Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

joy

Some Days Glory, Some Days Grit

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Path through the Trees

I walked the dog late Wednesday afternoon as the sun dipped low and the shadows grew long against the pristine snow. Josie and I traveled our usual route, out the neighborhood, along the edge of the golf course, down the winding path beside the frozen creek. We’d gotten snow that morning, the second storm this week, so the plows were still out scraping the roads. Snow blowers whirred and whined in the distance.

It was cold. Really cold. The wind blew hard from the north, biting my cheeks and watering my eyes. The path wasn’t plowed. The drifts were powdery, but deep enough that the snow spilled over the tops of my boots and sifted down, settling into a chilled dampness under my heels and toes.

You’d think I would have been miserable out there, but I wasn’t. My heart soared with an inexplicable joy, reveling in the expansive blue sky, the skeletal tree branches, the snow unsullied and pure. I sang out loud the single line I remembered from the hymn we’d sung a few weeks ago in church: “Taste and see…taste and see…the goodness of the Lord.” Weighed down by my clunky boots and winter coat, my fleece hat, bulky mittens and scarf, I walked heavily, but my spirit was light.

sparklingbranch

Geese in Flight2

Antelope Park

Memorial Drive snow

Josie and I stood for a bit at the edge of the snowbank, the wind at our backs, the sun on our faces, and watched a woman across the field as she skied down a small hill, and then climbed back to the top. She repeated that cycle a dozen times in the few minutes I stood there, never falling, but also never straying from the same route. She was methodical, yet  I also sensed a determination there, just under the surface of her repetitive movements. She was bent on mastering that small hill and those awkward skis, no matter how much effort it took.

As I stood in the snow and watched the woman on the skis, I thought about how together her walk and mine that day were the perfect metaphor for life. Some days our spirits soar for no reason, and nothing — not bulky coats, not worries, not uncertainty, not wet socks — can dampen our joy. And other days? Well, those are the ones built on sheer determination — a methodical, deliberate climbing.

I prefer the former, of course. But I suspect I wouldn’t appreciate these moments of lightness and joy nearly as much, had I not also walked up and down, up and down, methodically and deliberately. These days I’m learning that’s kind of the way life is. Some days are glory, some days are grit, and I can be grateful for both.

 

 

When Grief Gives Way to Joy {#FightBackWithJoy}

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FightBackforJoy2

Peals of laughter and a chorus of squeals drifted from the living room into the kitchen, where I stood with my hands in a sink full of dirty dishes.  Heaviness rested on my chest like an x-ray apron as I methodically rinsed each plate and bent to place it in the dishwasher. Even the most mundane chores felt laborious when grief draped the house like an impenetrable fog.

“How is he even able to laugh? How can he be having fun?” I wondered as I leaned against the doorframe, damp dishtowel in my hands, and watched my husband roughhouse with our two young boys. They were engaged in an epic tickle war, and all three of them screamed with laughter until they fell, spent, onto the carpet in a heap.

My husband’s father was dying of lung cancer, yet in the midst of fear and grief, Brad managed to embrace joy. I didn’t understand how such joy was possible. I couldn’t escape the darkness of grief that enveloped me.

Weeks later, long after the memorial service had passed, I asked my husband how he’d been able to summon such joy during such an awful time. His answer surprised me. Sometimes he’d faked it, he admitted, going through the motions for the kids’ sake. But other times the tickling and giggling had somehow birthed a genuine joy – a respite from the pervasive grief. Playing with the kids had wedged open a crack. And just for a moment, a shaft of light had sliced through the darkness.

“At its core, joy emanates from the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us,” Margaret Feinberg writes in her latest book, Fight Back With Joy. “Practicing defiant joy is the declaration that the darkness does not and will not win. When we fight back with joy, we embrace a reality that is more real than what we’re enduring.”

Margaret did not write these words flippantly. She wrote them from the heart in the midst of her own suffering as she walked through breast cancer, surgery and chemotherapy. Margaret Feinberg doesn’t write about fighting for joy in the abstract. She writes it real, because she lived it, is living it.

FightBackforJoy1

It’s not always easy to remember that God is with us in these difficult times. Often we are so consumed by our own devastation that we forget God is right there with us, even in the most awful moments. These unexpected flashes of joy, these moments when we allow ourselves to succumb to frivolity and silliness are a reminder that God is present, shining his love and compassion upon us.

I refused to allow myself joy during that terribly difficult time because I felt guilty, as if my happiness would disrespect or perhaps even betray my father-in-law.

But observing Brad and my kids laugh helped me understand that joy can accompany grief. These two powerful emotions needn’t be kept separate, but instead can flow seamlessly, one into the other.

I see now that God’s presence is often experienced more vividly and palpably in these moments when heaven and earth meld. I believe when we feel joy, even as the weight of grief hangs heavy, we experience the nearness of a God who is with us wherever we go.

fightbackforjoy3This post is part of Margaret Feinberg’s Blog Party for her brand-new book and Bible study, Fight Back With Joy. To join the celebration (and learn more), click here. To read more about the book or to purchase a copy, click here.

To hear more about the book from Margaret herself, watch this short video trailer for Fight Back with Joy: {readers who are reading this post in email, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the blog post to watch the video.}:

Fight Back With Joy 6-Session DVD Bible Study Promo Video from Margaret Feinberg on Vimeo.

Because Sometimes You Make a Cake for No Reason

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I baked a cake last Saturday. A lemon bundt cake with lemon glaze. When I saw the recipe at Katrina Kenison’s place, I knew I had to make this cake, in part because I admire Katrina Kenison and I want to be just like her, and in part because it was a cake-baking kind of day, all drizzly and cool and gray.

I bake a cake about once a decade. Brad is the baker around here – he makes the boys a homemade birthday cake every year, in fantastical shapes like Thomas the Train and Nemo and Bowser Jr. I’m the birthday cake dish-washer. Twice a year I sigh at the eight bowls of frosting in every color of the rainbow scattered across the kitchen and I wonder why we can’t just head to the bakery department at Hy-Vee. For Rowan’s second birthday Brad worked on a Winnie the Pooh cake for about five hours, and when he lifted Rowan up to the counter for his first glimpse of the masterpiece, Rowan yelled, “Elmo!!!” We still laugh about that.

Katrina claimed the lemon bundt cake was super easy to make. But I think that might be a relative term. Maybe super-easy for a person who makes a cake more than once a decade. Still, even though my glaze looked a little funky, in a slightly curdled kind of way, and even though Brad and Rowan sucked the juice from the lemon and made lemon rind lips before I realized I still needed the freshly squeezed juice for the glaze, the cake tasted good. So good, in fact, I ate two slices one right after the other, and then promptly cut a generous slab, wrapped it in tin foil and gave it to a friend. Some cakes, especially those with two and a half sticks of butter, are simply too good to have around.

Katrina wrote a beautiful story about her cake. She baked it every day when a friend was dying. He couldn’t eat much toward the end, just a forkful or two of this cake, but that was enough to keep Katrina baking and delivering cakes to his door until she didn’t need to anymore.

My cake story is a little more mundane. I made a cake on Saturday, and as it baked we read our books, curled into the couch, the sweet aroma settling into every corner of the house, the rain pattering on the windowpanes. We admired the cake as it cooled on the rack. I took pictures, because that’s what you do when you make a cake once every ten years. And then we cut huge slices when it was still faintly warm, and sat at the kitchen counter eating cake in the middle of the afternoon. I even made a pot of coffee, because you can’t eat two slices of lemon cake one right after the other without a cup of coffee in your favorite mug to go along with it.

And as I pressed the back of my fork to the crumbs on my plate and let the last remnants dissolve on my tongue, I leaned back on the kitchen stool, satisfied. Because sometimes, once every ten years or so, you have to make a cake for no reason.

So tell me, what was the last fun or decadent thing you did for no reason? 

{And about those multiple birthday cake pictures … I apologize – I got way carried away on the cake nostalgia!}

My friend Evi has a brand-new link-up, and I’m sharing this post over there,
because I’m sure God smiles when we bake a cake for no reason:

evi like chevy

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Glorious to See

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“So, sometimes I get a really strong but quick feeling of happiness,” he says. “Like the other day, when I watched the wind blowing the cedar boughs. I felt a burst of happy feeling. What is that? Why does that happen?”

We are snuggled on the couch, sharing a fleece blanket, our books open on our laps.

“Well, when that happens to me, I tend to think it’s God,” I say, nudging my glasses down on my nose so I can look at Noah over the frames. “You know, God is with us all the time, but I think sometimes he makes himself extra noticeable, sort of as a way to tell us to pay attention. I think those happy moments that come out of nowhere are God.”

Our conversation reminds me of an experience I had about a year ago, just after my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. It was the Christmas season, but I was so angry, bitter and sad, my heart was hardened against joy. All I felt during those dark days was the weight of grief.

One night, as I stood at the kitchen sink with an apron around my waist and a stack of dirty dishes on the counter and my arms elbow-deep in soapy water, I felt an inexplicable flash of joy. And I knew instantly it was God, making his presence known to me, assuring me that despite the darkness, despite the fact that we were walking in the shadow of death, we would be okay. We would laugh and celebrate and find joy again.

Such was the case with Peter, John and James when they hiked with Jesus up the mountain to pray. I imagine the mood that day was somber. Just days before, Jesus had told his disciples that he would suffer, be killed and be raised from the dead — news that must have been terrifying and confusing for them. I suspect they were bewildered, unsure of themselves and afraid, perhaps even wavering in their faith or questioning their decision to follow Jesus. I imagine that hike up the mountain was a quiet one, as each man contemplated Jesus’ dire prediction, dread and fear creeping into the pits of their stomachs. Perhaps they, too, felt like they were journeying into the shadow of death.

At the top of the mountain Peter, John and James inexplicably fell asleep while Jesus prayed and as “the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white.” (Luke 9:29) Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke with Jesus, and “they were glorious to see.” (9:31). When the disciples awoke, they were shocked to see “Jesus’ glory,” with Moses and Elijah standing next to him. Amazed, the three disciples scrambled to process the unbelievable sight.

Jesus understood that his disciples needed to be shaken awake. He understood that they needed to stop, stand still and take notice. And just as Jesus knew his beloved disciples needed a jolt of joy and reassurance, he knows when we, too, need to be awakened to his constant presence.

We don’t always experience God’s presence in such a dramatic way, in the magnitude of a transfiguration or in the midst of dark grief. Sometimes God shows himself on an ordinary day, in a seemingly ordinary way. Like in the hallowed hush of wind through cedar boughs.

Can you think of a time when God stopped you in your tracks and made his presence known? How can you make a practice of catching more of these moments?

Linking with Ann Voskamp and her Wednesday series on the Practice of Radical…because seeing God on an ordinary day, in a seemingly ordinary way, is radical indeed:





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How to Be Kind, One Wave at a Time

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I see him two or three mornings a week, always at about the same time and at the same place. He wears navy blue shorts and a blue plaid shirt, and occasionally pulls a cap over his military-cropped hair. Often I pass by him twice on my run – once on my way out as I lumber toward the halfway point, and once on my way back as I labor toward home.
His greeting is always the same: a big wave, arm held out as if he might offer a high-five, and a generous, eye-crinkling smile. If I pass him on my return trip, I get the wave, the smile and a hearty, “Have a good one!”
It’s been ten years since I first began to recognize the man on the trail, and his response has never been anything other than genuine, unwavering cheerfulness, week in and week out…and not only to me. The man on the path greets every person he sees the same way: with kindness and joy.
I don’t know a thing about this man in the navy blue shorts and plaid shirt. I don’t know where he lives or what he does for work or if he’s retired. I don’t even know his name. I’ve never stopped to converse with him. There is simply the wave, the smile and those same four words as we continue on in opposite directions.

I’ve passed a lot of runners, walkers, bikers and roller bladers in my ten years jogging on the trail. Some say hello, some smile, some look at their feet or ten yards into the distance without so much as a glance in my direction. You wouldn’t think it would make any difference, would you — whether someone says hello or smiles or not? But it does. It’s more than enough to impact my mood and often, my whole day.

The man on the path has only ever spoken four words to me. But within those four seemingly mundane words is a powerful life lesson: A simple kindness can bestow lasting blessings.