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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

January 29, 2014 By Michelle 4 Comments

A Divided Loyalty and the Stinging Truth

Two weeks ago I watched as the endorsements deadline for my first book came and went. I watched the deadline pass, knowing seven authors hadn’t responded.

Endorsements are the pithy accolades that appear in the opening pages and on the front and back covers of a book. Two months ago I learned from my publisher that it’s the author’s responsibility to ask other writers if they might be willing to take a look at the book and write an endorsement. The emails I dutifully typed to more than a dozen authors were among the most awkward I have ever written, because when it comes right down to it, asking for an endorsement for your book is asking for praise, and asking for praise places you in a position of vulnerability and weakness. Not my favorite place.

I waited. And I cried tears of relief and joy as I read some of the early endorsements that came in. I felt a little like Sally Field at the Oscars. People like my book, they like it, they really like it!

Until, that is, the endorsements stopped coming, and the deadline passed.

…I’m over at Nacole’s place, Six in the Sticks, guest posting for her series on Christian writing and blogging. Join me over there? 

On Personality Tests and Your God-Given Passion
In Which I Officially Announce My Book, Spiritual Misfit {even though you've already heard about it a billion times}

Filed Under: envy, publishing, writing, writing and faith Tagged With: Book of James, Christian writing, the struggle with envy, writing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lynn Morrissey says

    January 29, 2014 at 1:35 pm

    I appreciate your honesty, Michelle, and how you let God work in your heart. Bottomline, I think, is that God will draw to your book whom He wants to read it. He’s endorsing it, because He’s granted publication. When my last book was released, I had garnerd endorsements from some of *the* top authors in the writing world. They were all lined up with words of praise. And the irony is that the publishers chose not to use any of them, because it would look tacky on a gift book. Go figure. In that moment, I realized none of it mattered any way. What mattered were the hearts of the women who would be reading the book’s message, not because I had asked them to, but God had drawn them to it for His purposes. I know He will do the same for your book.
    I am praying for changed lives as a result!
    Love
    Lynn

    Reply
  2. Diana Trautwein says

    January 30, 2014 at 12:25 am

    I couldn’t comment over at Nacole’s place – this nifty new Uproll me tool doesn’t always let me get out to the actual blog, but sometimes takes me to ‘reading in a browser’ which generally doesn’t allow comments. Just wanted to say that I ‘m grateful for your continuing honesty about how hard each piece of this is for you at some point. You share the good stuff and the awful stuff with equal abandon and I’m grateful for your voice. Thank you.

    Reply
  3. Jillie says

    January 30, 2014 at 8:29 am

    I’m endorsing your book, Michelle, and I haven’t even read it yet! I have pre-ordered on amazon, and can’t wait to read it. I’m simply going on what I know about you—wrestler in matters of faith, honest, genuine, and sincerely kind helper of those who read your blog. That’s all I need to go on.
    Blessing to you, Jillie

    Reply
  4. Sharon says

    January 30, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    Michelle, I read your post over at Nacole’s place – and hopped back over here to leave a comment. Oh my, you have touched a raw nerve in my heart also. I constantly battle this problem. Approval, recognition, accolades – sometimes I feel like I am starving for them. And in that, I feel most guilty. The comparison/envy game has eaten up entire parts of my soul from time to time. More guilt.

    This is one of the reasons that I am going to get your book. For you are a very honest soul, and courageous in sharing your *stuff* – and I appreciate an honest, real, vulnerable, messy believer. For it is by walking out my faith with them that I am encouraged to further seek God and tuck myself in even closer to Him.

    Oh, by the way, just off the presses:

    “This is a wonderful book by a thoughtful and gifted writer. I heartily encourage you to read her thoughts as she seeks to follow hard after Me.” – GOD

    GOD BLESS!

    Reply

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Living out faith in the everyday is no joke. If you’re anything like me, some days you feel full of confidence and hope, eager to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the world. Other days…not so much.

Let me say straight up: I wrestle with my faith. Most days I feel a little bit like Jacob, wrangling his blessing out of God. And most days I’m okay with that. I believe God made me a questioner and a wrestler for a reason, and I believe one of those reasons is so that I can connect more authentically with others.

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