Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

truth

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 Christians Choose Who’s In and Who’s Out

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“I don’t like the idea of having to spit out bones to get to the meat. This book goes on my ‘no-way’ list. It had potential, but it flopped.”

I stared at my laptop screen, digesting the words that concluded the Amazon review. I read the paragraph aloud to my husband, and we both rolled our eyes and shook our heads, irritated by the reviewer’s flippant dismissal of my book.

On one hand, I’m accustomed to dealing with negative reviews. I won’t tell you I like them or that they’re easy to swallow, but I accept that negative reviews are part of my work as a writer.

But this was different. This reviewer had not only judged my writing, she had also rejected ten of the women featured in the book. She had deemed the book a flop and those ten women unworthy of inclusion for one reason: their theology didn’t perfectly jibe with her own.

…I’m over at my writer friend Ed Cyzewski’s place, writing about why Christians choose who’s in and who’s out. Join me over there? 

Thinking about writing a book but have absolutely no idea where to begin? It’s not too late to join Chad Allen, Editorial Director of Baker Books, and me for “How to Get Published” – a series of three teleconferences that will cover how to create a strong book concept, how to build your platform and how to write a book proposal. The first session begins TONIGHT, so if you want to register, do it now! Click here for details and registration information.

How to Get Published2

Tell the Truth as You Understand It

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MichelleDeRusha_dragonfly

“So I’m halfway through your book,” she says, as we stand next to the coffee percolator and the table piled high with double chocolate muffins. We chat for a bit about my memoir, and initially I feel pleased, but a few minutes later, after she’s turned away to refill her Styrofoam cup, panic clenches deep in the pit of my stomach.

I’m struck by the awkwardness of the situation. After all, I am about to interview this woman for a ministry position at my church, and it’s clear she knows more about me – a lot more about me – than I do about her. Worse, though, I suddenly feel anxious and insecure.

Scenes from my book flash through my mind, like the one in which I launch a fist-full of crunched up Cheez-Its at my young son in a fit of pre-bedtime lunacy.

Or the scene in which I mercilessly judge another woman, seething with envy over the fact that she looks like Gwyneth Paltrow in her name-brand jeans and her perfectly coiffed hair while I, in my droopy-bum yoga pants and my pilly fleece sweatshirt, resemble an out-of-shape version of Richard Simmons.

…I’m super excited that Spiritual Misfit is being featured by (in)courage as a Recommended Read, and we’re doing a giveaway over there today! Come by (in)courage for the rest of the story…

On My Knees, Painting

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When I tell my friend Sarah I’m painting the trim in my bedroom, she asks, “So how are you, emotionally?” She remembers the last time I painted a room, last winter, when my father-in-law was dying and my husband was in Minnesota for four weeks. Sarah knows I tend to paint when my life tips wildly off-balance, when I’m sliding under the rails of the Titanic with the deck chairs. “No, no, I’m good,” I laugh. “I just want white trim, that’s all.”

Of course, that wasn’t the whole truth. 

I decided to paint my bedroom trim mid-morning on Saturday, right after I’d read all about the relaunch of the Deeper Story website. As I clicked around the fresh, new pages, I scanned the expanded lists of writers – some of whom I know well, some not at all. And it felt like I was summersaulting headlong into a well.

I know this deep well. I’ve splashed around in its stinking, stagnant waters before, clawed its slimy, dank walls. “Why not me?” I sighed, clenching my jaw, clicking and clicking through page after page. “Why don’t I ever get asked to join these writer communities? Why don’t I ever get picked? What’s wrong with me?”

I’ll tell you I want to be picked because I yearn for the community, a place to call home on this tangled Web. But that’s not quite true either. What I really want is to be part of a certain kind of community – the cool community, the popular community, the community everyone knows, the one everyone’s talking about. I want to be invited, asked, included. Acknowledged, affirmed. Loved.


I want to be “in.”

I know what you’ll say. You’ll tell me I am loved. I am affirmed. That God already does that for me. That’s he’s all the affirmation I need. I’m “in” with him.

And it’s true. I know it’s true.

But what do you do when you know that’s how you’re supposedto feel…but it still doesn’t feel like enough?

I powered down the laptop, pushed back my desk chair and headed down to the basement to grab the roller, drop cloths, brushes and can of white paint. For two days I painted window frames, door trim and baseboards, inching along behind the bed, caked dust and crumpled Kleenex and used dryer sheets under my knees. While I painted I prayed this verse again and again, a verse I’d read two days earlier and somehow, miraculously, memorized:

Turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me (Luke 9:23).
 
With every dip of the brush into the can, I prayed. Turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me.

With every swipe of paint across the woodwork, I prayed. Turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me.

With every push of the roller across the tray, I prayed. Turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me.

By Sunday night, the drop cloths were folded, brushes cleaned, rollers drying in the dish rack. The door frames, baseboards and widow sashes in my bedroom gleamed snowy white. But the pit in my stomach, though subdued, was still there.

Turns out, I can’t paint over the pit. But I can pray over it. And so that’s what I’m choosing to do.
 

{Pray with me? For all the ways in which, perhaps, you might need to turn? Turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.}
 
So tell me…have you ever felt this desire to be “in” with a particular group or community? How have you resolved this feeling of less-than?


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Straight Talk about Graceful Summer

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A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a friend who’s having a difficult summer. When she signed off, she wrote, “I can’t imagine the Graceful summers you are describing, but they sound lovely.” I could hear regret in her voice, maybe a little despair.

Her email made me think that maybe I’m not being quite honest enough around here.
So here’s the skinny: My Graceful Summer posts are a mere slice of real life – maybe 1% of the whole story. I’m not saying these moments don’t happen, or that they aren’t true, but they are only a very small part of our lives. In fact, acknowledging these slightly graceful moments of summer helps me live them, appreciate them and recognize them when they happen. Because the truth is, a whole lot of other moments don’t make it to the blogosphere.

For instance, there was the morning I told Rowan five times to put on his socks. When he came downstairs and asked, “What am I supposed to be doing again?” I stomped on the pedal of the stainless steel trash can and slammed the lid into the wall with a horrendous racket. Rowan stood in the kitchen barefoot and bewildered while I ranted about “listening skills” like a raving lunatic.

Or the fact that while I wrote about playing Monopoly just a couple of weeks ago, I’ve since slipped the Monopoly box beneath the couch, where it sits with the dust rabbits (we’ve long since passed dust bunnies around here) and Ritz cracker crumbs. I cannot possibly bear the thought of another three-hour round of the most agonizing board game in history.

I know what it’s like to look at someone else’s life portrayed on the screen and think, “Wow, my kids aren’t that polite. My house isn’t that cute. I don’t pray that much.” I know, because I do it all the time. A couple of years ago in the midst of a raving lunatic moment, I fumed aloud to my kids, “I bet Ann Voskamp’s kids don’t act this way!”

You know what Noah’s response was? “Who in the world is Ann Voskamp, anyway?”

In that moment I was grateful to Noah for offering me some much-needed perspective. There I was, standing in the dining room with the dustpan and broom in my hand, trying to live someone else’s life…and trying to get my kids to do the same. What’s ironic is that Ann Voskamp writes about the messy – she doesn’t make any claims of perfection. But I simply don’t choose to see her messy. Instead, I focus on the six kids who do two hours of farm chores every morning, while mine won’t put away his clean underwear.

The bottom line is that none of us is perfect and none of has perfect lives, even if appears that way on the screen. You may think my grass is greener, but let me tell you, from my perspective, it’s looking a little parched, brown and withered around here.

So please. Do yourself (and me!) a favor. Next time you read a Graceful Summer post, simply think, “Aw, isn’t that a lovely moment.” And then realize that’s exactly what it is: one small moment in a sea of many.

Do you ever do that? Look at someone else’s life on screen and play the comparison game?

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And a little note of thanks: for your prayers, emails, advice and comments last week before I left for She Freaks. The conference was wonderful – I didn’t cry once…not even behind the brochure rack! I spent a lot of quality time with these two lovelies, and I didn’t swallow my tongue during the editor appointments. While I wasn’t exactly eloquent, I felt a rare calm and peace wash over me as I pitched my projects, and the four editors I met with took my book proposals with them, so that’s something at least. So now we wait, because as you all know, the publishing industry moves like the last teaspoon of molasses in the bottom of the jar.

Thank you, friends. Truly. You give me peace and hope.

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