love and generosity in this season?

I want to keep my eyes and my hands and my heart open.
I want to love and give extravagantly.
I want to pour out what I’ve been given.

I’d like to think that if Jesus wanted my last roll of toilet paper, I’d give it to him.

Go peaceful
in gentleness
through the violence of these days.
Give freely.
Show tenderness
in all your ways.

God hold you,
enfold you,
and keep you wrapped around His heart.
May you be known by love.

Northumbria Community meditation

Prisoners of Hope

This pandemic has taken so many prisoners, and my heart is heavy for everyone who finds themselves languishing behind bars right now.

The elderly person who can’t have visitors.
The single parent who is never off the clock.
The person battling anxiety.
The person with a compromised immune system.
The person stuck at home in an abusive relationship.
The person who lives alone and feels the ache of loneliness.

Perhaps this virus isn’t responsible for our chains, but it certainly has exposed them. The truth is, we are all prisoners of something—we don’t have much choice about that. But we do have some say in what we will be enslaved to.

I came across this verse recently, and it struck me in a new way in this season of fear and quarantine:

Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
    even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.

Zechariah 9:12

Prisoners of hope. What would it look like, I wonder, to be a prisoner of hope rather than a prisoner of fear?

I want to be chained to hope.
I want to shackle myself to it and not let go.
I want it to follow me wherever I go.

The fact that hope takes prisoners implies a battle. There’s nothing passive about it. It requires courage. It’s a fight.

Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know, is a fighter and a screamer.

Mary Oliver

Hope means choosing love, over and over again . . . and asking for forgiveness when we fail.
It means doing the next right thing.
It means getting up again.
It means believing there will be manna enough for today.
It means laying down our weapons, and sometimes our screens.
It means writing a note, making a phone call, baking a batch of cookies, playing another round of Scrabble.
It means listening for the birds and watching for the green daffodil shoots peeking out of the ground.

It means we keep living, one moment at a time. The battle has already been won.

Hope and despair stand always side by side, each determined to outlast the other. If we choose hope, we must join the standoff, with hearts and hands wide open, fighting the urge to fade into despair.

Catherine McNiel