I almost bailed on this 31 Days series. Not because it’s a lot of work (although it is). And not because I ran out of things to say about authenticity (although I came close).
No, I almost quit this 31 Days series because it didn’t pay off as I had hoped.
It didn’t pay off in numbers.
I’ll tell you a secret: I lost more subscribers during this 31 Days series than I have during any other period in my four+ years as a blogger.
And I’ll tell you another secret: it hurts. I’m not going to lie. Losing subscribers pains me.
When I complained about this fact to my husband, he said, “What?! Well quit then! It’s not worth all the work to end up losing readers!” True enough. And believe me, part of me — okay, pretty much all of me — wanted to quit. Every time I got that daily email telling me another subscriber, or two or three, had cancelled their subscription, panic filled my throat and a pit yawned wide in my stomach.
Clearly what I wrote didn’t resonate. Clearly Michelle DeRusha seven days a week was simply too much! For Heaven’s sake, who needs to hear from Michelle DeRusha seven days a week? Clearly not the readers who were unsubscribing in droves.
But it turned out God used 31 Days to an Authentic You not to teach me about authenticity, but to teach me (again) about my upside-down, mixed-up, backwards priorities – about my tendency to put my desire to be known ahead of him.
You see, here’s another secret (clearly I should start my own PostSecret community here!): God planted the idea of 31 Days of Authenticity in me, but I pursued it not out of obedience, but out of selfishness.
What began as a God-ordained mission morphed into selfish desire for more readers. In two days flat, I transformed an authentic God-calling into a worldly craving for more. In two days flat this project became at least as much about the numbers as it was about the pursuit of authenticity.
So you know what God did? He used my stubbornness, drive, ambition and downright refusal to quit, ever, to teach me an important lesson. God knew I wouldn’t quit 31 Days because I’m the most pig-headed person he’s ever created. And so he knew that in my stubborn drive to gut out 31 Days to the bitter end, I would finally learn the real lesson, perhaps the real lesson he’d had in store for me all along.
Look at the date, friends. It took 29 days for me to learn this hard truth: I put the need to be known ahead of God, time and time again.
{Tomorrow we’ll continue with this thread when I write about what I learned at Allume – and be forewarned, it’s not pretty. People, I’m going out like a Roman candle on this 31 Days series.}
