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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

surrender

Life Rolls On

January 27, 2012 By Michelle

His voice is raspy and smaller than I remember as I grip the phone to my ear, sun streaming long rectangles on the tile floor. I can tell his throat is parched, his lips dry. It’s only been three weeks since I last saw him, when I hugged him on the threshold that first morning of the New Year. “See you soon!” I’d called out, sliding into the idling mini-van, waving with the window rolled down to frigid Minnesota air.

I didn’t know it would be the last time.

We make small talk, even though it feels like I should say something more. I tell him the boys brought home trophies for “best effort” from the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby. I mention Rowan’s basketball game, how he ducked beneath the hoop, covering his head with his hands when the ball swished through the net.

He laughs a little. “Life keeps rolling on,” he says, and I nod, even though he can’t see me. “That’s good,” he says, and I nod again, my throat closed tight.

Later I sit on cold concrete, arms tucked into fleece, January sun warm on my back. The boys leap and prance around an icy trickle of water draining from the culvert. They are working diligently on “clearing the stream,” making a path for the current to flow smoothly into the ditch.

The cuffs of Rowan’s pants are wet, the hem of his jacket, too. He bounces from one side of the rivulet to the other, stopping only to jam red fingers into pockets for a moment before getting back to work, calling gleefully to his brother when he has wrenched another ice clump free. They confer like they are city engineers, planning a new route for the water. It’s important work. I can tell.

I think for a moment about how gross that water is, winter’s grit and decay funneled from streets and alleys and gutters all around town. I should tear them away from it, force them to continue our walk along the path, head for the swings and slides, toward the voices ringing across the brown lawn. But I don’t.

A lady in a red winter hat and matching gloves pedals past. She sits regally on the wide seat, turning to glance down at the boys. “What is it about little boys and water?” she calls to me, and I shrug my shoulders, smiling as I shrug and lift my hands, palms toward the sky.

The breeze picks up, and the sun slips behind the bare maple tree. Chin on my knees, arms hugging shins, I watch the boys play in the dirty water. Noah points at how the trickle has widened, how it now flows unencumbered into the ditch. Rowan wipes gritty hands on his pants, satisfied. They look up at me, awaiting my approval.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

{I would be so grateful for your prayers, for my father-in-law, Jon, and for my husband, Brad, and his brother, Cary, as they walk alongside their dad in his final weeks. With love and gratitude, Michelle}

If you haven’t done so already, would you kindly consider “liking” my Writer Facebook page by clicking here? Thank you! You can also  receive “Graceful” free in your email in-box or via the reader of your choice, by clicking here.

Filed Under: family, grief, small moments, surrender

The Idol

January 18, 2012 By Michelle

I’ve got an idol.

This comes as a surprise. I thought I was done with idols. I know I used to have an idol — her name was Shopping, and I kicked her to the curb during my year-long Shop-Not Project. And even though I’m back to shopping now, it doesn’t have the allure it once did. “What a relief,” I thought to myself a couple of months ago. “I’m idol-free!”

{insert happy idol-less dance here}

And…not so fast Miss Fancy Idol-less Dancing Pants.

My first inkling that a new idol had joined the party occurred back in November when I wrote this post about jealousy. The fact that I was jealous of other writers should have been a red flag, but I’m not quick like that. Instead, I got to thinking about it when one of the commenters mentioned that jealousy is usually a symptom of a deeper underlying issue.

I was not pleased to read that observation. Like being jealous isn’t bad enough – now I have to deal with the bigger problem driving the jealousy, too? Could I be more of a complete wreck?
Turns out, the thing that’s driving the jealousy is my new idol: The Writer’s Life.
My dream of being a published writer and living a “real” Writer’s Life is fueling my jealousy of other published writers who seem to have the life I desire. In fact, I have allowed my dream of the Writer’s Life to morph into a bigger, scarier, more powerful idol than shopping ever was.
Writer’s Life Idol is to Shopping Idol like Freddy Krueger is to Bowser Junior.

It hit me one day as I sat in the car in my office parking lot. Just as I was about to turn the ignition key, I was jolted by a thought: what if my Writer’s Life dream, the way I have it all formulated and mapped out, isn’t God’s Writer’s Life plan for me?

What if his plan is different from my plan?

You see, I’ve got it all worked out nicely, thank you very much. I will get my book published and quit my part-time job, and earn enough money to continue on as a real writer. I simply want to do what I love to do all day, every day.

Not just on Fridays.
Not just for an hour after the kids go to bed.
Not just squeezed into two hours Wednesday mornings.
Every day. Five days a week. I want writing to be my only job (besides mothering, of course). I love writing so much, I reason, don’t I deserve to be able to do it more? Don’t I deserve to have the career I love?

This is where God comes in.

The problem is that I don’t exactly know what God wants. Perhaps God wants me to stay at Nebraska public broadcasting. Maybe he sees a role for me there that I don’t see. Maybe he wants me to write and work. Maybe he’s got a publishing deal for me 10 years from now. Or maybe not at all.

Maybe the Writer’s Life that I’ve imagined for myself isn’t the Writer’s Life God has designed for me.

There are a lot of options, and I really don’t have any idea what his plan is for me, aside from the writing part. I’m pretty confident that writing is involved, but that’s about all I know for sure. That’s the tricky part about God — he’s hard to pin down and figure out.

Frankly, that kind of irritates me.

But that hard-to-figure-out nature of God is also exactly what’s helped me realize that I need to let go. The more I obsess over fulfilling my publishing dream in order to attain my definition of a real Writer’s Life, the more that dream takes priority in my life — over my husband, my children, my friends and even my God.

So I have surrendered.

I’m putting the plan back into God’s hands and rolling with it. Or at least I’m surrendering and rolling with it as best as I can, because I’m not a great surrenderer-roller. It’s more of a bumpity humpity bangity bungling rolling right now. What this looks like in reality is that I’m still writing, obsessing a little less and telling myself over and over, “It will all work out. It will all work out. Whatever the Plan is, it will all work out.”

But you know what? Even bumpity rolling feels better than not rolling at all.

“But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hands. I will trust God for my reward.” (Isaiah 49:4).

{I just need to say here that my blogger friend, Sarah, asked her blogger friend Melanie to make this One Word graphic for me when she read my One Word post last week — isn’t that the sweetest?! Thank you, Sarah and Melanie!}

Have you ever battled a big, bad Freddy Krueger-style idol in your life?

Sharing with Ann Voskamp’s Walk with Him Wednesday series, as we write about how we are embracing and practicing new habits:

And with Jennifer at Getting Down with Jesus, because that moment that I pondered all this while parked in the office lot in my mini-van? That was a God moment…
If you haven’t done so already, would you kindly consider “liking” my Writer Facebook page by clicking here? Thank you! You can also  receive “Graceful” free in your email in-box or via the reader of your choice, by clicking here.

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

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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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