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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

conversion

When You Forget that God Always Finishes What He Starts

August 9, 2016 By Michelle

yellow flowers

I told a couple friends over dinner recently that for a full two weeks after I’d returned from Tuscany, I felt like I was floating. I was so completely transformed, it was like I was an entirely new person. I felt buoyant, free, and unburdened in every way, and it seemed it would last forever.

It didn’t. Shocker, right?

What happened is that as I came down from the high that had carried me light and free from the wheat fields of Tuscany to the corn fields of Nebraska,  I began to worry.

I worried that what God and I had begun under the Tuscan sun would not continue in my everyday ordinary life in Nebraska.

I worried that the invitation into relationship and intimacy I’d answered in Italy would fade away, obliterated bit by bit by laundry, to-do lists, deadlines, dusting, doctor’s appointments, until nothing but a faint memory, like a faded image in an antique mirror, remained.

Truth be told, I felt a little panicky, desperately clenching tight-fisted to the thread of hope that had been woven into my heart.

I didn’t trust my ability to keep the spark God had ignited in my heart alive and flourishing.

More importantly, I didn’t trust that God would continue to fan that spark into an enduring flame.

Italian flag

Bench

My window

russian sage

hedge bench

Tuscancountryside

DSC_0122

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ returns.” (Philippians 1:6)

Seventeen days after I returned from Italy I read these words on an airplane as we winged our way from Nebraska to New England to celebrate my parents’ 50th anniversary. I’ve read this verse many times in the past few years, and I’ve always interpreted it the same way: as a promise related to my vocation as a writer.

This time, though, these familiar words stopped me short. This time I read them as God’s promise to continue the deep, transformative work he began in me in Italy.

The truth is, the responsibility of spiritual transformation isn’t all mine, and it’s a bit arrogant of me to assume it is. God himself extended the invitation into intimacy. God himself ignited the spark in my heart. And God himself, who began that good work within me, will continue his work right here in Nebraska, and in all the places I find myself from now until the end of my time on earth.

I needn’t clench that promise tight-fisted in fear that it will all disappear. God is in control of this process. It’s his work. He is the Inviter. He is the Igniter. And he can be trusted not only to continue, but to finish what he begins.

Of course, this isn’t to imply we don’t have a role in the continuation of his good work. The entire responsibility of the transformation isn’t ours, but we do have an important part to play.

Later in the afternoon of the same day I’d turned my insides out during our group sharing time, one of my travel companions and I walked side-by-side to the bus. Our group was leaving for an excursion, and though I don’t recall now where we went that afternoon, I do remember what Chad said to me as we walked across the gravel parking lot. He thanked me for sharing so honestly and openly that morning, and then he urged me to continue the contemplative practice I’d begun a few months before in Nebraska.

“Keeping walking the dog and sitting on that bench,” Chad said, as we boarded the bus.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but Chad’s advice, I see now, is key. Quieting ourselves and listening are an important part of spiritual transformation. True, God can continue the good work he began without our help, but Chad’s words helped me see that we will understand God’s work much more deeply if we participate in the process by listening.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about Italy, God had been quietly speaking to me during those dog walks and those minutes I sat alone on the park bench. He’d been prompting me with important questions about intimacy – questions I hadn’t wanted to hear or heed, but important questions nonetheless. His good work in me had begun long before I set my feet on Tuscan soil; I simply became aware of it there.

It’s not easy to convince myself to sit still, in the quiet, without a podcast or Voxer in my ears or my to-do list swirling round in my head. Sometimes it’s excruciating, because sometimes I hear something hard and distasteful, something I don’t particularly want to hear. But this quieting of the mind is imperative, I believe, for the deep, transformative work of the soul. It’s one of the ways we partner with God in his good work.

The truth is, though, we are never completely transformed during our time here on earth. Notice what Paul says about when God’s good work will be finished: not today, not tomorrow, not even perhaps twenty-five years from now, but “on the day when Christ returns.”

We will not be made wholly and completely perfect, we will not be wholly and completely transformed, until Christ returns. Only then, when he reconciles heaven and earth, when kingdom comes, will everything be set beautifully and perfectly right once and for all.

God begins his good work in each one of us. He continues that good work each and every day of our lives here on earth. And he will finish that good work when he makes not only us but all things new. 

He is the Inviter. He is the Igniter. He is the Sustainer. And he is the ultimate Finisher of all good work in us.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Filed Under: conversion, transformation Tagged With: spiritual transformation

When You’re Looking for an Endorsement

November 20, 2013 By Michelle

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been emailing Christian authors to ask if they would consider reading an advance copy of Spiritual Misfit to offer a possible endorsement. [endorsements are those snappy statements praising a book, usually on the front and back covers, and usually by other authors and leaders. Truthfully, I think the only people who read endorsements are other writers.]

Can I just tell you how humbling and awkward this feels to me?

Granted, some of the people I’m asking I know well, so that’s all fine and comfortable. But then there are the ones I call the “reach asks.”

These are authors I read and admire but don’t know personally – people who I think might find something that resonates in Spiritual Misfit and therefore be willing to say a kind word about it; people who are a little more well-known than the crowd I typically run with (that crowd being my Moby Dick-loving husband, two boys and a pet lizard). This process is a little like cold-calling in the olden days – except now you do it by email. You craft what you hope is a well-worded compelling email about the book, you shoot it into cyberspace, and then you wait. And sometimes wait and wait and wait.

Awk. Ward.

Some people accept (and you do a cartwheel in your living room). Some people decline graciously (and you understand but somehow still feel snubbed). And some people don’t respond at all. And those are the ones who keep you up at night. Because you wonder. Do they think I’m an annoying schmuck? Do they think my theology is all whacked out? (I don’t have a theology, just in case you’re wondering). Did they peek at my blog and think, ho hum, whatevs, no thanks, I’d rather get a bikini wax than read that?

You can drive yourself crazy with the wondering.

Until you read this:

“Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! The only recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your letters are written  in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. This ‘letter’ is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not carved on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:-1-3, NLT)

I understand why it’s necessary for me to get endorsers for my book; I get the nature of the process and how publishing works. But I also know these endorsements really don’t matter in the end.

What matters isn’t the pithy praise or awesome accolades someone else might offer about my book, but my life itself – what I say, how I act, how I love, how I encourage, what I do in the name of God. What matters in the end is what my living, breathing, everyday, ordinary life says about God. My own life is the praise. My own life is the accolade.

Because the thing is, friends, your whole life, and mine too, is an endorsement of God’s holy power. Your whole life is an endorsement of God’s love, hope and redemption. You and I are endorsed by God, have been from the get-go, from before the beginning of time. And this endorsement, this “letter” as Paul says, is not written in pen and ink or pixels, but with the Spirit of the living God. It’s not carved on tablets of stone or penned onto fancy embossed paper or shot into cyberspace, but emblazoned on our hearts, on your heart and on mine.

A changed life is the only endorsement we really need, and let me tell you, once and for all, my life has been changed by God. My life is a living endorsement of the power of God to change one lost, wayward, hopeless, desperate soul into a woman on fire for God.

And just the fact that I wrote that sentence and didn’t flinch  is one loud, bold, living testament to the fact that God transforms people in big, bold, beautiful ways.

God transforms us, he endorses us, and we, in turn, with our very own lives, endorse God. Our lives are a testament, an endorsement, of his mighty, mysterious, life-altering, wild power to transform. That’s it, the be-all and end-all of endorsements: the way I live, the way you live.

Let me give you one little piece of advice, because you know I always learn this God-stuff the hard way, right? This is what I learned these last two weeks:

When you go looking for endorsements, look no further than God, your own self and the people around you. Look at what he has done in you, and look at how that has impacted others. And then you’ll know, without any single shred of doubt:

A holy endorsement  is the only one you’ll ever need.

Filed Under: conversion, New Testament, publishing, writing and faith Tagged With: 2 Corinthians, Imperfect Prose, Jennifer Dukes Lee TellHisStory

Blogging Benedict: Because Conversion is Supposed to Take Forever

March 15, 2013 By Michelle

A few years ago, when I felt the first inkling of belief, I assumed I was set. I figured once I’d experienced my official “conversion,” I’d be home free, transformed, smooth sailing for eternity.

As with most everything else in this journey so far, I thought wrong.

Believing in God, it turned out, was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The real conversion, I’ve since learned, takes place continually, incrementally, from that first moment and in every moment forward. Come to find out, there are a lot of backwards steps in the process of conversion, too.

Benedict called this continual conversion conversatio morum – the conversion of life. Author Jane Tomaine explains the concept this way:

“While stability calls us to remain, conversion of life calls us to change and to grow, to be transformed by the Spirit. It has an outward dimension and an inward dimension. Outward behavior or attitudes change as well as the inner self. God works with both dimensions…Conversion of life is a process where, again and again, we recognize that we’ve turned from God, we listen to how God is calling us back, and we take action to return to living a gospel life.”

Conversion isn’t instantaneous. It doesn’t happen overnight or in a split second. It’s a lifelong process. A two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of journey.

Case in point:

A few summers ago I got mad at my neighbor. For weeks he’d parked his pick-up truck in front of the flower garden that sidles along our picket fence, right next to the street. Day after day I couldn’t run the sprinklers, couldn’t weed or deadhead or prune, couldn’t even admire the blooming lilies and bee balm and phlox because his big ol’ truck was in the way. “This is ridiculous,” I fumed to Brad. “I can’t even see my own garden. All I see is his stupid, ugly, red truck. Why can’t he park in his own driveway?!”

I plotted revenge. I decided I would confront my neighbor about the parking issue, and when (of course I assumed when, not if) he refused to move, I planned to yank weeds, toss them into the back of his truck, flip on the sprinkler system and watch as the bed of his pick-up turned into a muddy, glumpy mess.

Of course you know what happened, right? When I marched over to confront my neighbor, he couldn’t have been more gracious.

“I’m so sorry about that,” he said immediately. “We are about to resurface the driveway, would you mind if I parked the truck there just a few more days?” Not only was he pleasant and apologetic, he also took the time to show Rowan how the fountain in his front yard pumped water. And he invited us inside for a tour of the remodeled kitchen. And he offered free three-day passes for Brad and me to use at his son’s new gym.

Needless to say, I was properly humbled. I’d forgotten one of Jesus’ most important commandments, second only to love God. I’d forgotten to love my neighbor. I needed a re-do, and now God was calling me back for yet another chance to live a gospel life.

True conversion requires that we continually prepare our hearts for transformation. We continually strive to make God, rather than ourselves, the center. But it’s not a day-long or month-long or even a year-long process. It’s lifelong. A true conversion of life.

What about you? Do you ever feel like you should be “done” with your transformation by now?

On Fridays during Lent I am re-visiting (read: rewriting) a series called Blogging Benedict that I wrote a couple of years ago. I am using the text St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living as my guide.

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Filed Under: blogging Benedict, conversion, transformation, Uncategorized Tagged With: Benedictine living, conversion, Jane Tomaine, Learning from St. Benedict

I am a Prodigal: Hole in My Soul

September 7, 2012 By Michelle


For nearly 20 years I stood in a pew every Sunday morning and coughed at the beginning of the “Nicene Creed” so I didn’t have to declare, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty.” I couldn’t say the words “I believe” aloud, because I simply did not believe. Yet there I was, Sunday after Sunday, reciting empty prayers to a non-existent God.

I pretended to believe because I was afraid to admit unbelief, even to myself.

My husband and I moved from Massachusetts to Nebraska not long after we got married. While Brad went off to his new job, I stayed home with our colicky infant. I remember standing at the sliding glass door, holding my screaming baby and gazing out at the bleak backyard. All the ways I’d always defined myself had been obliterated. My friends and family lived 1,500 miles away. The Nebraskans I met talked chummily about God like he was the P.T.O. president. My career had been replaced by a Merry Maid to-do list.

I was lost.

…I’m excited to be over at Prodigal Magazine today (Have you visited there yet?)…will you join me there for the rest the story?

{And a quick note: will you come by here tomorrow, if you can? I don’t normally post on Saturdays, but tomorrow I’ll be writing for Compassion Blog Month, and I’d love for you to come by and read…and maybe sponsor?!}

Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box.
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Filed Under: conversion, doubt, Prodigal Magazine, questions, Richard Rohr, unbelief

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: With His Death

April 9, 2012 By Michelle


When I was 25 and working as an editor at an art magazine in New York City, I came down with a mysterious illness. For several weeks doctors couldn’t figure out what it was – test after test revealed nothing, despite my worsening symptoms: searing headaches, blurred vision, twitching, aching muscles, extreme fatigue, severe nausea. Once a long-distance runner, I didn’t have the energy to walk to the mailbox or lift my arms to brush my hair. Riding Metro North for an hour to my job in the city and working 50 hours a week was out of the question, so I took a leave of absence from work and moved back in with my parents.

Each night, limbs splayed, window open to the stifling August heat, I’d lay gripping the sides of the twin bed in my parents’ guest bedroom, paralyzed by the fear that I was dying. I was convinced I’d be dead by the end of the year. In my mind there was no other explanation – no one, I reasoned, could feel like I did and survive.
The absolute low point was the night I crawled into my parents’ bed and slept between them. I was 25 years old and sleeping with my mother and father like a three-year-old.

I eventually recovered from the illness, but the fear of death that had dogged me since childhood and intensified during the year I was sick never abated. More than ten years after that illness, married and the mother of two children, I continued to lay awake nearly every night gripped by the fear of death.

I didn’t pray about it, because I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t hope for a reprieve from the ever-present fear, because I didn’t believe that hope existed.

“With His death, the power of death over us is no more,” I heard Pastor Sara exclaim yesterday during Easter service, and as she spoke those words, I nodded yes, yes. It’s true. I believe it now.

I still think about dying from time to time, but not the way I used to. I don’t obsess over it any more. It doesn’t keep me awake at night, sheets balled in my fists, eyes wide at the ceiling. Nor do I believe that when I die, I will simply cease, that my body will be put into the ground, end of story. While I can’t quite envision what eternal life will look like, on most days I believe in my heart that it exists.

I tell you this story today, the day after Easter, for one reason: to give you hope.

It may be that you know someone lost, unmoored, hopeless. Someone who feels the talons of death grip tight. Someone who doubts or downright doesn’t believe.

It may even be that that someone is you.

My story isn’t dramatic or exciting. There’s no sky-splitting, fall-to-my-knees conversion. I never heard the voice of God or felt the presence of Jesus come suddenly into my life. I didn’t escape death or overcome insurmountable odds. This transformation from fear to hope, from death to life, unfolded slowly and uneventfully over a period of years. Truth be told, it’s still unfolding, this process of God replacing my heart of stone.

My story is pretty mundane, as far as conversion stories go. Yet it’s a story of hope and truth nonetheless. I am free from the power of death. With His death, the power of death over me is no more.

I pray you know that hope and truth in your heart, too.

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code over in the sidebar) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful to have you here!

Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Filed Under: conversion, death, Easter, fear, hope, Use It on Monday

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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