Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

transformation

This is the Time to Release

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I wrote a book about letting go. And now, here I am, on the cusp of that book’s release, and I feel it: the subtle but sure tightening of my grip.

Turns out, releasing a book about letting go smack in the middle of the busiest time of the year and amid the deafening drumbeat of the holiday season is truly a lesson in letting go — a lesson I am living out minute-by-minute in real time.

A lesson, if I’m honest, I am not living out well.

The outcome of this book is largely out of my control. I know this. This is the time to release… not only the book itself, but also my expectations of what might be.

And yet, as soon as I step into the spaciousness in which God has so generously invited me, I find myself turning back toward myself, redoubling my own efforts, trying futilely to control circumstances, manage outcomes, grip ever more tightly.

Long before the sun glints its first rays over the frozen horizon each morning, I sit in the same spot on the sofa, the same soft blanket pulled up to my chin, the same mug in my hands, and I read from the first word to the last in Chapter 8 of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

I’ve read these same words, this same chapter, for ten consecutive mornings.

I don’t know why I keep rereading this same chapter. Honestly this is quite unlike me. I don’t typically linger in Scripture. I always keep moving. And yet, God has stilled me in these pages.

Every day the same chapter, every day the same words.

“Obsession with self is a dead-end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.” (Romans 8: 5-8).

Earlier this week I stood in the cold on the edge of the golf course and watched a young fox play. He was alone in the stillness of the late afternoon, his russet coat catching the sun’s last warmth as he picked up a honey locust seed pod in his teeth, tossed his head back and flung the seed pod into the air, leaping and then pouncing on it when it landed in the snow. He was beautiful — sleek, agile, exuberant — and watching him doing his fox thing, undoubtedly practicing his predatory skills in a field on a winter afternoon, was mesmerizing, pure magic.

It was such a simple thing, but in that instant, watching that fox cavort in the waning sunlight, time slowed. Everything but that very moment fell away as the Spirit moved, beckoning.

“You don’t owe your old do-it-all-yourself life anything,” Paul reminds us. “There’s nothing in it for you. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. The Spirit beckons.” (Romans 8:12-14)

Paul’s not talking about releasing a book, of course. And yet, I hear God, through his apostle, speaking to me, to all of us, in this place, in this moment, in our particular circumstances.

God is calling us to release whatever it is we are grasping at so desperately, whatever it is we have taken upon ourselves to try to control, manage and manipulate.

There’s nothing there for us in the do-it-all-ourselves life. There’s nothing there for us in the clutching. There’s nothing really there to hold onto.

I listen to these words from Paul every morning before the sun rises. I read and reread them, and slowly they begin to move from my mind to my soul.

The Spirit beckons. He moves across the surface of each day, leading us into the open, spacious place where a young fox plays.

::

 True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, releases on New Year’s Day – a  particularly apt day for a book about the journey toward beginning to know who you are.

If you pre-order before January 1, I have some lovely free gifts for you:

– a companion journal

– a guided audio meditation

– and a series of beautifully designed Scripture cards.

You can find out about where to pre-order True You and how to receive the free gifts over HERE. 

Forget the Resolutions…Here’s the One New Year’s Question That Can Change Everything

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I hesitate to admit this out loud, especially because 2016 was fraught with so much tension, destruction, and heartache for so many, but 2016 was a good year for me. One of my best ever, in fact.

I say this not because of any achievements, awards, amazing book sales, or fabulous professional opportunities — none of those things happened, actually. I don’t call 2016 good because of any external accomplishments and not because of any extrinsic goals that were pursued and met, but simply because during those 365 days I was transformed deeply and wholly from the inside out.

Going into 2016, I didn’t have the faintest inkling this would happen. But coming out on the other side, I know it’s true. I am a new person on this, the fourth day of January, 2017, a different person than I was a year ago today.

I have an idea of who I am and where I am going, perhaps for the first time in my life. I have a confidence, a self-assuredness I didn’t know was inside me. And most of all, I have a peace in me I didn’t even know was possible.

This newness, this new life, is changing the way I do and think about everything.

I’ve always been a big NewYear’s resolution maker. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you might remember a post or two about that. Over the years I’ve resolved to read the Bible more, limit computer time in the evenings, go to bed earlier, get up earlier, run more regularly, be on social media less, improve my microbiome health (don’t ask) and start flossing. I’ve kept some of those resolutions (for a while at least); others I dropped before I even got started (ahem, flossing).

This year, though, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t make any hard and fast New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I thought a little bit about who I am and where I think, God willing, I’m going, and I began to put some pieces into place that might help move those plans forward.

This year, I’m less about the letter of the law and more about a gentle easing, less about forcing a stringent rubric on myself, and more about embracing the softer rhythm and pace I know is best for me.

The One New Year's Question that Will Change Everything

Don’t get me wrong. My Type A, #3-on-the-Enneagram self still loves resolutions. But for now, for this time and place, I also know they aren’t for me in 2017.

“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that,” Paul advised the Galatians. “Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.” (6:4-5, The Message)

Who are you?

Knowing the answer to that small but powerful question is the key, the foundation, the stepping stone to everything else in Paul’s statement and beyond. If you don’t know who you yet are, you must begin there, because no number of well-crafted resolutions can determine that quintessential answer for you.

You must begin at that daunting and perhaps even frightening place —  Who am I? — and together with God uncover the answer.

I think that’s what I did in 2016…or at least what I started to do. I stepped into that small, powerful, sometimes scary question — Who am I? — and began to uncover the answer.

And it’s changed everything.

I’m not saying I have it all figured out. I suspect this will be a lifelong journey. I suspect I’ve really only just begun. But I will say with confidence that in 2016, without even really intending to (at least initially), I made a careful exploration of who I am and the work I have been given. And now, today, as I glance backward and look ahead, I am beginning to see the fruits of that deep soul work. These fruits may not ever be evident to anyone outside my most immediate circle of close friends and loved ones, but they are there nonetheless.

So that’s my advice for you, friends, as we step with hope and optimism into this new year. Make a careful exploration of who you are. Take a deep breath and ask the hard question — Who am I? Keep asking it, again and again. Pause, listen, and ask again, until you begin to hear the faintest whisper rising up from deep within your soul.

And then begin to walk with God into the answer.

Why It’s Taken 46 Years for Me to Say No

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My editor emailed me recently. He had a great opportunity that he’d love for me to consider, he said. I was excited when I read his email, and when I clicked on the link he included for details, my pulse quickened. It looked good, this opportunity. Really good.

Without getting into all the nitty gritty, the opportunity had to do with book marketing, strategy and branding. The expert was looking for a handful of candidates with whom to beta-test a new service. For free.

Scrolling further, I saw that this particular marketer had worked with a number of very successful Christian authors – people I respect and whose books I regularly read and have sitting here right on my shelves. It all looked too good to be true.

And in fact, it was too good to true. For me anyway.

You see, I noticed something as I was reading through the website. Along with my quickening pulse, I felt a sinking sensation begin to gnaw deep in my gut. It was what I refer to as The Pit. I wasn’t sure exactly why The Pit had yawned open in the bottom of my stomach, but I knew enough to pay attention to it.

I clicked off the site. I didn’t do anything else that day. I didn’t email my editor. I didn’t return again to the website, or re-read my editor’s email or the marketer’s pitch. I simply put it all aside for 24 hours. I let it rest.

The next morning I started from scratch. I re-read my editor’s kind and generous email. I re-read the marketer’s pitch. I returned to the website and re-read the content. I looked closely at the list of best-selling author clients. I read every single word, slowly and carefully.

And I felt it again: the undeniable presence of The Pit in the bottom of my gut.

The Pit was telling me No.

I’ve come to think of The Pit as the way the Holy Spirit most often makes his presence known to me. Maybe you get sweet, gentle nudges from your Holy Spirit. Mine punches me hard in the gut. I think He knows what it’s going to take to get through to me.

I didn’t want to say no to this invitation for a whole variety of reasons. First, I didn’t want to disappoint my editor, who had so graciously selected me to benefit from this opportunity. I also didn’t want him to think I am a big fat slacker. This is the editor of my next book, after all, the one that releases in just a few short months. The last thing I wanted him to think was that I am unwilling to work hard to help make that book be as successful as it can be.

I also didn’t want to say no because saying no feels like quitting to me. It feels like giving up. It feels lame and lazy and timid and weak. Saying no is antithetical to my Type A, people-pleaser, “Make It Happen” personality. I never say no.

And finally, and this was the biggest hurdle, I didn’t want to say no because I was afraid of missing out. Because the truth is, I do want to be successful. I do want to be known. And in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder “What if?”

What if this is IT? What if this is The Thing – the thing that makes the difference, the thing I’ve been waiting for, the tipping point, the cracked open door?  The thing that propels me from an unknown, barely-making-a-part-time-living writer to A Successful Author.

What if?

pathinwoods

Storm Clouds

rain on lake

Lighthouse in fog3

This past summer has been transformational for me. I’ve had a lot of time to think in a very deep way about who I am. I’ve glimpsed a truer identity for myself than the one I have fashioned for the last 46 years. I’ve felt my soul come alive in a way I have never before experienced. And I believe it’s because I have glimpsed who God is, who I am in relation to him, and who he has created me to be.

My deepest desire is to hold on to this new self, this new identity, that’s been revealed. And that desire has made me more aware than ever of dangerous ground, of the pitfalls that could trip me up and send me hurtling down the path of soul- and self-destruction.

The truth is, I had to say no because I know, once I go down that road, I won’t be able to stop my desire for success, my pursuit of more, from taking hold.

I don’t have the inner fortitude to resist the temptation. Once I give in, the drive simply takes over. Because I am driven to achieve, and because (this is hard to admit) I have so often defined my self-worth based on my achievement and success (or lack thereof), it doesn’t take much for me to fall back into my old ways of more, more, more; push, push, push; compare, compare, compare; hustle, hustle, hustle. I can go headlong into the hungry pursuit of “the next big thing” quicker than you can blink.

And I know, from a lifetime of experience, that when I do that, I lose some of my soul in the process. I lose some of my whole self.

The beautiful, pure truth I discovered this summer is simply too precious to lose. And so I said no to a great, possibly career-enhancing opportunity.  I said no to the “What if?” I said no to what might have been The Thing.

I said no to save my soul.

When You Forget that God Always Finishes What He Starts

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yellow flowers

I told a couple friends over dinner recently that for a full two weeks after I’d returned from Tuscany, I felt like I was floating. I was so completely transformed, it was like I was an entirely new person. I felt buoyant, free, and unburdened in every way, and it seemed it would last forever.

It didn’t. Shocker, right?

What happened is that as I came down from the high that had carried me light and free from the wheat fields of Tuscany to the corn fields of Nebraska,  I began to worry.

I worried that what God and I had begun under the Tuscan sun would not continue in my everyday ordinary life in Nebraska.

I worried that the invitation into relationship and intimacy I’d answered in Italy would fade away, obliterated bit by bit by laundry, to-do lists, deadlines, dusting, doctor’s appointments, until nothing but a faint memory, like a faded image in an antique mirror, remained.

Truth be told, I felt a little panicky, desperately clenching tight-fisted to the thread of hope that had been woven into my heart.

I didn’t trust my ability to keep the spark God had ignited in my heart alive and flourishing.

More importantly, I didn’t trust that God would continue to fan that spark into an enduring flame.

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Bench

My window

russian sage

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“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ returns.” (Philippians 1:6)

Seventeen days after I returned from Italy I read these words on an airplane as we winged our way from Nebraska to New England to celebrate my parents’ 50th anniversary. I’ve read this verse many times in the past few years, and I’ve always interpreted it the same way: as a promise related to my vocation as a writer.

This time, though, these familiar words stopped me short. This time I read them as God’s promise to continue the deep, transformative work he began in me in Italy.

The truth is, the responsibility of spiritual transformation isn’t all mine, and it’s a bit arrogant of me to assume it is. God himself extended the invitation into intimacy. God himself ignited the spark in my heart. And God himself, who began that good work within me, will continue his work right here in Nebraska, and in all the places I find myself from now until the end of my time on earth.

I needn’t clench that promise tight-fisted in fear that it will all disappear. God is in control of this process. It’s his work. He is the Inviter. He is the Igniter. And he can be trusted not only to continue, but to finish what he begins.

Of course, this isn’t to imply we don’t have a role in the continuation of his good work. The entire responsibility of the transformation isn’t ours, but we do have an important part to play.

Later in the afternoon of the same day I’d turned my insides out during our group sharing time, one of my travel companions and I walked side-by-side to the bus. Our group was leaving for an excursion, and though I don’t recall now where we went that afternoon, I do remember what Chad said to me as we walked across the gravel parking lot. He thanked me for sharing so honestly and openly that morning, and then he urged me to continue the contemplative practice I’d begun a few months before in Nebraska.

“Keeping walking the dog and sitting on that bench,” Chad said, as we boarded the bus.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but Chad’s advice, I see now, is key. Quieting ourselves and listening are an important part of spiritual transformation. True, God can continue the good work he began without our help, but Chad’s words helped me see that we will understand God’s work much more deeply if we participate in the process by listening.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about Italy, God had been quietly speaking to me during those dog walks and those minutes I sat alone on the park bench. He’d been prompting me with important questions about intimacy – questions I hadn’t wanted to hear or heed, but important questions nonetheless. His good work in me had begun long before I set my feet on Tuscan soil; I simply became aware of it there.

It’s not easy to convince myself to sit still, in the quiet, without a podcast or Voxer in my ears or my to-do list swirling round in my head. Sometimes it’s excruciating, because sometimes I hear something hard and distasteful, something I don’t particularly want to hear. But this quieting of the mind is imperative, I believe, for the deep, transformative work of the soul. It’s one of the ways we partner with God in his good work.

The truth is, though, we are never completely transformed during our time here on earth. Notice what Paul says about when God’s good work will be finished: not today, not tomorrow, not even perhaps twenty-five years from now, but “on the day when Christ returns.”

We will not be made wholly and completely perfect, we will not be wholly and completely transformed, until Christ returns. Only then, when he reconciles heaven and earth, when kingdom comes, will everything be set beautifully and perfectly right once and for all.

God begins his good work in each one of us. He continues that good work each and every day of our lives here on earth. And he will finish that good work when he makes not only us but all things new. 

He is the Inviter. He is the Igniter. He is the Sustainer. And he is the ultimate Finisher of all good work in us.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

When You Make an Idol out of Success

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red tulip

Five years ago I stood in the bracing wind and watched my then-four-year-old son, Rowan, hunt for plastic eggs hidden in the grass. It was the day before Easter, and behind my sunglasses my eyes burned from crying. An hour earlier a literary agent had emailed to tell me that despite his initial interest, he’d decided not to represent my book. I remember the weight of defeat that sat heavy in the pit of my stomach all weekend, even as the organ thundered the final notes of Handel’s “Messiah” on Easter morning.

A couple weeks ago, just before we left for Easter service, I opened my laptop and clicked on Amazon.com. I typed in the title of my recently published book and scrolled down the page until I found the all-important number: the book’s rank. I saw the number had skyrocketed (the lower the number the better) since the book’s release five days earlier. Tears pricked my eyes, and my stomach clenched in defeat.

The irony is not lost on me. Five years ago, I would have relinquished a lifetime’s supply of Jelly Bellies to have my first book for sale on Amazon.com and stacked on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. Yet there I was, disappointed and discontented, a mere five days after the culmination of my dream.

I’ve always been a Triple-Type-A overachiever. As a kid I strove to earn enough badges to decorate my Girl Scout sash top to bottom, front to back. As an adult in the corporate workforce I aimed to achieve a perfect annual review and regular promotions. Ambition and the drive to succeed are stamped on my DNA.

My zest for success is not the problem though. The real issue, it turns out, is my idolatry of ambition and achievement. I’ve made an idol out of the success of my book.

My intentions for the book began honorably. One of the reasons I wrote my memoir was to offer hope to others like myself who were fumbling toward faith. Perseverance enabled me to write the book over two years while working part-time and mothering two young kids. Ambition fueled my relentless pursuit of an agent and publisher.

But along the way, my honorable ambition morphed into something else. My ambition became less and less focused on God and others, until finally, on Easter Sunday morning, I found myself in tears. They weren’t tears of joy that my book had finally been published after seven long years. They weren’t tears of gratitude for the God who saw that process through. I cried because the book wasn’t ranked to my satisfaction on Amazon.com.

I’ve been down this idolatry road before, and I admit it’s disappointing to find myself there again. Like I’ve done in the past, I turned once again to Paul’s words in his Letter to the Romans:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,” Paul advised, “but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” (Romans 12:2)

It sounds lovely in theory, doesn’t it? In reality, though, letting God transform you by changing the way you think isn’t easy, because that kind of transformation isn’t a one-time, snap-your-fingers-and-it’s-done occurrence. It’s a life-long process of surrendering and re-surrendering; two steps forward, one step back; beginning again and again.

On Easter Sunday morning, I threw myself a pity party. On Monday morning I read Paul’s words, took a deep breath, and began the process of letting God transform me. Again.

This is a repost of the April Lincoln Journal Star column.

Last Monday was the final publication of Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday. Kelli Woodford has graciously taken the community under her wing. Please join me over there for Unforced Rhythms.