Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

seasons

How to Live in This Season

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Thanksgiving arrives next week, and along with roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie will come a cacophony of Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads, crowded malls, snarled traffic and a to-do list the length of the Magna Carta.

Truth be told, most years my home is stripped of autumnal décor and festooned in evergreen garland and sparkly white lights before the Thanksgiving dinner dishes are dry. Every year I aim to “get a jump on Christmas,” and if my holiday shopping isn’t finished by Thanksgiving Day, I consider myself “behind.”

I suspect I’m not alone in this. Our go-go-go culture insists that rather than fully experiencing the present season, we hurry on to the next one. Nowhere do we see this message play out more clearly than in retail stores. Beginning the day after Halloween, Jack-O-Lanterns, creepy costumes and bite-sized KitKats are whisked from displays, replaced with shiny tinsel, red and green wrapping paper and Elves on the Shelves. By the time dusk falls on Thanksgiving evening, the message is as loud and incessant as the carols blaring from every local radio station:

There’s no time to linger over a second slice of pie as the candles burn low.

There’s no time to stroll beneath a canopy of russet oak leaves, the November sun still warm on our shoulders.

There’s no time to relish the gifts of Thanksgiving – family and friends gathered, gratitude, good food, leftovers (and more leftovers) — when there’s a fence to drape in icicle lights, cards to sign and envelopes to address, presents to purchase and wrap and Nutcracker performances to attend.

Or is there?

This year, I’d like to suggest a different way.

Rather than succumbing to society’s relentless siren’s song compelling us toward what’s next, might we practice being present in this moment, in this day and in this season of Thanksgiving?

Rather than heeding our culture’s call to more, bigger, faster and busier, might we lean more fully into the rhythms of the present season and listen to the call of own souls?

It could be that you don’t know what fully embracing the rhythms of this season looks like. When we are in the habit of living with our hearts, minds and souls fixed on what’s next, we often struggle to recognize what brings us life right now.

If that’s the case, think about the kinds of activities that bring you satisfaction and joy and allow you to feel most like your deepest, truest self.

It might be something as simple as watching the chickadees and the cardinals at the feeder outside your window.

Or enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee and a quiet conversation with a good friend.

It could be cooking a satisfying meal for someone you love, or taking a walk, not to burn off last night’s extra-generous slice of pumpkin pie, but simply to notice and appreciate the remnants of autumn’s colors.

Our culture continually calls us to what’s next and woos us with the false idea that there is something better around the next bend. It demands that we do more, be more and buy more. It fuels our fear that who we already are and what we already have are not enough.

Our souls, on the other hand, call us to fully experience and relish in what is right now.

The many gifts of this present season are readily available to us. If we rush by in our haste to get to the next thing, we will miss them altogether.

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Hey friends, just a quick note to remind you that my next book, True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, is available for pre-order. And to sweeten the deal, I have some really wonderful free gifts for you — a downloadable True You companion journal, a guided audio meditation and a set of beautifully designed Scripture memorization cards — if you pre-order before January 1. All the details are OVER HERE. Thank you so much for your support!

Hope for Your Hard Season

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For three months straight this summer, every time I laced up my shoes and hit the trail, I felt like I was running through wet cement. When I finally managed to drag myself heaving and sweaty into my house four miles later, my husband always asked how my run went, and my answer was always the same: “Horrible. Again.”

I bought new running shoes. I tried drinking more water. I tried drinking less water. I tried stretching more. I tried stretching less. No matter what I did, the result was always the same: a demoralizing, abysmal run.

I wondered if perhaps my running days were over. Maybe I was simply getting too old. Maybe my body was wearing out. Maybe it was time for a gentler form of exercise.

Despite my frustration, I kept at it, mostly because I am both stubborn and lazy. I didn’t want to take up swimming or spinning or Zumba. I’ve been running since I was 16 years old. I like the rituals around running – the stretching, the cool-down, lying on my sunroom floor as the cool breeze from the ceiling fan wafts over me – as well as the structure and rhythm of beginning my day on the trail. I also like the endorphins, which I don’t get when I walk or bike.

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I’m heading down the home stretch of book-writing, one eye on my January deadline, the other on my word count. But I admit, I’ve been discouraged lately. While the early chapters seemed to unfurl straight from my fingertips, these later chapters have been a grind. I spend a lot of time staring out the sunroom window behind my desk, my hands in my lap (or my fingernails between my teeth), rather than on the keyboard. I delete more than I type.

There’s something wrong, I think to myself. It shouldn’t be this hard.

I find myself wondering if my writing days are coming to an end. Maybe I’m burned out, I think. Maybe it’s time for a different kind of creativity. Or maybe, a small voice deep inside wonders, maybe God doesn’t want me to write books anymore.

One day a few weeks ago, when Brad asked me how my morning run had gone, I realized it had been a tiny bit better. I might not have noticed if he hadn’t asked, but when I thought back to my four miles, I realized they hadn’t been quite as horrendous. For the first time in months, I hadn’t felt like I was about to keel over and die on the trail.

Since then, my morning jogs have continued to improve bit by bit. I got my wind back. My feet stopped hurting. My legs feel steadier. I am energized when I finish, rather than spent. I haven’t done anything differently. Over time I just simply began to feel better.

This morning as I ran through the November mist, I felt strong, carefree, and light on my feet. Everything felt right in the world during those four miles on the trail. Later, after I’d showered and was seated at my desk, steeling myself for another grueling day of writing/not writing, I remembered my summer of bad running – the days and weeks when what had once come easily felt like a burden and a punishment.

I also remembered that my season of hard running, frustrating and demoralizing as it was, eventually came to an end. The difficult season passed unexpectedly, slipping out the back door as quietly and mysteriously as it had arrived.

There is a lesson here about seasons, particularly those that arrive unexpectedly and are not altogether welcome. Sometimes we find ourselves in an uncomfortable, discouraging, frustrating season – a season in which the next right step is, literally or figuratively, to simply take another step, and then another and another.

I still don’t know why I struggled so much in my running this past summer. Likewise, I don’t know why writing is so hard right now. But if my season of hard running taught me anything, it’s that this too shall eventually pass.

In the meantime, I’ll keep putting down one word after another, my eyes fixed on the finish line, until this hard season slips quietly away like a November mist, until I begin to write like I run, strong and carefree again.

How to Value the Season You’re In

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My last official blog post here was June 7 – a little more than three months ago (I admit, I cheated a bit on my hiatus and posted the pieces I wrote for the Journal Star in June, July and August). It was a good and necessary break – even more necessary than I initially anticipated, as it turns out, because…

…I am writing another book…two, in fact! This past spring I signed a two-book contract with Baker Books — one for non-fiction and the second for an “Undetermined” Biography/History. I admit, before I signed my name, it made my heart nearly cease beating to realize I was committing to write my fourth and fifth books. Somehow embarking on books four and five makes the whole business of being an author feel very real. I think because my first three books weren’t knock-it-out-of-the-park best-sellers I didn’t really consider myself a legit author, which I realize is the most ridiculous thing ever, but there you go…sometimes we are our own worst enemies.

Suffice to say, I slogged through a few thousand words or so of book one this summer, and let me say, for the record, it was a S.L.O.G. I am super excited about this book. It’s something I have been thinking about and living into for at least the last two years (and I see hints of it in my journals even longer than that). This is a book of my heart. BUT…that doesn’t mean it’s always going to come easily.

Which leads me to my next point. A few nights ago I told a friend, “I failed at summer.” When she asked me what exactly I meant by that, I explained that for most of the summer, rather than accepting the different rhythms and routines (or lack thereof) of the season, I pushed hard against what I saw as summer’s limitations. I tried to force the season to be something else, something it wasn’t meant to be. For the entire eleven weeks of summer, I never stopped trying to force it. It was, in a word, exhausting.

While I knew going into it that a new part-time job and two teen/pre-teen boys and a husband home for the summer would seriously limit my capacity for the deep, creative work of book-writing, in the end, I refused to go with the flow of the season and embrace its freedom and gifts. Instead, I pushed, pushed, pushed against it with all my might. As a result, I was not only hugely unproductive, I was also constantly frustrated, resentful, and generally a giant pill to be around. I was like the Peanuts character Pig Pen, except instead of a cloud of dirt hovering around me, I emanated doomsday despair and negativity with a heaping side of grouchiness.

The funny thing is, when I finally did sit down to write actual words on the page after the boys returned to school and my husband returned to his classroom in mid-August, I found I was ready. I may not have produced much in terms of word count over the summer (which was extraordinarily frustrating at the time), but it turns out, I was still very much working on the book that whole time.

I was reading. Taking notes. Jotting down relevant quotes. Journaling. Staring into the middle distance. Ideas were percolating and gestating. By the time I sat at my desk and put my fingers to the keyboard, the book (or at least a big chunk of it) was ready to be written. Those three months of seemingly little concrete productivity had actually been an important part of the creative process. I just hadn’t recognized it as such because the outcomes were not immediately apparent or tangible.

This summer I learned the hard way about the importance of trusting and valuing the season I am in. Ecclesiastes said it best, right? “To every thing there is a season. And a time to every purpose under heaven.”

This summer was my season to tend – to nurture the scattered seeds, to water and fertilize them, to wait patiently, biding my time while the first tender seedlings rooted and sprouted. This summer was a gestational season – an important, dare I say absolutely critical time in the process of writing a book. I just wish I had recognized the necessity and value of this season and embraced the beauty and gift of it, rather than pushing it to be something else.

Trusting every season doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m great with the harvest, with seasons of obvious fruitfulness and productivity. But I’m learning that the slower seasons, the periods in which we step back, surrender, and quietly let things be, are necessary and important too. Slowly, largely through great trial and error, I am learning that there is indeed a season for every activity under the heavens. Even, or perhaps especially, when the activity of that season doesn’t look like you expect it to. Even when it’s an activity that does not produce immediately apparent results.

Graceful Summer: Autumn Slips in on Tiptoes {The Last Post}

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Autumn masquerades as summer in scorching sun and dry heat. But I’m not fooled. Behind that tired, bedraggled costume, I see she has arrived and is waiting, patiently.
 
In the quiet of longer, slower days, bug-hunting boys now tucked into classrooms.

In honey locust leaves twirling like helicopter seeds, raining a golden sheet across the lawn.

In the grackle with the indigo iridescent head, cackling from the elm.

In the squirrel, crouching, one acorn clenched in its claws, another in its cheek.
 

In the carpet of brown pine needles pricking the bottoms of my feet.

In stripped-bare river birch branches and magnolia tipped with copper.

In sunflowers, dipping chins.


In open windows, misty veil over green, mornings draped in cool.

In scarlet tomatoes, butternut squash on tangled vines, soil turned, unearthed potatoes.

In one crisp leaf circling the fountain, a blanket crocheted across hammock cloth.

 

Autumn waits patiently. She slips in on tiptoes, so quiet I hardly notice.


But when I open my eyes, I see she’s nearly here.

How are you ushering in the change of seasons?

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The end of summer signals the end of Graceful Summer here. I have so cherished these Fridays! Thank you for helping me to slow down this summer, to breathe in the small moments and appreciate the many, many gifts. To all of you who participated in the community link-up, thank you. I hope you, too, found a bit of peace.

The last link-up for Graceful Summer: