Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

31 Days to an Authentic You

31 Days to an Authentic You — The End {day 26}

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“To be nobody-but-yourself in a world that’s doing its best, night and day,
to make you everybody but yourself, means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting.”
— E..E. Cummings

My friend Thelma posted this quote on my timeline yesterday, and I thought it was a lovely way to end our 31 Days to an Authentic You.

So I’m feeling pretty authentic, how about you? Sheesh whooee, yesterday knocked my socks off. Thank you all for coming out of the dusty corners to offer a word of encouragement. Late in the afternoon I emailed Brad at work to tell him, “You were wrong! It’s a good thing I published that post!” He took it pretty well.

Seriously, though, thank you. This week’s posts were tough, but a good way to round out our exploration of authenticity. Thank you so much for sticking with me throughout this series – I learned a lot along the way (mostly from what you all shared – thank you for that).

And now, it’s time I gave you a much-needed break from me! I think I’ll take a bit of a blogging hiatus, maybe a week or so. I’ll be here on Sunday evening to host #HearItUseIt, but other than that, it’ll be quiet for a little while around here.

{Oh, and just in case you’re a Triple Type A like me and are keeping track, I really did blog 31 days straight, but only 26 of those posts were officially part of the Authentic You series. Click here for the whole line-up. Methinks I won’t be doing this 31-day thing again!}

What I Learned at Allume {and it ain’t pretty – day 25}

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So you know it’s bad when you have to write a disclaimer before the actual post, right? Truthfully, I almost didn’t post this one. I had my husband read it (which in four+ years of blogging, I have NEVER done), and he advised me not to post it. As usual I ignored him. Actually, though, what Brad said made sense. He told me he wasn’t sure if it was really something that would benefit the reader, or if it was just therapeutic writing for my own self. Good point. It was therapeutic writing. And I do think writers have to be careful of that – there is such a thing as saying too much. But I also think as much as I hesitate to tell this story, I also suspect I am not alone in this. And it’s my prayer that this message will speak to someone else – someone who might be feeling this way in the writing world or in their professional lives or in the preschool mom crowd or wherever. And if it’s a mistake? Well I’ve already lost subscribers in this series, so like I said yesterday, we might as well go out like a Roman candle.

 

I want to tell you a pretty story about Allume, because there is prettiness there — good things, very good things, rich experiences, community and fellowship and love. But that’s not my story.  My story is ugly and embarrassing, but it’s the truth.

“These conferences are toxic for me,” I told my husband, sighing as we sat on the couch on Sunday night. He thought it was because I felt intimidated by all the well-known writers – the writers with the bigger platforms and more readers. The writers who sell more books than I ever will. He thought it was all related to the book.

“Well, that’s part of it,” I said to Brad.”But that’s not the whole story, that’s not the real story. It’s much worse than that.”

I told Brad the truth. The reason these conferences are so toxic for me is because they bring me face-to-face with my greatest temptation. And every time I come face-to-face with my greatest temptation, I succumb. I run straight into the arms of sin. Every. Single. Time.

I’ve stated it here before, and I’ll state it again: my greatest temptation and my greatest sin is the desire to be known by the important people – by the people I consider cool and relevant and popular. The in crowd.

It’s one thing to travel in the same social media circles as the in-crowd. But there is a distance offered by social media that cannot be avoided when you stand face-to-face in the same space, watching and listening and breathing in the same air.

The ugly, embarrassing truth is that I want to be known by the important people. I want to be invited in. And I put this need, this desire, ahead of God.

I know, I know, I know – all I really need is to be known and loved by God. All I really need is to be part of His inner circle. Nothing else matters. I know this. I hear you.

But friends, knowing this makes it all worse. Because I fail. I fail at this again and again. This is the absolute toughest part of being a Christian writer – because I know what I should believe, what I should think, how I should feel, the one and only One I should desire, and yet I still succumb to temptation. I still sin.

And I’m so, so tired of it.

I cried on the flight from the conference to Atlanta as the old man in the seat next to me snored. I turned my face toward the tiny window, looked out over the wing and wiped the tears with my fancy scarf. I cried as I walked off the jetbridge, and down the concourse and on the train that shuttled me to the next concourse and in the bathroom stall, with the door latched tight and my suitcase pressed against my knees and a wad of scratchy toilet paper in my hand.

I cried not only because my desire to be known felt so awful, but also because it felt so awful to keep succumbing to the same old sin.

I dried my eyes with the scratchy toilet paper, washed my hands and then walked down the concourse to terminal E, where I sat at the empty gate and talked to God in my head.  What should I do, God? I implored.  Should I quit? Should I leave Christian writing? Should I go back to my day job?

Because think about. If you are addicted to porn, you don’t willingly walk into a porn store, right? If you are addicted to alcohol, you don’t willing walk into a liquor store, right? So if I’m addicted to approval, to the desire to be known, should I put myself in the exact place where it is so easy for me to succumb to temptation?

I don’t know the answer. God isn’t saying right now.

But I do know this. When I finally pulled the mini-van to the curb in front of my house and walked across the lawn to where my three guys sat waiting for me on the front stoop, I felt something. As my boys wrapped their arms around me and my husband retrieved my suitcase from the car, and I walked into our the kitchen and saw my warm dinner set out on the kitchen counter and a freshly baked apple pie on the stove, I knew I was home, in my place, with the people who really, truly matter most.

And that, for the moment, was enough.

This isn’t the end of this battle for me. My husband looked me straight in the eye last night and said, “You will always, always struggle with this.” And he’s right. I will. This struggle is the thorn in my side. (Actually, I’m more like a prickly pear; I have many thorns. But that’s another blog post).

As Richard Rohr says, the pattern of redemption is “evil undone much more than evil ever perfectly avoided. It is disorder reconfigured in our hearts and minds much more than demanding any perfect order to our universe.” I believe this is true – the evil and disorder, the struggle, will always be there.

But I also believe that God is in this struggle, too– in this continual “undoing and reconfiguring.” He is here. He is in this with me, undoing, reconfiguring, re-transforming, again and again.  He loves. He redeems. And God, dear friends, will always, always be enough.

 

Why I Almost Quit 31 Days {day 24}

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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.}

 

 

 

 

 

When You Can’t Hear God through the Noise {day 23}

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I sit in the third row of the shuttle bus, my head against the cool window, stuffed carry-on perched heavily on my lap. One row behind me two women process their conference experience together as the bus lurches toward the airport. They’re giddy, their conversation punctuated with bursts of laughter, their voices ringing with passion. I close my eyes and press my temple to the glass.

Let’s be clear: the conference I attended this past weekend was in many ways a rich, productive, valuable experience. I connected with online friends in real life – people I love and cherish; people who know me and make me laugh until I’m out of breath. I also met several movers and shakers in the publishing industry – editors, writers and speakers – and I learned so much from them in our short time together, it will take weeks to download it all from my brain.

But I also learned something else this weekend, something I’d suspected but never fully admitted to myself. I learned that Christian conferences don’t necessarily fill my soul, even when I expect them to.

Over and over I heard we would leave the conference changed, moved, responsive, renewed, called. Yet all weekend long, all I felt was unchanged, unmoved, unresponsive, uncalled.

People prayed from the stage and my mind wandered. Worshippers praised God with arms raised and bodies swaying to the music, and I slipped out the back door. Speakers preached fervently, passionately, on fire for God, their voices choked with emotion, and my heart beat hollow in my chest. Conference attendees talked about how they heard from the Lord, or were being called by the Lord, or were following the lead of the Lord, and I heard nothing, felt nothing, was led nowhere.

I felt very badly about this. I felt like a failure. What kind of believer leaves a Christian conference feeling emptier and lonelier and more confused than when she’d arrived? What kind of believer spends a weekend surrounded by preachers, praisers and Spirit-filled sisters and departs an empty husk, a pile of dry bones? What in the world was wrong with me?

: :

Last night as I pulled the mini-van to the curb, I saw my three boys lined up on the front stoop, waiting for me. The house glowed in the dusk, every window lit, the illuminated skull hanging lopsided behind the front panes. Later, trinkets from the trip dispensed, my suitcase half-unpacked, I nestled under the threadbare comforter with Noah, Brad on the other end the couch, the Vikings vs. the Packers on the television, a plate of homemade apple pie in my hands.

This morning the runner in the blue fleece passed me on the path, just like he does every day, his nylon pants swishing, his German shepherd’s leash jangling a rhythmic tune. Two chickadees traded calls as the rising sun painted a mosaic on a palette of autumn leaves. My breath frosted the morning air, sneakers tapping a soothing beat on the concrete.

This where I find God, in my everyday place, with my everyday people. This is where I see him and hear him best – right here, in the ordinary, in the routine, in the familiar. The call of the chickadees is my hymn. The chipped coffee table is my altar. The three boys who wait for me on the front stoop as darkness falls are my church.

Turns out, there was nothing wrong with me at all. I simply hadn’t been able to hear God through all the noise.

Have you ever been disappointed to find that you couldn’t hear or see or experience God when you expected to?