Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

24 Days of Advent

Leaf Bags, Banana Bread, a Note in a Stranger’s Mailbox {#SmallThingsGreatLove}

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I envisioned writing a lot more about the Small Things in Great Love initiative this Advent than I actually have. Turns out, these things I’m doing really are small. Really small. So small, in fact, that a #SmallThingsGreatLove blog post might typically look something like this:

I made cheerful conversation with the cashier at SuperSaver yesterday. The End.

See what I mean? Not a lot of meat there.

But you know, that’s okay. Not everything in life warrants a finely tuned story all tied up with a happy ending and a shiny red bow.

What I have learned in doing these small daily deeds is that this whole initiative has made me more intentional. It’s really easy for me to have very good motives – to desire to “love my neighbor” – but then fall short in the execution of that love. Keeping #SmallThingsGreatLove top-of-mind has reminded me to put love into action at least once a day.

Earlier this month I ran into my neighbor Mike at Walgreen’s. As we chatted amicably for a few minutes, Mike mentioned he’d been to three stores already in search of leaf bags. I advised him to try Ace Hardware. As I turned toward the automatic doors, though, it struck me. “Mike!” I yelled across the parking lot. “I have a ton of leaf bags in my garage. Don’t bother with Ace Hardware, just take some of those!”

I doubt I would have suggested that Mike help himself to my leaf bags if I hadn’t remembered the whole Small Things in Great Love. But that’s just it. This initiative has prompted me to be more generous on a daily basis than I am ordinarily. Mother Teresa’s words have inspired me to go the extra mile – or in this case, the extra inch (Mike, it should be noted, didn’t actually use my leaf bags).

It’s just leaf bags, right? It’s just a cup of McDonald’s hot chocolate. It’s just a thank you note to a stranger or a loaf of homemade banana bread for an elderly neighbor. All small gestures, most of them not even significant enough to warrant a blog post. But I don’t know. Something tells me these small, small gestures still make a difference.

“Let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love.” (1 John 3:18, The Message)


Jesus Lives in the Grocery Store {#SmallThingsGreatLove}

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m convinced Jesus lives in the grocery store. SuperSaver on 56th Street in Lincoln, Nebraska, to be exact. I know, technically he lives everywhere  and is in all places and in all people. But he really lives in the grocery store. SuperSaver is Jesus’s tabernacle, his temple. He lives right there amid the StarKist tuna and the Hamburger Helper.

Last week a woman stopped me in the pasta aisle. “This may sound like a strange question,” she said, her parka still buttoned up to her chin, “but do you write for the newspaper?” I was surprised. In the three years I’ve been writing for the Journal Star, no stranger has ever recognized me or stopped me in public.

“I do!” I said, pleased with my teeny-tiny moment of fame. She graciously mentioned how much she appreciated the column, and we talked for a few seconds about how rare it is these days for a city newspaper to feature a weekly religion section. Then we went our separate ways – she toward the canned vegetable aisle, me toward the frozen foods.

Two aisles later I passed her again, and it struck me: the lady in the buttoned-up parka must have read December’s column, the one in which I wrote about doing small things with great love for each of the 24 days of Advent.

I stopped my cart next to hers. “I’m onto to you,” I said, smiling. “This is your small thing done in great love for the day, isn’t it?” She didn’t outright agree, but I could tell the way she laughed that it was. Stopping to tell me she enjoyed the column was indeed her good deed for the day.

This is all so very ironic, of course, because while I’d been pushing my cart up and down SuperSaver’s aisles, I’d been thinking about how I might accomplish my small thing. Turns out, this Small Things Great Love initiative is trickier than I’d envisioned. I work from home; some days I only leave the house to drop off and pick up my kids from school. I don’t have a lot of interaction with the public. I don’t have a lot of opportunity to love my neighbor – at least the “neighbors” who live outside my own home – but I figured the grocery store was a good place to start.

I love that the lady in the parka stopped to offer me a kind word. I love that the column inspired her to participate in the Small Things in Great Love Advent initiative. And I especially love that while I schemed how to accomplish my good deed for the day, God took me by surprise, showering me with great love on a Tuesday afternoon in the grocery store, just when I least expected it.

One Small Thing Done in {slightly irritable} Love

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So last Saturday I ventured over to Hobby Lobby to pick up four spools of ribbon. You should know, Hobby Lobby in December is Dante’s seventh circle of hell. I really think they need to post a sign over the door with Dante’s words, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Suffice to say, it took me 40 minutes to purchase my four items. I sweated in my goosedown parka.  I breathed the serenity prayer. I channeled baby Jesus. There was only one woman ahead of me in the check-out line, but she seemed to be purchasing great quantities of something small. I think it may have been sequins. I think she may have been paying for them one at a time. By check.

By the time I burst out the double doors all sticky with sweat, the biting cold actually felt good. But I noticed the Salvation Army bell ringer standing right outside Hobby Lobby looked miserable, her cheeks flushed scarlet, her breath blowing great plumes of mist into the air as she rang the bell and offered miniature candy canes in her bulky mittened hands to kids passing by.

“Aha!” I thought to myself. “A great opportunity for a Small Thing in Great Love! I’m going to buy her hot chocolate!”

{Cue symphony here}

The bad news, of course, was that it was 12 noon, so every Christmas shopper and their mother, sister and Great Aunt from Gothenburg was already in the drive-thru line at the McDonald’s across the parking lot (and yes, if you must know, I drove. I realize it was only about 800 yards, but it was 8 degrees and I’m no fool). I slipped into a parking space and stood in line inside, and I thought the cashier’s head was going to pop off when I ordered a single hot chocolate during the mad lunch rush. And then I thought my head was going to pop off when, 15 minutes later, I was still waiting for the hot chocolate, channeling Jesus again and humming Away in the Manger under my breath.

Finally, steaming cup in hand, I drove back across the parking toward Hobby Lobby. And you should know, while Hobby Lobby is the seventh circle of hell during the Christmas season, the Hobby Lobby parking lot is the ninth circle of hell. That’s the inner circle of hell, people — the pure, undiluted essence of hell.

I pulled into a handicapped spot, clicked on my hazards and prepared to dash down the sidewalk to hand over the hot chocolate when suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. There were now two, TWO, Salvation Army bell-ringers standing outside Hobby Lobby – the same woman I’d seen 20 minutes earlier and another lady, buttoned up to her eyebrows in plaid parka.

For. The. Love. One cup of hot chocolate. Two Salvation Army bell ringers.

I know this whole 24 Days of Advent #SmallThingsGreatLove initiative was launched with Mother Teresa’s lovely words, “None of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love” in mind. But let me just state for the record, right here, right now: I’m no Mother Teresa.

I made an executive decision as I stood on the sidewalk with the cup in my hand and my car in the handicapped spot: I was not going to navigate the ninth circle of hell and the McDonald’s line and the irritable McDonald’s cashier and the ninth circle of hell again to retrieve a second cup of hot chocolate. It wasn’t going to happen. One cup was all the Great Love I had in me for the day.

So I approached the two ladies, and I held out the one cup of hot chocolate, and I explained how there’d only been one of them 20 minutes before (I did glance accusatorily at the other lady who’d appeared in the meantime). I laughed sheepishly and suggested that if they didn’t have germs, maybe they could share the one cup.

And the best part of this story? The ladies were thrilled. Delighted. Overjoyed. It was like I’d just handed over two full-length ermine fur coats instead of one lousy cup of McDonald’s hot chocolate. They laughed at my story and patted me on the back and thanked me like 12 times. The one lady, who, it turns out, had been inside Hobby Lobby warming up when I walked by the first time, announced that I was “paying it forward” (clearly an unHollywoodish paying it forward, but I’ll take it). And when I walked away, I heard each of them insisting that the other one take the cup.

So there it is. It’s not exactly how I envisioned it. This Small Things in Great Love isn’t all pretty and perfect. It’s not a scene out of a movie, complete with symphony crescendo and gently falling snow. It’s real-life – kind of messy, not necessarily what I expected, but still very, very good.

[My friend Mary has joined me in #SmallThingsGreatLove this Advent, and I cracked up when she wrote about a similar experience here.]

So tell me, did you ever try to do a good deed and have it all turn out not quite as you anticipated?

Addendum: After my friend Kristin, mom to a disabled child, read this post this morning, she graciously mentioned to me that it’s not cool to park in a handicapped spot. She is totally right. Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain rude and selfish, and I regret doing it. So, for the record, I’m leaving it in the post, ’cause it’s the truth, but I do want to state that it’s not ever acceptable to park in a handicapped spot, no matter for how short a period, and no matter which circle of hell you are currently in! Thanks, Kristin, for giving me some much-needed perspective on this!

When Advent’s Not All Perfect and Pretty

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It begins with inappropriate words uttered over the breakfast table, followed by a discussion of those inappropriate words, followed by a retraction of the promised ice cream outing to Ivanna Cone scheduled for that evening. Then here’s the crying and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth (by both child and mother).

And the next thing I know, the nativity has been rearranged on the coffee table.

…I’m over at Diane Bailey’s lovely place today, talking about what happens when Advent isn’t all perfect and pretty. Join me over there?