Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Gospels

Beginning Again After Disappointment

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I admit, in the days following the terrible-no-good-very-bad-half-marathon, I seriously considered giving up running for good. Doubt and fear dampened both my confidence and my longtime love of the sport. I wondered if maybe that terrible race was a sign that after 32 years, my running days were over.

The truth is, it’s hard to begin again after experiencing disappointment or failure. As our mind works overtime, a cacophony of voices chanting a negative refrain, we start to second-guess ourselves. Failure wreaks havoc on our self-confidence and can even leave us questioning our identity or calling.

Last week, as I was considering whether to hang up my running shoes for good, I thought a lot about the disciple Peter.

Peter was all too familiar with failure. He who had so confidently and emphatically proclaimed his love for and loyalty to Jesus had, in the end, profoundly failed his Lord and Savior when he denied knowing him three times before the rooster crowed. Peter’s was, by all accounts, an epic fail.

I can only begin to imagine the depth of Peter’s remorse, disappointment and self-doubt in the aftermath of his failure. I can only begin to imagine how he must have replayed his denial of Jesus over and over in his mind and the impact of that failure not only on his confidence, but also on his understanding of himself and his identity as a disciple of Jesus.

Which is why I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the resurrected Jesus repeated his pointed question to Peter not once but three consecutive times: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Jesus knew Peter’s confidence had been shattered by his failure. Jesus knew that in order for Peter to begin again, he needed to relearn and re-remember that failure did not define him, nor did it undermine the role God had for him and the person God had called him to be. In repeating, “Yes, you know I love you,” three times out loud to Jesus, Peter was reminded once again of his identity and his role.

In this exchange with Jesus, Peter remembered that his failure, terrible and disappointing though it was, ultimately did not diminish who he was at his core.

I realize it’s a little silly to compare my story of a disappointing race with Peter’s calling as a founding leader of the early Christian church. But the truth is, each of us will fail multiple times in our professions, in our relationships, and in our character over the course of our lives, and there are important lessons to be learned in even the smallest, most ordinary stories, even in the smallest, most ordinary failures.

Last week, seven days after my disappointing finish in the half marathon death march, I slid my feet into my running shoes, double knotted the laces, and stepped out the front door. As I began my slow jog down the street, stretching my stiff legs and breathing in the chilled morning air, I remembered that one failed race does not define me. I remembered that one failed race does not diminish the joy and satisfaction I get from running. I remembered that one failed race does not undermine my future as a runner.

Last week when I stepped out the front door, I remembered that I am a runner. And I began again.

Why the Most Important Word in the Bible is With {on Christmas Eve and every day}

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“What do you think is the most important word in the Bible?” That’s the question author Sara Miles posed to the audience who gathered at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lutheran Center last month.

My pastor Beth Ann was there that night, and when we met for lunch a couple of days later, she asked me the same question.

I couldn’t decide on my answer; there were too many good options. Was it love? Grace? Forgiveness? Salvation? Or maybe it Jesus or God – those both seemed like good possibilities, too.

I looked at Beth Ann and shrugged, unable to choose just one word.

“She said it was with,” Beth Ann answered. “She said the most important word in the Bible is with.”

I hadn’t expected that answer, but when I heard it, I nodded. Out of context, with isn’t a very important or impactful word. A mere preposition, with doesn’t carry much weight. But in the context of the Bible, and in the context of this day, Christmas Eve, with is everything.

Immanuel.

It means God with us. Not simply God alone – unreachable, distant, removed – but God with us – right here, right now, in the midst of our everyday, ordinary, messy lives.

In the Gospel of Luke we read a story that for many is as familiar as our own personal history. Some of us have read the story of Jesus’ birth every Christmas for as long as we can remember. Some of us can recite it nearly by heart. And yet, when was the last time we really thought about the impact of Jesus’ birth on our own personal lives and on who we are as human beings living in this present moment?

Jesus came humbly, with humility, not as a powerful, ruling Lord, but as a helpless, dependent, human baby, wrapped in swaddling and laid in a manger. He came like the rest of us, as a human being. He was divine, but he was also human, and he experienced life, with its laughter and lament, its triumph and travail, like we do.

Jesus knows our pain, and our passion; he knows the depth of our sorrow and the height of our joy. He knows it because he lived it. He knows it because he lives it with us still.

With. It’s a small word, a preposition, pretty ordinary and unremarkable. But when it comes to our Savior, with makes all the difference. Immanuel is God with us, born into flesh 2,000 years ago, present with us today.

…

From my family to yours, we wish you a joyful Christmas and a peaceful, healthy New Year. Thank you for being the very best people!

Love,

Michelle

How to Cultivate a Continuous Spirit of Gratitude {hint: take a cue from Mary}

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light on ornaments2

Back in 1983, when I was thirteen years old, the one thing I wanted for Christmas more than anything else in the world was a Cabbage Patch Kid. In particular, I wanted a Cabbage Patch Baby, a girl with a smooth bald head and a round, dimpled face.

Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage that year, even among thirteen-year-olds. By the end of 1983, more than 3 million had been sold (the correct terminology at the time was “adopted”). I remember the lines snaking outside the doors of Toys R Us, the shelves stripped empty minutes after the store opened.

Needless to say, I didn’t get my Cabbage Patch Baby for Christmas that year. No matter where my mom looked, they were always sold out. And this was long before the Internet and the opportunity to bid ten times the original price for one on eBay (not that my parents would have done that…though I certainly would have expected them to).

I was crushed. That Christmas I received plenty of gifts – toys and clothes and stuffed animals and games – but none of it mattered to me. I didn’t really appreciate any of the gifts I received because none was the be-all-and-end-all gift I so desperately desired. I was ungrateful, simply because I had not received the gift.

I realize comparing Jesus to a Cabbage Patch Kid is a bit of a stretch, if not outright sacrilegious, but bear with me for a moment here.

Mary received the ultimate be-all-and-end-all gift when she was blessed with the Son of God. Clearly she was grateful for the blessing of Jesus Christ – her Magnificat, a song of praise and thanksgiving, is a testament to the depth of her gratitude for the ultimate of gifts.

But look closely at the words Mary speaks to Elizabeth, because there is something telling here:

“For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.” (Luke 1:49)

“He has done great things for me.”

Things. Plural. Mary acknowledges that God had already done great things for her, even before blessing her with the greatest gift.

The Magnificat is a song of thanksgiving for all the gifts God has bestowed upon Mary, not just this one particular blessing, magnificent and spectacular though it was. It’s clear from this statement that she cultivated a continuous spirit of gratitude, even before she was blessed with the ultimate gift as the mother of our Savior Jesus Christ. Mary recognized that God had been good to her all along.

Truth be told, I’m not all that different today from the girl who was crushed by the Cabbage Patch Kid Christmas of 1983. Too often, I’m so caught up in the gift I desire right now, the blessing I think I deserve today, that I neglect the big picture; I fail to appreciate or even remember the myriad blessings God has bestowed on me all along. So focused am I on the one thing, I forget all the great things God has done for me.

I would do well to take a cue from Mary, who praised God all along for all the gifts, big and small, that had been bestowed upon her.

When You Forget You Don’t Have to be Perfect

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ImperfectLeaf

When I first returned to God and faith after a long time-out, I expected everything about me to be radically transformed as a result of my conversion. Once I claimed my faith, I assumed I would become A Topnotch Christian.

I was quickly disabused of that notion.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that although I’d proclaimed my faith in God, I was still the same flawed, fallible person I’d always been: prone to judge, glass half-empty, quick-tempered, impatient (I could go on).

For a while my solution to this dilemma was simply to work harder. I strove to pray more often; to worship more authentically; to love even the most irritating people; to be positive and grateful; to follow all the rules.

You can probably guess how that worked out.

“Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16, my italics) the rich man asked Jesus. I believe the rich man’s intentions were mostly good when he asked Jesus this question. I believe he truly wanted to prove his faith and thought he needed to do something to make that happen.

Exasperated by the rich man’s badgering, Jesus set him straight. “If you want to be perfect,” he said, “sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come back and follow me.” (19:21)

Of course this wasn’t what the rich man wanted to hear, and so he slunk away, unwilling to release his tight-fisted grip on his worldly possessions.

holey leaf

Corn

Noah walking

On one level, this story is clearly about the fact that the rich man valued his money over a true relationship with God. Yet I also think Jesus has a deeper message for us in this story, specifically in these six words: “If you want to be perfect…” (19:21)

Jesus knew he was asking the impossible of the rich man, not only because the man was unwilling to part with his possessions, but also because achieving perfection via our own merit is simply impossible.

The truth is, no matter how diligently we follow the rules, no matter how ambitiously we strive to live like Jesus, we will always fail. No matter how hard we work to earn our eternal salvation, we will always fall short.

Perfection is impossible.

half yellow leaf

corn husks

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It sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it? That was certainly the disciples’ reaction when they heard the conversation between Jesus and the rich man. “Who in the world can be saved then?” (19:25) they asked Jesus.

Jesus’ answer to his dismayed disciples is the deeper lesson in this story: “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” (19:26, italics mine)

The answer, in a word, to the question of how in the world we can be saved, is grace. 

This story about Jesus and the rich man is, at its core, a lesson about grace.

Humanly speaking, it’s impossible for us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven on our own merit. But with God, the possibilities are endless. God’s grace makes us pure and unblemished in his eyes.

Grace is the exception to the rule. Grace is the exception to the impossible.

God Chose YOU

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Youaresoloved2

Often when I tell my faith story or give my testimony, I use phrases like, “When I returned to God…” or “When I came back to God…” or even, “When God found me.” That’s the way I’ve understood my story: I was estranged from God for twenty years, and then I slowly came back to him. Recently, though, I’ve begun to realize that while my understanding of that process isn’t wrong, necessarily, it’s also not the whole story.

The whole story is encapsulated in this one simple verse from John:

“You didn’t choose me. I chose you.” (John 15:16)

Sometimes I forget that God does the choosing; I forget that he chose me as his beloved child even before I took my first wailing breath on this earth.

I forget that the door into his love and grace was open from the get-go, a standing, open invitation to me – to all of us.

Remember the story of the prodigal son? We typically pay a lot of attention to the son who returns in that story. We relate to the son’s need to seek forgiveness; we see ourselves in his act of returning to his father and his home.

But think about the father in that story for a moment. Sure, he comes out to greet his son and to welcome him back after his long hiatus. But the truth is, the door to the father’s house was always open; all those years, the invitation still stood. The father greeted his lost son with open arms, but that son had long been chosen as beloved by him; that fact never changed.

White Peony

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You are so loved

I tend to give myself a fair amount of credit for turning back to God after a twenty-year hiatus. If I’m not careful, I can easily slip into the misguided belief that I chose God. But as I mentioned earlier, that view is a subtle misrepresentation of the story.

The fact is, God does the choosing; each one of us is already chosen, right from the start. That invitation into grace, into the God-with-us life, is waiting for us on the day we are born. Our role is to say “yes.”