Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

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How to Find the True Rest Your Soul Needs {and a book giveaway!}

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Jennifer Dukes Lee is a stellar writer, and I have been grateful for each of her books and the wise, insightful, funny, real guidance and truth she offers. Her newest book, It’s All Under Control, releases today, and friends, this one resonated deeply with me because, well, I’m Triple Type A, right? I love me some control! Jennifer writes friend to friend, and her insights strike a solid note because they are gleaned from an authentic place of personal experience.

I’m thrilled to welcome Jennifer Dukes Lee to the blog today. AND I have a free copy of her beautiful new book to give away. Details on how to enter the drawing are at the end of the post.

Guest Post by Jennifer Dukes Lee

I know how this noisy world can get in the way of me hearing God’s still, small voice. So, in the past few years, I’ve been intentional about quieting the outer noise in my life.

My biggest challenge is silencing the inner chatter.

I know the value of resting in Jesus, but it’s like my brain won’t stop moving in fifteen different directions. Corralling my thoughts is like herding a nursery full of fork-toting toddlers who just learned how to walk and are weeble-wobbling their way toward electrical outlets on opposite sides of the room.

Take, for instance, one of the places where I go to escape the noise: my bathtub. I’ll toss a bath bomb in the water and sink into the warmth. There’s no TV. No iPhone. Yet even here, my mind is running on high gear. I often receive some of my best writing inspiration in the bathtub, which is why my friend Cheri gave me a set of child’s bathtub crayons. (Yes, part of my latest book, It’s All Under Control, was written on the walls of my tub.) So while it might look like I am resting, I’m actually still working.

God is reminding me that my brain needs rest as much as my body does. I loosen my mind by simply dwelling with him: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

If I have a lot of noise around me—even in the form of the silent iPhone scroll—I can’t hear God.

My friend Lindsay Sterchi, mom of twin toddlers, learned the hard way what happens when she doesn’t get the rest she needs. She told me, “Without rest, I’m not very fun to be around— just ask my kids and husband. I get irritable way too quickly. I lose perspective on the bigger picture of life, and the little things seem bigger than they really are. I get in this fog where I’m going through the motions of life but not really living intentionally.”

The answer for her: finding rest in small pockets of time each day. “Rest means that when the kids nap, or after they’ve gone to bed, I’m not going to zone out on TV or scroll through social media, which might seem restful but ends up being draining.” Instead, she does something that feels life-giving—without feeling guilty. Her escapes: reading a book, journaling, or simply being still, alone with God and her thoughts.

Maybe your escape is Netflix, and if that’s the case, you do you. But make sure it gives you life instead of draining your energy.

No matter what: make rest a priority. It’s vital.

Resting in God serves two purposes: First, rest allows you to intentionally connect with God. God wants to meet with you, not simply to give you the day’s marching orders. He wants to be with you because he likes you.

Second, rest calms the noise around you so you can hear God’s clear direction.

Here are a few ideas to incorporate more rest into your life.

Instead of scrolling, go strolling. Everybody has time for rest. How can I be so sure? Because that’s the time we use to check social media. Put down your iPhone for the fifteen minutes you would’ve spent on Instagram and take a walk instead.

Don’t let your “yes” encroach on your rest. If you say yes to something new, evaluate everything else on your list to see what might have to go. Refuse to put rest on the altar of sacrifice.

Let your work assignments flow from soul realignments. If “everybody is looking for us,” our souls and agendas need realignment so we can hear clear directions from God.

Protect the freed-up time you have already created. God prunes all of us, but achievers try to immediately fill those pruned spaces. Protect the space that God created for you. Downtime is okay; in fact, it will make you more productive in the work you were designed to do.

Adapted from It’s All under Control: A Journey of Letting Go, Hanging On, and Finding a Peace You Almost Forgot Was Possible, by Jennifer Dukes Lee, releasing today from Tyndale House Publishers.

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Jennifer Dukes Lee is the wife of an Iowa farmer, mom to two girls, and an author. She loves queso and singing too loudly to songs with great harmony. Once upon a time, she didn’t believe in Jesus. Now, He’s her CEO. Jennifer’s newest book, It’s All Under Control, and a companion Bible study, are releasing today! This is a book for every woman who is hanging on tight and trying to get each day right―yet finding that life often feels out of control and chaotic.

I have an extra copy of Jennifer’s lovely new book It’s All Under Control that I would love to mail to one lucky recipient (continental U.S. only).

To enter the drawing, just leave a comment below telling me your favorite way to rest your mind, body and soul. I’ll randomly draw one name at 8 p.m. CT on Friday, September 21 (winner will be notified by email). 

 

Raised to Life {a guest post and book giveaway}

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I was delighted to meet Patrice Gopo last spring at the Festival of Faith and Writing. She introduced her friend, Kate Motaung, in a little gathering celebrating Kate’s book release, and even though I didn’t know Patrice, I was moved and touched by the beautiful words she spoke in honor of her friend.

When I saw that Patrice recently released a book herself, I went out on a limb and messaged her on Instagram if ask if, on the off chance, she would be interested in guest posting over here, because I was really excited to introduce you to her voice and a bit of her story. Lucky us, she said yes! Her writing is at the same time quietly powerful, eloquent and lyrical, and I know you will find her as compelling as I do.

Please welcome Patrice Gopo to the blog today, and be sure to enter a comment at the end of this post for a chance to receive a free copy of her beautiful book, All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way. 

Essay by Patrice Gopo

In the nightmare I find my toddler face up in a shallow pool. Her wide eyes haunt me. Her clothes balloon with water. I lean over, yank her out, and hold her lifeless body in my arms. I wake, open-mouthed, to the din of absolute silence.

Now alert in the night, I can split dream from reality. I know my daughter sleeps close by. But I see those vacant eyes. The limp body. The spreading circle of damp on my imagined clothes.

***

I am eleven years old when my pastor dunks me into a baptistery filled with water. Raised to walk in new life, I hear when pulled to the surface. A large towel greets me as I exit, my clothes heavy on my limbs, a puddle forming at my feet. Beneath the soft fabric, my skin feels the cool air, and my body begins to shake.

In the future words gush with great force. Well-intentioned opinions flood my mind and make my lungs burn for breath. Taught as tenets of this faith, I hear instructions about being submissive, respectful, and the keeper of the home. An ancient role, I’m told, assigned from the time the Tigris and Euphrates rushed through Eden.

There are things I will come to regret. The way I shrank myself, the way I silenced my voice, the way I believed that idea to be truth. But I will not regret that moment of immersion.

***

I gave birth to my daughter in a tub of warm water. She slipped from the sac of fluid within me to the birthing pool surrounding me. Below where I crouched and pushed, she could have remained there for seconds, minutes, maybe more, her body attached to a pulsating cord.

Instead, the midwife’s hands sank below the surface, cupped my girl’s wrinkled body, and guided the fresh baby to her mother. Thin skin pressed against my wet chest as I waited for a scream that never came. Just the flutter of a heartbeat and a soft mew.

“The gentle birth,” the midwife said while she drained the tub. “Water babies don’t really cry.”

***

Sometimes I daydream about my girl far in the future when she is big and grown. She stands on the bank of a great river or walks barefoot beside the ocean’s many lapping tongues. Her wide eyes stare into a blurry distance beyond the range of my imagination.

And I think how around her, words can rise. How jagged twists on a faith I have handed her may one day creep close and soak her shoes, her clothes, her being. But my daughter, I dream she floats in the river current, breathes with the ocean’s waves. Her strong arms cut through walls of water in a way even her mother never knew.

Why did I believe for so long? Because I didn’t know there existed a way to stop and still remain.

***

In the bright of morning, after the time for nightmares is over, I hear my toddler’s waking cries. Later we walk past a fountain. Her squeals prod me to stare with her at slim arcs of water splashing into the pool below. I loosen my grip on her hand and watch her touch the slight spray of what she has known since her beginning.

(This post originally appeared in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts and is used with permission)

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Patrice Gopo is a 2017-2018 North Carolina Arts Council Literature Fellow. She is the author of All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging. Her book is a Fall 2018 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Please visit patricegopo.com/book to learn more.  Facebook: @patricegopowrites; Instagram/Twitter: @patricegopo.

Patrice has graciously offered to give away a copy of her beautiful book, All the Colors We Will See. To be entered to win, simply leave a comment on this post — tell me the best book you’ve read in the last six months.

One name will be randomly drawn on Wednesday, August 29 at 8 p.m. Central Time, and I will notify the winner by email.  

 

 

When Walking is Prayer

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Though I’ve never met her in person, I’ve admired Hilary Yancey for a long time. She’s a deep thinker and a beautiful writer, and, lucky for all of us, she’s recently released her first book, Forgiving God: A Story of Faith – a memoir about becoming a mother to a child with disabilities and the impact that experience has had on her faith and on her relationship with God. I haven’t finished the book yet, because it just arrived in the mail today, but let me simply say that I picked it up while I was sitting here at my desk, read the opening few pages, and really, truly did not want to put it down. It’s a privilege to welcome Hilary to the blog today; I know you will be touched by her words.

Post by Hilary Yancey

I remember the first time I prayed with my eyes open. It was on a drive home from high school, late in the winter of my senior year. I had just gotten my driver’s license and was nervously winding my way down the same roads I had been traveling for years. I could feel the car swing into the familiar right turns and how my foot anticipated the next stop sign. But my eyes darted from side to side, my hands sweated at “10 and 2” on the steering wheel and out of my mouth slipped a decidedly complex prayer: “Lord Jesus do not let me die on this road I JUST got my license!”

I’ve always been the kind of person who prays with her eyes closed. I found it easier to concentrate on the ideas of my prayers, to imagine how they were being sent upwards and meeting Jesus in heaven. I prayed in this way to stop being distracted by the things I saw around me, by a book I wanted to read or a pile of laundry I was supposed to do. I thought that by closing my eyes I could close out the world and so through my prayers ascend somewhere else, wherever it was I thought God was.

A few years ago, my prayer life changed. I was pregnant with my first child; we’d received a challenging medical diagnosis at our 20-week ultrasound; I’d never needed to pray more. But when I closed my eyes, it was darkness. There were no feelings of ascent, no sure footing. The world had interrupted my old patterns and it was impossible to close out the world because the world had shrunk to the space of my body expanding for my son and the world was with me everywhere I went.

By the time my son was born, I had given up praying with my eyes closed; I had almost given up the practice of praying. But I walked: to and from his crib in the NICU, to and from the family lounge where doctors met with us to share further diagnoses, treatment options, to and from my bed to the shower to the hallway again, and around the outskirts of the hospital building when I would call my friend to cry. I could not speak to God directly, except to yell, and so I walked.

And my footsteps became words, they became prayers, but open-eyed prayers, prayers of pressing into the world instead of pushing away. My footsteps took me both where I hadn’t wanted to go and where it turns out I needed to, to the place of being surrounded, immersed in the very experiences I had once prayed to avoid.

I walked my son to the doors of the OR, I walked the floorboards of our house listening to the breaths in and out of his new trach, I walked us around the lobbies of his follow up clinics and through the hospital hallways too many times to count, memorizing the turns – up one floor, left then right and around to the desk where they check your ID, down the hallway, slight right to the sink and then left and then Jack, my son, is on the right – all of this walking and I emerged with prayers carved into my feet, with prayers left on those floorboards and hallway tiles, echoes of what my mind couldn’t say but my body could.

I am still at the very beginning of learning to pray. I am still working on finding a new rhythm of conversation with God. But now, when I can’t find a way to say what I mean, when I close my eyes and feel only quiet dark, I start walking. And the footsteps become words, and the words become prayers.

I turn the corner and I am somewhere new.

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Hilary Yancey loves good words, good questions, and sunny afternoons sitting on her front porch with a strong cup of tea. She and her husband, Preston, and their two children, Jack and Junia, live in Waco, Texas, where Hilary is completing her PhD in philosophy at Baylor University. Her first book, Forgiving God: A Story of Faith was just published by FaithWords. You can read more of her writing on her website and follow her on Instagram at @hilaryyancey.

Celebrating Holy Week: A Free Audio Devotional

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My friend Kimberly Coyle is a beautifully gifted writer, and this year, she is offering something really special to help us quiet our minds and turn our hearts toward Jesus this holy season. If you had the opportunity to listen to Kimberly’s recent audio series for Advent, then you know what a special gift this new Holy Week series is. I know I, for one, desperately need this invitation into quiet contemplation as we enter Holy Week this year. Please join me in welcoming Kimberly Coyle to the blog today, and please do subscribe to receive her Holy Week audio devotional series, which will arrive free in your in-box on Palm Sunday and continue through Easter.

Post and photo by Kimberly Coyle

Confession: Easter is not my favorite holiday. This is an unpopular opinion in Christian circles, especially when one is a former pastor’s kid who has celebrated Easter Sunday since she was a wee one wearing a new, twirly skirt for the occasion.

Childhood Easters often felt forced–the long morning at church, the best behavior, the quiet dinner afterwards as my parents recovered from greeting an oversized congregation–the celebration of holidays like Christmas came far more naturally to me. Based on the consumerist creep into the Christmas season, I’m not alone. Most of us celebrate for weeks, allowing Christmas to permeate every part of us: from our homes, to our music playlists, to our waistlines. We are hardwired for joy, a celebratory people, who revel in a sense of expectation, in giving and receiving.

Christmas is mystery. It is desire. It is the best kind of waiting. And it culminates in the most human experience of all time–the act of giving birth. Christmas is labor, life, the cry of an infant, a mother’s breast engorged with first milk. It is earthy. The soft bleating of barn animals and the pungent scent of dung and hay and sweat surround us. We can feel the wonder of it settling into the marrow of our bones.

Easter is celebration, yes, but it is prefaced by brutality–a kind of cruelty we can hardly fathom. Easter is a war between Heaven and Earth, between sin and salvation. It is otherworldly–an earthquake, a shroud of darkness, a veil inexplicably torn in two. It is a cosmic battle we celebrate with chocolate bunnies and a spiral ham.

Every year as Easter approaches, I hope to connect more intimately to Jesus. I’ve begun to observe Lent, and while this prepares my heart, I still feel a sense of disconnect from this time in the life of Jesus. He crosses over a threshold where I can’t easily follow. This year, I decided to approach Holy Week with a sense for the humanity behind it. I wanted to enter into it, bringing my full self to the cross with Jesus.

When I see the cross and the resurrection through the eyes of the witnesses present, I can enter into the force of it through their stories. The resurrection was prefaced by confusion, betrayal, and grief. At the foot of the cross we witness weeping. We hear the crowd’s mockery. We feel the fear pulsing through Jesus’ followers, and the empty triumph of the religious leaders. We identify with their humanity–the sight and sound and feel of each moment through their senses.

This is how we enter into Easter. We come bound to our own flesh, and to the flesh of those who came before us. We enter into the death and resurrection of Jesus through the physical experiences and the inner turmoil of the witnesses. To look up at Jesus from the foot of the cross with his mother Mary, or to weep in the courtyard with Peter has put skin on this season for me.

I want to spend time with these men and women a little longer, so I created something for us to share this Easter season. I’ve recorded an audio devotional for each day of Holy Week–a meditation on the Journey to Resurrection through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it.

These short audio devotionals are meant to help us center our thoughts on Jesus even as we hide Easter eggs and stuff our baskets with bunnies. The first devotional will land in in-boxes on Palm Sunday, and will arrive daily thereafter until the day before Easter.

If you’d like to subscribe, you can do so by clicking here, and the Holy Week audio will arrive your inbox, as well as my weekly blog posts.

As we wait for Palm Sunday to arrive, I’ve created three spring printables for you to download and print for free. It’s my gift to you as we wait for spring to show her face at long last here in the Northeast. I hope you enjoy them!

What an Improv Jazz Quartet Taught Me about Servant Leadership {and a book giveaway!}

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It’s a delight to welcome authors Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory to the blog today. Their new book, Overwhelmed: How to Quiet the Chaos and Restore Your Sanity (yes, please!) is the perfect read to kick off the new year. How about we make 2017 the least stressed year of our lives so far? Sound good? Read on!

Post by Cheri Gregory

I frown suspiciously at the leadership conference schedule. Monday and Wednesday look comfortingly normal. But Tuesday?

“Leadership as Improv.”

I don’t do improv.

I love drama—as long as I’m performing a well-memorized script or directing. But improv? No way.

I like my spontaneity well-planned, thank you very much!

I enter the auditorium Tuesday morning with secret plans to bail the moment my hyper-sensitive comfort zone indicators signaled the slightest discomfort.

I feared being pulled on stage, given three random words, and instructed to “improv.”

But what I find is a jazz quartet warming up.

Surprise and relief morph into curiosity.

What can a jazz quartet possibly teach me about servant leadership or ministry or life?

Making Music Together

The quartet leader begins by discussing the goals of improv jazz:

Creativity.
Innovation.
Dynamic change.

The the performers are the composers. Composition occurs organically as they perform, giving the music immediacy and life.

I am surprised to learn how much structure improv actually involves; it is not chaos or “anything goes.”  But it is flexible, giving rise to a paradox: autonomy within community.

The quartet demonstrates, and I am swept up in a live musical metaphor.

As one instrument solos, the other three “comp” — that is, they play support.

After the quartet pauses for a few bars of silence, they are incredibly intentional about starting back up again. Each player watches the other, counts carefully, and even nods or calls out to make sure they all start back up again on the right note at the right time.

As I watch, two things become clear to me:

No one is fretting about who plays the solo.

 Everyone is focusing on the music they’re making together.

Letting Go of Who Gets the Solo

For decades, I suffered from self-inflicted overwhelm as I tried desperately to land the solo.

I sought the attention, the approval, the achievement of being the one (and only) solo player.

In leadership. In ministry. In every area of my life.

Until God spoke through improv jazz quartet to help me recognize that soloing is an a unworthy goal for servant leadership and ministry and life.

Who gets the solo? Is no longer my test of success.

Instead, I ask:

Are we making music together?

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How to Write Your Personal Manifesto — FREE!

Instead of making New Year’s resolutions (that will only last for a week), how about creating a Personal Manifesto that will carry you through the rest of your life?  Sign up for great ideas and resources about how to get out from overwhelmed and you will receive “How to Write Your Personal Manifesto” as Kathi’s and Cheri’s gift to you. Get off the overwhelming cycle of making and breaking resolutions and create a gentle plan for lasting life change. Sign up HERE.

A Book Giveaway!

Kathi and Cheri would love to send a copy of their new book, Overwhelmed: Quiet the Chaos & Restore Your Sanity, to one of you! Enter the Rafflecopter drawing below to win (leave a comment & share this post on social media).  [Email readers: Click HERE and scroll down to the bottom of the post to enter the drawing]

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About Overwhelmed

Feeling overwhelmed? Wondering if it’s possible to move from “out of my mind” to “in control” when you’ve got too many projects on your plate and too much mess in your relationships?

Kathi and Cheri want to show you five surprising reasons why you become stressed, why social media solutions don’t often work, and how you can finally create a plan that works for you. As you identify your underlying hurts, uncover hope, and embrace practical healing, you’ll understand how to…

  • trade the to-do list that controls you for a calendar that allows space in your life
  • decide whose feedback to forget and whose input to invite
  • replace fear of the future with peace in the present

You can simplify and savor your life—guilt free! Clutter, tasks, and relationships may overwhelm you now, but God can help you overcome with grace.

About the Authors

 Kathi Lipp is a busy conference and retreat speaker and the bestselling author of several books, including Clutter Free, The Husband Project, and The Get Yourself Organized Project. She and her husband, Roger, live in California and are the parents of four young adults.

Cheri Gregory spends her weekdays teaching teens and weekends speaking at women’s retreats. She’s been married to her college sweetheart, Daniel, for more than 28 years. The Gregorys and their young adult kids, Annemarie and Jonathon, live in California.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.