Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

publishing

Because God’s Timing is Perfect {even when it feels like nothing’s happening at all}

By

I don’t even know how else to write this except to blurt it out all over the place: my agent sold my memoir!!!!

I signed the contract and mailed it off yesterday to WaterBrook Multnomah, a division of Random House. I know! Like one of my friends here in Lincoln said: “The HOUSE!!!”

Two years to write it, two years to land an agent, nearly two years for that agent to sell it to a publisher. Can I just tell you…I’d pretty much given up.  Honestly, I’d given up hope on that book. After wrestling and begging and pleading with God for the last two years, and struggling with jealousy and envy, disappointment, frustration and idolatry, I’d finally put it aside.

I knew Rachelle had sent the manuscript to a publisher, but frankly, after two years of zero progress, I also knew better than to give it a second thought. When the phone rang, and I heard her voice on the end, and she said something like, “You are going to love me today!” I actually responded, “Really?” with just a hint of edginess in my voice, all crotchety and crabby. I was in a bad mood.

A bad mood, can you believe it?

So when she said, “I just sold your memoir!” I simply stopped breathing. For like four seconds. And then I started gushing an unstoppable stream of consciousness, including all sorts of inappropriate and completely unprofessional statements like:

“I think I’m crying!” and

“I can’t stop sweating!!”

When I got off the phone I had my first Pentecostal moment all by myself, running around the house, raising my hands to Heaven and praising God at the top of my lungs, which, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know just does not happen because I am an uptight New Englander and a Lutheran.

And then I called Brad, who didn’t answer because he was teaching. And then I called my parents, who also didn’t answer. And then I called my sister, who also didn’t answer. And then I called Deidra, who didn’t answer but then called me right back, and we laughed and cried and whooted, and she said, “I always knew it would happen.” And it’s true, she’s been saying this day would come for more than two years, and I never believed her. But I always loved to hear her say it because it kept me going.

When I got off the phone with Deidra I was still sweating.

Truth be told, I did not stop sweating for three days. I think my body went into some kind of overdrive. At night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and writing the acknowledgements page in my head (because I am the most vain Christian writer ever) and sweating.

So before I sign off (because I’m sweating again), I want to say two things. First: thank YOU. For sticking with me through this. For reading my story and telling me it counts. For listening to me belly-ache about this journey and for always, always encouraging me with your comments and emails. I would have quit this years ago if hadn’t been for you.

And second, if you’re a writer, and you feel like you just died a little bit inside, just know that I know what you are feeling because I have lived it every day for nearly six years.  I get it. I do. Do not, I repeat, do not give up. If your God-given dream is to tell your story, do not give up hope. Keep writing. And trust that God’s timing and his plan are always perfect, even when it feels like nothing is happening at all.

Sharing with Jennifer Dukes Lee today…because this story is, without a doubt, His story:

When Your Dream Turns Out Differently Than You Imagined

By


I sat at the kitchen counter last week and signed a book contract while Brad snapped my picture. That’s right, a real book contract with a real publisher [Baker Books!].

There’s a catch, though: the contract is not for what I consider my book, my memoir – the book that took me 2.5 years to write and another 2 years for which to land an agent. It’s not for the book that I started writing when my now seven-year old was still an infant. It’s not a contract for the book of my heart – the book that led me back to God.

It’s for an entirely different book. I admit, when Rachelle called me last May to tell me Baker Books was looking for someone to write a book called 50 Women Every Christian Should Know, I was lukewarm. After all, this wasn’t my dream, to write this kind of book. This wasn’t the plan I had all mapped out in my head, complete with bullet points and check lists. This “other book” wasn’t what my dream was supposed to look like.

I had it all figured out, of course. I wrote the memoir to give other waffly Christians like me hope. I wrote my story as a testament to the fact that God transforms even the most stubborn, unbelieving people. That was the story I wanted published. That story was my dream. This other book was all wrong; it didn’t fit. It wasn’t part of The Plan.

I’d long forgotten, of course, that it wasn’t my plan to begin with.

Somewhere along the way I made God’s plan my plan. I took God’s dream for me and obsessed over it, managed it, shaped it, controlled it, molded it and defined it according to what I thought it should look like and how I wanted it to unfold.

In short, I transformed God’s dream for me into an idol.

When I first told the kids at dinner a few weeks ago that it was official – I was going to get a book published – they were astonished.

“Really??!! Your book??!! You’re finally going to get your book published?” Rowan screeched, his eyes wide and bright with excitement.

“Well, not my book exactly,” I said quietly. “I mean, it will be my book …but it’s not the one I’ve been talking about forever, the one I already wrote. This is a different book. A new book.”

The kids paused. I looked down at my plate.

“But you know what this means, right?” Noah said suddenly, sitting up straight in his chair. “This means you go from being a writer to being an author! A real author, with, like, a book in the bookstore and everything!”

I smiled at my boys sitting across from me at the table, my eyes tearing. “You know,” I said to Noah, “I hadn’t thought of it that way until right this minute.”

Up to that point I’d been less than excited about this book. In fact, when I told close friends and family members about it, a distinct note of apology tinged my voice. I felt disappointed and, while not like a totalfailure, at least like I’d missed the mark a bit.

It turns out, after all my reshaping and refining, I’d defined the dream too narrowly – so narrowly, in fact, that I didn’t recognize the dream when it began to unfold in a way I didn’t expect.

I was so caught up in the fact that this dream didn’t exactly resemble the one I had crafted for myself, I missed a very important detail, a detail that Noah’s exuberant dinner table declaration jarred back into place.

That night, sitting across the table from my beaming boys, I realized that the dream is still alive, unfurling right here, right now, right before my very eyes. It’s a God-inspired, God-planned and God-led dream, and just because it looks different than I imagined, doesn’t mean it’s not very, very good.

So tell me…has a dream of yours ever turned out differently than you’d imagined?

 

{And can I say thank you, too, to each and every one of you – for sticking with me and standing by me and cheering me on throughout the most arduous road-to-publishing journey in history? Truly. Thank you. I can’t wait to tell you more about this book in the coming weeks and months.}

One more thing…you’ve heard about Jumping Tandem: The Retreat, right? I’ll be talking about this very topic there in April (because believe me, I have a lot more to say!), plus there’s going to be a ton of other dream-related speakers. If you’ve got a dream (and I know you do), you don’t want to miss this.  

 
Linking with Jennifer today…

And Emily at Imperfect Prose:

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

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: For the Times You Think You are in Control

By

“Hey Brad, hand me a pencil please, will you?” I asked, interrupting the quiet. “I need to stab my eye out.”
 
I’d just read online that yet another fellow writer had landed a book deal – a two-book deal, no less, with a major, New York City-based publisher. And I’d had it. Frustrated and bitter with my lack of progress in the publishing field, I was ready to quit. Or at the very least stab my eye out with a sharp pencil.

Then, just two days later, my agent called with good news. She had a project for me – not the book deal I’d dreamed of, but a fabulous writing project nonetheless. I hung up the phone and twirled into the kitchen, but even before I could announce my big news, Brad said this: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

I give the man credit – Brad didn’t dare quote this verse from Job when I was in the throes of the Lord taketh away. He only mentioned it at the announcement of good news, and not to throw a wet blanket on my party, but to remind me that God, and God alone, is in control.

I forget that sometimes. Or I try to forget it, at least. Frankly, I like to be in control. I like to think I’m managing this tenuous writing career; I like to pretend that I’m making this all happen on my own. I like to imagine that if I work hard enough and push long enough, I can make a book deal happen.

Deep down, though, I know that’s simply not true. Deep down I know that real faith requires obedience and surrender, that God is the master planner, not me.

And I think that’s exactly what Hannah realizes in the verses we read from 1 Samuel this week.

Her prayer begins as thanksgiving for the fact that God has accomplished the impossible in blessing her with a child after years of infertility.

But then Hannah’s prayer shifts into an entirely different tone, as she says this:

The Lord gives both death and life;
he brings some people down to the grave but
raises others up.
The Lord makes some poor and others rich;
he brings some down and lifts others up…
For all the earth is the Lord’s,
and he has set the world in order ( 1 Samuel 2:6-8, NLT)

For me, the last two lines are key: For all the earth is the Lord’s, and he has set the world in order.

Hannah bargained with God in order to be able to bear a child – she took the matter into her own hands, her own control, and made a deal with God. In the end, though, her prayer illustrates that she has come to a deeper understanding of her relationship with God. Hannah understands that Samuel was offered to her as an undeserved gift, rather than a reward for her tenacious prayers.

With this prayer, Hannah reminds me that the Earth, along with everything and everyone on it, was created by God. He rules over it…and us. And he (not I) sets the world in order.

What about you? Are you struggling to control something that should be left in God’s hands?

: :

One quick little note here before we do the link-up. Have you heard about our new family project?! We are trying to raise $5,000 through Charity:Water, which would provide 250 people in Africa or Asia with clean, fresh water [800 million people around the world do not have access to clean water!]. We’ve dedicated our campaign to Brad’s parents, Jon and Janice, and we would be incredibly grateful if you would consider making a donation. Click here for more information. Thank you!!


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 below) 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 that you are here!


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