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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

surrender

What the Sublime Can Teach Us about God and Ourselves

July 5, 2016 By Michelle

Hi, friends! Just back from ten days in Italy – Italy! – and I have SO much to tell you. But…it’s going to come slowly, that much I know already. So in the meantime, here’s a piece I wrote at the end of June for the Lincoln Journal Star about the importance of experiencing God in nature. Thanks for being patient with me as I recover from jag leg and get my head on straight. xo – Michelle

 

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A few weeks ago I stood at the edge of a deep chasm. Far below me a river frothed in a violent maelstrom, thundering over a rocky precipice and plunging into a deep pit carved ten thousand years ago. A fine mist rose in a rainbow of pastels, coating my face in a cool sheen as I peered into the abyss.

I’ve been coming to this sublime spot on the north shore of Lake Superior nearly every summer for the last twenty years, and this particular river never fails to make my heart beat fast.

The gorge is beautiful and magnificent, but it’s also a place to be respected and feared. People have died in this river, swept away by the powerful water in the blink of an eye. In fact, two days after I was there this June, a young man drowned while swimming near the mouth of the river, pinned under the rapids by the tumultuous current.

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Nowadays we tend to use the word “sublime” as a synonym for “amazing” or “awesome.” We declare a slice of flourless chocolate cake in a fancy restaurant or an oil painting on a gallery wall “sublime,” but in doing so, we misuse the word as it was originally intended.

Back in the late eighteenth century, “sublime” meant something vastly different. Most often used to describe an aspect of the natural world, the sublime encompassed an element of terror melded with beauty, a sense of bigness and mystery that prompted awe tinged with dread and fear.

I think it’s important to experience the sublime in its original sense from time to time. This might entail standing next to a roaring river like I did recently, or at the edge of a vast prairie as a thunderstorm rolls in, or at the base of a looming, snow-capped mountain, or any place in the natural world that reminds us of our smallness.

Every once in a while, we need to stand in the presence of that furious, awesome power and remember our place in the world, which isn’t nearly as important as we like to think it is.

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Cascade

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Temperance

Most of us walk through our days assuming we are in control. We’ve orchestrated our everyday lives so that, for the most part, they are predictable and manageable. We like to steer our own ship, and we’ve defined God in a way that makes sense and fits neatly into our comfortable, clockwork daily existence.

The hard truth, though, is that this control we work so hard to maintain is an illusion. Perched on the edge of that roiling river, confronted with the fact that my life could be extinguished with one slip of my hiking boot on the crumbly, uneven trail, I felt small, powerless, and more than a little afraid. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but an important and even a necessary one.

The sublime not only forces us to acknowledge our own impermanence head on, it also insists we reconsider how we understand and define God.

The same God who created the serene brook burbling through the sunlit glade also created the water that roils through the gorge that makes my heart race with fear. If we are really honest, this might make us uneasy, because it means we don’t understand God and can’t control him, in spite of our best efforts. God’s ways are not our ways, and to experience the sublime in person is a powerful and necessary reminder of that.

 

Filed Under: surrender Tagged With: God and the sublime, God in Nature

What My Nudie Kid Taught Me about Surrender and Trust

February 24, 2015 By Michelle

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I wrote my memoir Spiritual Misfit over a period of two years when my kids were quite young. It was a time in which my spiritual life and my faith grew exponentially, and much of what I learned God taught me through my children and through the hard lessons of parenting. Today I’m sharing one of the more humorous stories from the book (although it wasn’t all that funny in real-time), about how an incident with my son Noah (who was about five at the time) taught me about surrender and trust. This excerpt is from Chapter 10: Surrendering the Fear:

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It was the kind of day in early spring that made you hold your breath in anticipation, a day just warm enough to entice with the barely plausible thought of ice cream. The kids and I sat outside Dairy Queen under the crab apple tree, contentedly licking our soft-serve cones as fragile blossoms dropped like snowflakes onto the asphalt. The air was rich with the scent of recent rain and new green, the concrete bench still so cool it seeped a wintry chill through the seat of my jeans.

Noah had finished his cone in record time and was leaping from one bench to another, while Rowan dripped rivulets of chocolate down his arm and into the crease of his elbow. I had just turned toward him with a paper napkin when Rowan burst out laughing and pointed, rainbow sprinkles falling like confetti from his fingers.

When I looked up, I saw Noah standing atop a bench with his jeans and Bob the Builder briefs wrenched down to his knees. He was waggling his penis in the direction of a mini-van parked at the drive-through, one arm arched above his head like a rodeo porn star. The husband in the driver’s seat was clueless, busy balancing a carton of Blizzards, but his wife was aghast, slack-jawed as she stared at my son.

“Noah! What are you doing?” I screeched. “Pull up your pants right now before a cop drives by and arrests you for indecent exposure!” [I admit, not my very best parental response ever] He froze for a split-second, eyes wide, before yanking his pants up.

We didn’t rehash the incident on the way home. I figured my dramatic reaction had been sufficient to convince Noah that public penis-waggling was inappropriate. A month later, though, as I hunched over the keyboard in our basement office one night, Noah appeared, standing behind me in his dinosaur pjs.

“Am I going to jail?” he blurted, his eyes filling with tears. “Am I going to jail because of Dairy Queen?”

“What in the world are you talking about?” I asked, faintly irritated that it was after nine o’clock and he was still awake and conversing with me. Turned out, of course, he was referring to, as he put it, “When I was nudie at Dairy Queen.” He had mulled over the incident and my rash words each night for a full 28 days before finally gathering the courage to voice his fears.

I explained to Noah that I had overstated the punishment — overreaction, Brad once wryly noted, is my modus operandi. I assured him that the police would not arrest a five-year-old for pulling his pants down at Dairy Queen, and then I apologized, more than once, and hugged him tight.

After he had gone back to bed, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident. I felt horrible and irresponsible for terrifying him. What kind of mother was I, anyway? Wasn’t I supposed to protect my child from the evils of the world, to nurture his fragile psyche rather than single-handedly destroy it? Shivering in the chilly basement that night, I felt overwhelmed, inadequate and vastly unqualified in my role as a parent.

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Noah and Magnolia

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In that moment I realized that Noah’s fragility mirrored my own. His fear and powerlessness illustrated to me how incredibly ill-equipped we are to face on our own whatever the big, mean, scary world tosses our way. And just as Noah turned to me in a moment of desperate hopelessness and fear, I knew that I could and would have to turn to God in the same way. Noah had tried to conquer his fear himself, lying in bed each night sifting through his terror. But in the end he couldn’t do it; he had to unburden himself in the face of what to him was an insurmountable problem. Likewise, in a strange twist of events that night in the basement, I learned that I needed to do the same. When the world threatened to crush me with hopelessness and fear, I needed to turn to God and put my trust in him.

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Sitting in the dark, cold basement that night, I turned the whole ugly mess — all my fears, all my insecurities in parenting — over to God. I realized then that God loves me in spite of my blurting and blundering, in spite of my overreactions and foot-in-the-mouth moments. I realized that God forgives even my worse parenting decisions, and, if I let him, can ease even my worst fears.

Yet I also knew, even in the midst of that unburdening, that surrender and trust wouldn’t ever be easy for me. My very nature battles it. I understood that I would have to repeat this process of surrender and trust again and again, possibly throughout my entire lifetime.

But I also understood that I had a choice. The choice to trust was all mine.

Filed Under: Spiritual Misfit, surrender, trust Tagged With: Spiritual Misfit, trusting God

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The House and the Shack

July 9, 2012 By Michelle

Last week I cleaned and organized the basement. It hit 105 degrees here in Nebraska, so I figured burrowing into the cool cellar for a few hours wasn’t a bad idea.

I boxed up old toys and books, sucked in cobwebs with the vacuum attachment, rolled up and threw out the dilapidated rug and rearranged some of the furniture. Then I concluded that the bookshelf needed to be shifted over a couple of feet, so that it would be centered on the wall. Since I didn’t want to remove the dozens of books, stack them in piles on the floor, move the shelf and then rearrange all the books again, I decided I’d move the shelf with the books still on it.

I pushed. I pulled. I grunted and groaned and heaved and wrenched my back. The shelf creaked and cracked and threatened to topple. A few paperbacks pitched onto the floor. But the shelf didn’t budge. In the end, after 15 minutes of exhausting exertion and a pulled neck muscle, the shelf was exactly one inch from its original spot. Not  two feet. One inch.

I gave up. I left the bookshelf where it was. All my pushing and pulling and sweating and heaving resulted in nothing.

And this, my friends, is the perfect metaphor for my publishing journey.

For the last three years I’ve dedicated hundreds of hours to building a platform. I’ve written more than 700 blog posts, an entire book, a quarter of another and two book proposals. I’ve tweeted, Facebooked, commented, Klouted, emailed, guest-posted and Google Plussed. I’ve pushed and pulled and forced this process along with all my might.

And you know what? I’ve moved it the equivalent of one inch.

Thanks to yesterday’s reading, I now know exactly what I’ve done wrong.

“If God doesn’t build the house, the builders only build shacks. If God doesn’t guard the city, the night watchman might as well nap.”(Psalm 127:1, The Message)

Did you catch that? If God doesn’t build the house, the builders only build shacks.

The hard truth is, I’ve tried to build the house all on my own, without God.

Okay, okay, God has sort-of been involved. After all, I write about God every day. I pray. I talk to God. I believe that he inspires my words, and I know that my faith has grown stronger and deeper because of my writing. But still. I have allowed him only a minor role in the construction of this house.

God has been a crewman on this project, not the boss.

As Pastor Michael said in his sermon yesterday, “When it’s apart from God, work becomes labor.”

This publishing journey has been labor — labor speckled with occasional moments of joy, but mostly labor, with pain, writhing and a fair bit of screaming and cursing. 

I know, I know, you’ve heard all this before from me, haven’t you? After all, back on December 31 I resolved to make “surrender” my word for the year. But I haven’t surrendered, not entirely. Or maybe I have…on some days…but then I revert back to my pushing-pulling-grunting-heaving habits all over again.

Good grief I’m a slow learner.

So today, once again (sigh), I surrender. I hand over the plans and the blueprints to God. I allow him his rightful and only role as the foreman, the big boss. And I ask him to forgive me for trying to run the show.

I’m done building the shack. God holds the plans for this house, and he’ll decide whether it will be a mansion or a hut…or something altogether different. 

What about you? Have you ever caught yourself trying to build the house all by yourself?

With Jennifer and the Soli Sisters:

 
And a new Monday link-up community over at Duane’s place (Scribing the Journey) – have you met Duane? He’s cool…and so is Unwrapping His Promises:


 

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 to have you here!

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

Filed Under: Old Testament, psalms, surrender, Use It on Monday

What I’ve Learned from Not Publishing

June 6, 2012 By Michelle


I once told a friend that after every interview, I always assume I’ll get the job.  It’s true. I leave thinking, “All righty…I wonder when they’ll want me to start?”

Now, before you conclude that I’m the most arrogant person on Earth, let me explain. I have indeed landed every job I’ve ever applied for, but not because I am the greatest, most gifted professional ever to step foot into the workforce. Instead, my success has always been the result of one simple factor: preparedness (combined with a fair amount of luck, too).  

I am the classic Type A over-achiever. My barely average SAT scores, below-average GRE scores and other standardized tests always proved what I already knew: I got good grades in school not because I’m naturally smart, but because I studied. A lot.
…Will you join me over at the Lincoln Journal Star for a story about silver linings?

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

Filed Under: control, surrender, trust, writing and faith

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Vine

May 7, 2012 By Michelle



As Pastor Sara lifts the bread high, the boy in the plaid shorts with the crown of whorled blond hair climbs onto the padded pew. Grabbing his dad’s shirt with one hand, he raises the other hand toward the ceiling, fingers splayed like a small, creamy starfish.

The dad knows what’s next – clearly this is a weekly routine. He lifts the boy until his flip-flops rest on the back of the pew in front of him. Clenching a fist-full of polo shirt, the boy straightens tall and steady, feet firmly planted on the back of the pew, his father’s arm encircling his waist like a lasso.  And then the boy watches, steady and solemn, as Pastor Sara lifts the cup of wine toward the sky.

The little boy with the blond hair knows instinctively what I so often forget. He reaches, he climbs, he clings. He rests steady, comfortable and secure in his father’s arms.

He knows and accepts what I can never seem to remember: that apart from his father, he can do nothing.

“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. “  (John 15:4)

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 over in the sidebar) 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 to have you here!

Filed Under: Gospels, surrender, Use It on Monday

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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