Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

speaking

Why We Need to Take a Moment to Call Our Work Good

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I recently finished up a busy three weeks with back-to-back-to-back weekends of speaking engagements. You should know, speaking is not my sweet spot. Not that I don’t love connecting with women – I do! I love nothing more than sitting face-to-face with another woman to hear her story and share a bit of mine. And strangely, lately, I really don’t even mind the actual speaking part. Once my heart stops slamming around in my chest like a caged lemur, I kind of enjoy speaking a message I feel passionately about to an audience. Sometimes it can even be fun. {Did I just say that?}

But the days and weeks leading up to the speaking engagements? That’s what takes the toll. I hadn’t realized it until this week, but it’s the preparation and practice, combined with the anticipation and anxiety, that make speaking extra hard work for me.

Because speaking doesn’t come naturally to me, I combat fear and insecurity with uber preparation. Honestly, I prepare for a talk for 15 women at a weekend retreat like I’m preparing for a presentation to the U.N. General Assembly. I write out my talk verbatim, and then I practice it over and over again in my kitchen until I nearly have it memorized and can present it naturally. I still have my full written-out talk in a binder on the podium in front of me when I speak, but by that point it’s mostly a safeguard in case of a sudden deer-in-the-headlights paralysis.

All this to say, when I finished up the last of my three talks, I was wrung out. Completely spent. One hundred percent ready for a plate of Oreos and a night of Netflix. And yet, instead of doing exactly that, instead of taking a moment to offer myself a “job well-done” and acknowledge and celebrate the fact that I had completed a hard thing, I catapulted ahead to the next project at hand.

In fact, at one point I caught myself feeling guilty because I “hadn’t done any writing in the last couple of weeks”– forgetting, of course, that I’d written three separate talks totaling more than 13,500 words.

Friends, this is not good. This relentless drive, this hustle to finish one project and quickly move onto the next without hardly taking a breath is not good for our bodies, our minds, or our souls. It’s exhausting  — mentally, physically, and spiritually.

I know this first-hand because the Monday after my third and last speaking engagement, I woke up feeling like I was coming down with something. My head ached, my stomach was unsettled, and I kept reading the same sentence over and over without actually digesting the words. I was distracted, vaguely agitated, and unable to concentrate. It took me four hours to cobble together a blog post, and I was frustrated, when, at the end of the day, my to-do list looked much like it had at 9 a.m. I’d hardly made a dent in it.

I realize now it would have been better — for both my productivity and my body and soul — if I had simply taken the day off, if I had allowed myself a bit of a buffer zone, a bit of space not only to rest and refuel for the next thing, but also simply to celebrate what had already been done.

At the end of each of the six days of creation, God surveyed his work for that day and deemed it good. At the end of the sixth day, after God had made man, “He looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31). And on the seventh day, after six whole days of work, after God had made the universe, the stars in the sky, the plants on earth and the fish in the sea, he rested from all his work. “God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation.” (Genesis 2:3)

Do you see what I am getting at here?

God himself, the creator of our universe and everything in it, stopped at the end of each day of creation to look at what he had made and call it good. God didn’t plow ahead in a continuous frenzy of production, though he undoubtedly could have, but instead, he stopped, he surveyed what he had accomplished at the end of each day, and he appreciated what he had made.

I think God did this for a reason. I think God stopped to survey his work and call it good because his desire is that we do the same. God desires that we honor the work we’ve done, the work of creation, by acknowledging it and calling it good. He desires that we appreciate a job well-done before moving on to the next task at hand.

In appreciating and honoring the work of our hands, hearts, and minds, we are appreciating and honoring God himself, the one who created us, the one who gave us the hands, hearts, and minds with which to accomplish the work.

It’s easy to look at our to-do list and criticize ourselves for the items not checked off, the chores or projects still left undone. It’s easy to let what we haven’t accomplished overshadow what we have, to see only what remains to be done, rather than what we’ve finished. But to do that is to do ourselves, and our God, a disservice.

Let’s take the time to do as God did. Before we move on to the next project at hand, let’s stop for a moment to celebrate and see our good work for what it is: work well-done, work that honors God.

When It’s Time to Walk the Talk

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Tulip with 2 Corinthians

I spoke this past weekend at a women’s event in Iowa. It was a big deal for me because the event was my largest speaking event yet. When I pulled into the church parking lot at 7:30 Saturday morning, I texted Brad before I even turned the engine off. “This church is humongous,” I typed with shaky hands and a pounding heart. Turns out, the church wasn’t just humongous, it’s actually the largest Lutheran church in all of North America and South America, a fact I learned from the pastor’s wife during brunch…a fact which did nothing to settle my nerves.

I’m pleased to report that all turned out well. My heart raced and my voice quavered for about the first three or four sentences of my talk, but almost right away I noticed something that put me at ease: the audience was engaged and encouraging. Heads nodded, people made eye contact laughed at all the right places, and I could tell the message was resonating. It was clear the ladies were with me, and let me tell you, there is nothing more reassuring than that when you are a nervy-nelly speaker like me.

Later, when the crowds had departed and it was just me, the head of women’s ministry and the event coordinator chatting in the empty hallway, one of the women apologized. “I feel so badly about that one slide,” she said. “We don’t even know how it happened.”

I didn’t know what she was referring to. “The last one, where the text was split awkwardly,” she explained. “We checked and rechecked your slides a bunch of times, but we must have accidentally hit something at the last second that affected the text.”

In the moment, I was simply so relieved that the event was over and had gone well, I let her comment roll right off me. “No problem, I didn’t even notice,” I admitted. And it was true, from where I’d been standing on the stage, I hadn’t been able to see my PowerPoint slides well, so I hadn’t noticed the error.

Later that night as I lay in bed, though, the conversation came back to me, and suddenly, the mistake did matter. Suddenly, I found myself obsessing over it.

How mortifying! I thought. The audience must have thought I was a complete hack, an amateur, an unprofessional! There I was, calling myself a writer with a jumbo-tron sized error literally hanging over my head in 50,000-point type!

It didn’t matter that the mistake wasn’t mine. What mattered to me was the audience would have assumed it was.

An hour later, still staring at the ceiling and obsessing over something that had already happened and that I couldn’t change, I finally remembered the theme of my own talk that very morning.

Oh the irony!

I’d spoken about imperfection and flaws, brokenness and mistakes. I’d reminded the audience that God not only loves us, he also uses us — missteps, foibles, shortcomings and all — to further his kingdom here on earth. I’d referenced 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.” I’d talked about how God works best when we are weak.

But when it came right down to it, I struggled to believe the very truth I’d conveyed just hours before.

That’s the thing, isn’t it?  It’s a lot easier to talk the talk — to preach Jesus’ truth, and to really, truly believe it when you are doing so — than it is to walk the talk, to live out and trust God’s truth in real time. Honestly, it was easy to preach a message about imperfection when it applied to someone else. But oh how I struggled to believe those same words when I was suddenly asked to apply them to myself.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the pieces of Saturday fell into place the way they did. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that God’s perfectionist Triple-Type-A daughter preached about imperfection and weakness in the morning and then found herself wrestling with her own imperfection and weakness later that same day.

I think God knew I needed to walk the talk, to live out his Word in the here and now and to believe in my heart that his truth applies to me too.

When God Grows You Without You Even Noticing

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daily unfurling2

I’ve been doing more speaking over these last few months than I have in the past — mostly smallish events, women’s retreats and church conferences and the like around the greater Lincoln area. When I looked back at my 2015 calendar last week I realized I’d spoken at seven events this past year, which seems like a whole lot for someone who regularly tells herself that she doesn’t like public speaking.

I realized something important as I looked at the list of churches and retreats I’ve spoken at these last several months. I realized that without my even noticing it, God has been growing me, gently, softly, a little bit at a time throughout this past year.

I still don’t love to speak in front of an audience. I still get nervous. My heart still pounds, my feet still sweat, I still get breathless, I still have to apply multiple layers of high-powered deodorant in the morning and wear short sleeves, even in the dead of winter. I still have to prepare for each event weeks in advance. I still have to practice out loud, standing in my kitchen talking to myself with my dog stretched out at my feet. I still use notes when I speak, and I still like to stand behind a podium.

Yet I realized this weekend that something hardly discernible and yet at the same time hugely powerful has changed in me. I am trusting. I am trusting the process and the fact that God meets me in it every single time.

This doesn’t mean that every single speaking event I do is perfect. Not by a long shot. People in the audience still fall asleep. They check their phones and rummage through their purses in search of Lifesavers and gaze off into the middle distance, thinking about how they forgot to refill the cat dish before they left the house that morning.

Sometimes the stories I share that I expect will bring a big laugh or at least heads nodding in recognition fall flat.

Sometimes I lose my place in my notes and say “um,” and forget to turn on the clicker doo-hickey and panic a little bit when my PowerPoint slides refuse to budge.

Sometimes when I am finished at an event, I sit in my car in the parking lot, draw in a deep breath and think, “Well, I have no idea how that went.”

Yet with each subsequent event, I have leaned into the process a little more easily. I’ve become okay with the sleepers and the purse rummagers and all the little details I can’t control. I’ve come to accept the fact that I don’t know, can’t know, if what I say has resonated in any way. I’ve come to rest in the fact that God is in charge; that who listens and who thinks about their hungry cat, who stays awake and who nods off, who hears him in my words and who misses him entirely is in his realm, not mine.

I’ve come to realize that my job is to listen to God, to prepare, to apply my high-powered deodorant and to show up confident in his ability to speak through me.

Our God is such a gentle, loving, sweet God. He’s taken my hand and led me step by step through this terrifying process, one small event at a time. It’s taken me nearly a whole year to notice it, but God has quietly and steadfastly grown me in ways I didn’t even think were possible. Sometimes, it seems, you only notice how much you’ve grown when you look back and see how far you’ve come.

When You Forget to Practice What You’ve Preached

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Two weeks ago I arrived at the Carol Joy Holling Center for a women’s retreat. I was the keynote speaker slated for a two-hour session on Saturday evening. I’d prepared weeks for my talk, had my Bible packed into my suitcase, my notes tucked into my bag. I felt calm and cool and in control.

Until I checked in, that is.

“I have a really big favor to ask you,” the conference coordinator said as she handed me my room key card. “The worship leader has the flu. Do you think you could do the message in church tomorrow, too?”

Um, thank you, no. Please excuse me while I high-tail toward home. Best of luck to you.

That’s not what I actually said. But it sure is what I wanted to say.

Instead, I stood frozen in place like a deer caught in the headlights. And then I stuttered and stumbled and fumbled a response. “Sure, um, yeah, I guess I could do that I suppose…if you really don’t have anyone else.”

She didn’t have anyone else.

You should know, public speaking is not my gig. I gear myself up big-time every time I talk in front of an audience. I prepare like I’m about to testify at a Senate Committee Hearing, type up pages of notes in a gargantuan font, practice at least a dozen times in my kitchen and in my mini-van and in the shower, and pray like the end times are breathing down my neck.

Because frankly, public speaking feels like the end times to me.

So to know I was going to have to speak to an audience with little to no preparation, in church no less, after I’d already led a two-hour session the night before? Let’s just say I went to my room, closed the door, and did some heavy Lamaze.

Oh, and did I mention the theme for the retreat that weekend? Fearless. I know. God’s a real comedian sometimes.

That night, after I’d finished my evening session, I sat on my bed and tried to prepare for the morning’s message. I looked at the order for worship. I read the Scripture readings. I mentioned to the Holy Spirit that now would be an opportune time to make his presence known. I waited. I checked Facebook. I re-read the Scriptures and begged the Holy Spirit again.

And I got nothing. That night when I went to bed, I didn’t have a single note scribbled onto the conference notepad. I didn’t have one iota of what I might say.

The next morning when I woke up (miracle number one: that I slept at all), I had a pretty good inkling of what I was going to say (that’s miracle number two, by the way).

You see, I’d spent two hours on Saturday evening talking about all the ways fear sabotages our relationship with God. I’d talked about the fact that a lack of trust always runs like a quiet stream beneath our fear. And I’d outlined four spiritual practices we can turn to when we are afraid: name it, pray about it, connect with community, practice gratitude.

But when I came face-to-face with fear myself? I ignored every last word I’d preached just two hours before. I made all the mistakes I’d warned against, forgot all the Scripture I’d read aloud to the ladies gathered around the room, and failed to employ a single spiritual practice I’d recommended. When fear pushed me around like a bossy bully, I folded my cards and slunk away with my tail between my legs.

And so that’s the message I offered to the ladies who sat in church the next morning. I stood at the podium with my legs shaking in my boots and my scrap of notes trembling in my sweaty hands, and I admitted that I’d failed. I admitted that it was a whole lot easier to talk about fear, even teach about fear, then it was to stand in it and face it myself. I admitted that I’d neglected to employ any of the four spiritual practices I’d recommended to them, and I’d failed to trust God.

It wasn’t the most eloquent message ever. Nor was it well-crafted or particularly poignant. In fact, I’d even read the wrong Scripture, twice, the night before in bed, so my message wasn’t even based on the correct reading. And honestly, I don’t know if the ladies got anything out of it or not.

But I don’t think that was God’s point. I think God wanted to illustrate to me that I can talk the good talk about fear and fearlessness and trust and prayer, and I can prepare for hours and type up my large-font notes and wear my fancy speaking shoes. But until I come to him in trust, it’s all just chasing after the wind.

Have you ever had an experience that showed you that you were not practicing what you preached? 

Praying the Silent Amen

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“I’ve prayed more in one weekend than I think I have in the whole last month altogether,” I blurt as we sit around the campfire, grey smoke and starless night wrapping our faces in darkness. I mean it as a compliment. One of the details that set the Jumping Tandem Retreat apart from so many others I’ve attended is the prayer, woven like a gossamer thread throughout the entire weekend, tying us together with the word-breath of the Holy Spirit.

That said, when Emily suggests in our hotel room early on Saturday morning that we pray together before our sessions, I utter “Okay!” a little too shrilly as I whirl around to face her. She glimpses my wild eyes before I can hide my fear. “Or I could just pray for us,” she offers in a voice delicate as a butterfly’s wing.

So we sit on the edge of her bed and we pray amid wrinkled sheets and rumpled blankets as the radiator whirs hot air. Emily lifts our heart’s desires to Heaven, praying that the Holy Spirit will speak through us; that the women in our sessions will be filled with God and love and hope; that our voices will stay strong and steady.

Surrounded by all these prayer warriors makes me feel inadequate at first. Not just Emily, but Jennifer, Glenda, Nasreen, Deidra, Sandy, Holley, Lisa-Jo, Helen – eloquent, graceful, grace-filled pray-ers, every one of them. My palms sweat as we stand in a circle, holding hands on the first evening. I’m praying I won’t have to pray out loud.

“I’m not much of a pray-er out-loud-er,” I confess on our last night, as we gather in the small sitting area to encourage Jennifer before her keynote address. But as I bow my head, nodding and murmuring here and there as others offer their gratitude and praise, I realize it’s okay. There is room for all kinds here – the vocal praise, the murmur, the quiet nod.

It’s not how we pray that matters, or even how articulate or inarticulate we are, but simply the offering itself. No matter how it’s conveyed, in groans or poetry, shouts or whispers, a word of praise or a plea for help always reaches God’s ears.

And for that, I lift up my own silent Amen.

How comfortable are you praying aloud in a group? If the thought of it makes you wiggy (like me), do you have any advice to offer that’s helped you in the past? 

* Photo of hands grasped in prayer by Laura Boggess.