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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

waiting

When God Is a Lot Like the Parent of a Teenager

March 28, 2018 By Michelle

Two days ago I sat in my car in the parking lot of the local nursery. It was cold and gray out. The plastic of the greenhouse flapped noisily in the wind, making me grateful for the warm rush of heat that blew from the dashboard vents as the engine idled.

I was waiting for my son, Noah, who was inside the greenhouse having his first-ever job interview. We’d prepped the night before. My husband had asked Noah some mock questions, and we’d reviewed the basics of Interviewing 101: firm handshake, maintain eye contact, speak audibly, show enthusiasm. That morning Noah had carefully chosen his outfit, a pair of kakis and a navy blue polo shirt.

Brad and I had done what we could to help him prepare, and now I watched from the car as Noah walked through the front entrance of the nursery, the glass door closing behind him.

Truth be told, I wanted badly to run after him, push ahead, and convince the manager of Noah’s attributes myself. I wanted to tell him that everything I know about plants, flowers and trees Noah had taught me before he even knew how to tie his own shoes. I wanted to explain that sure, my son was shy, soft-spoken, but he was a hard worker, committed, responsible and smart. I wanted to declare that the greenhouse wouldn’t find a more qualified teenager for the job than this quiet boy with the too-long shoelaces and the neatly gelled hair.

Of course, I didn’t do any of that. I stayed in the car, where I sat quietly, nervously hoping for a good outcome, marveling over the fact that my son, who it seemed just moments ago was toddling around the backyard thrusting his nose deep into the tulips, was somehow, inexplicably, now old enough to interview for a part-time job.

Parenting babies and young children is busy. There’s a lot of movement and doing, a lot of action – changing diapers, spoon feeding pureed pears, towel drying dimpled skin and wispy hair, turning the stiff, cardboard pages of Goodnight Moon, picking up Legos, picking up Legos, picking up Legos.

And then, at some point, almost without our noticing, the physicality of parenting begins to ebb. Suddenly we are much stiller. We find ourselves doing a lot of waiting (punctuated by a lot of shuttling to and from various activities). We wait in the orthodontist’s office for the metal wires to be tightened. We wait at the soccer field as the coach gives his pep talk for tomorrow’s game, dusk creeping along the edges of the tree line. We wait to hear whether it will be a spot on the varsity team, a role in the musical, a ‘yes’ to the Homecoming dance, a college acceptance letter, a job offer.

As parents of teenagers, we prepare, we advise, we guide, and then we do the hardest thing: we let go. We step back into the shadows. We stay in the car. We sit on the sidelines. We wait. We are still with our teenaged children, of course, but we are with them in a different way.

Is this, I wonder, a little bit what it’s like for God? How easy it would be for our Father to push ahead through the  doors of the greenhouse — to intervene, to fix it, to snap his fingers, to bring about the results we so desire. Instead, he lets us go our own way. He allows us to fumble, to fail, to make mistakes, to make the wrong choices. He allows us to achieve, to succeed, to prevail, to triumph. God is still present with us, but at the same time, he allows us to step out on our own accord while he waits for us on the other side, no matter the outcome.

When I saw Noah emerge from the greenhouse with a sheaf of paperwork in his hands, I knew it was good news. “Well?” I asked expectantly, as he slid into the front seat. “I have to go to an orientation, so does that mean I got the job?” he asked. “Yes, it means you got the job,” I laughed, feeling a mix of relief and pride and a twinge of something like sadness rise in my chest as I looked at the young man with the too-long shoelaces next to me, the boy who always stopped to smell the blooms.

I often want the kind of God who will just do it all for me. Fix it, Jesus! I implore. Make it all better! Make it happen exactly the way I want it to! And sometimes God does fix it the way I’d hoped. He heals. He blesses. He forgives. He brings justice and shows mercy.

Mostly, though, it seems, at least in my experience, that God is a lot like the parent of a teenager. He lets us go, though he is still very much with us, and then he waits with open arms for our return.

Filed Under: parenting, waiting Tagged With: God and parenting, waiting and parenting

For Those Times You Can’t See God Working Beneath the Surface

September 1, 2015 By Michelle

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Back in May I spotted something new sprouting in my garden. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a weed, yet I couldn’t identify it. I peered at the strange plant every couple of days, waiting for a bud to appear.

It never did. Instead, at what seemed like the height of its flourishing, the plant began to wither. Its leaves yellowed and shriveled and finally drooped to the ground, where, after a few weeks, they disintegrated entirely into the soil. Two months after the first green shoot had appeared, there was nothing left to signify the plant had ever been there at all.

I forgot about that plant until two weeks ago, when suddenly a mysterious pink bloom appeared in my garden, a delicate lily standing tall atop a single stark stalk. I spotted these lilies all over town, their cotton-candy petals blooming in gardens, fields, and even in the middle of manicured lawns. I remembered, then, that two years earlier my neighbor had offered me a handful of bulbs. I’d buried them along the picket fence in the hard clay-dirt that fall, but I hadn’t held out much hope. I’d let the bulbs sit outside too long after my neighbor had given them to me, and by the time I’d gotten them into the ground they were dry and desiccated, literally crumbling in my hands.

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It took two years, but it turns out those bulbs did grow, and this summer for the first time they bloomed. They’re called Surprise Lilies (sometimes Resurrection Lilies or Naked Ladies), and the name suits. In the heat of the summer, when the garden is starting to look a bit bedraggled, a bare stalk shoots from the dirt and blooms into a dramatic spray of lilies in just a few days. It seems at first like this flower has sprung from nothing as if by magic. But that’s not actually the case. Although our eyes couldn’t detect it, below the surface, deep in the dirt, growth had been taking place. Those leaves that withered and disintegrated into the ground back in May had been feeding the bulb and the roots of the Surprise Lily all along, sustaining it in the dark, growing it in ways not yet visible.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve experienced periods in your life and along your spiritual journey that have felt hopeless and dark; months or even years in which you’ve felt stagnant, dry, and useless. It’s easy during times like these to think that God has abandoned you, that’s he’s moved on. Because you can’t see any discernible progress, you might conclude that nothing is happening at all.

But just because we can’t see movement right this minute doesn’t mean that important work isn’t happening below the surface, in the dark, beneath the dirt and grit that’s obscuring our vision. Sometimes God uses these very places – the dark, challenging, difficult experiences – to nurture, grow, and strengthen us. Sometimes he uses those times of seeming stagnation as a period of rest, preparation for critical growth and work to come. And sometimes God strips us bare in order to create new life in us.

Two weeks ago when I spotted the Surprise Lily standing regal and stately above the rest of the tired flowers in my garden, I was reminded that God often works the same way. Beneath the surface where we cannot see him, he is creating new life that blooms from death.

This post first ran on August 26, 2015 in the Lincoln Journal Star. 

Filed Under: waiting Tagged With: when you're in the wilderness

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: In the Waiting

July 30, 2012 By Michelle


Christina and me at She Speaks.

Before we left for Massachusetts to visit my family, my sister suggested I take a “Christian blogging hiatus,” while I am there. “I mean take a real hiatus,” she said. “Like, don’t get on the computer at all.” I hesitated…I am a control freak you know. But then I realized she was right: I need to take a break. {I am even leaving my laptop at home!}

So…in light of that, I am honored  to welcome my friend Christina Fox here to guest post for the Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday Community. I had the absolute delight of meeting Christina in person at She Speaks recently, and she is just wonderful: sweet, honest and true.

Be sure to check out Christina’s blog, To Show Them Jesus, and give her a little “Like” on her Facebook page!

And thanks, Christina, for hosting the community here today.

I do not like to wait for anything. Patience is not one of my virtues. Having children has only exacerbated this lack in me. Yet, life requires waiting–waiting for the kids to get ready, for the computer to wake up, for a return text, for my turn in line, etc.

I know that waiting is good for me and that I can learn much while in the valley. Too often though, when I wait for God to move or answer a question, I attempt to push things along. Do you ever do that? I try to help Him make a decision or ensure His will comes to fruition (as though I could). I go on ahead without an answer or direction. When I face a junction in my life, I turn down a road without knowing if it’s even the path He wants me to take.

Recently, I spent time with the Israelites in Exodus chapter thirty-two. They were about as impatient as I and this passage reminded me of my problem with waiting on the Lord. Moses was on the mountain with God, receiving the Law, inscribed by God’s own hand.The people waited at the bottom of the mountain, restless and agitated. With Aaron’s help, they made a golden calf and began to worship it.

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Exodus 32:1

Whenever I read this passage, I always think, “Didn’t they know better?” Yes. They did know better. But perhaps what they knew to be true hadn’t made its way to their heart. They knew the power of God. They knew that His timing is perfect. They knew He would lead them where they needed to go. After all, they had seen Him open the sea and turned it into a road, allowing them to walk to the other side. They had seen Him rescue and save them from slavery. Yet, they could not wait for Him and His word.

This story reflects my own heart. I know I need to trust God for my future. I know He has a good plan for me. I know I need to wait for His answer before I move forward.

The knowing has to sink into the heart before faith can be lived out in the waiting.

When Moses returned to the Israelites and found them worshiping an idol of their own making, he was so angry he broke the Law in pieces. God was angry and wanted to wipe them out from existance. I don’t want to be found making idols because I’m too impatient to wait for God’s perfect timing in my life. I don’t want to be so impatient with God that I move on and follow my own plans. And I don’t want to just know that God is faithful, I want to also livelike He is faithful.

I want what my mind knows to be true to be what my heart lives out as the truth.

After all, haven’t I seen Him part the waters in my own life? Hasn’t He rescued me from slavery to sin? Haven’t I witnessed His grace in each and every breath I take?

Even now, as I wait for answers in my life, I ask for grace to live faithfully in this valley. I pray that I will live in today, not pushing the present into the future. And instead of filling my heart with idols of my making, I will wait for His word to return from the mountain to this valley below. Remembering His past faithfulness, I await HIs perfect timing.

What about you? What are you waiting for?


Christina Fox is a writer, blogger, and coffee drinker–not necessarily in that order. She is a licensed mental health counselor with an M.S. in Counseling Psychology. A mom to two active boys, she spends her days answering all their questions while asking God plenty of her own. You can find her blogging at To Show Them Jesus and on Facebook.

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!

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Thank you — I am so grateful to have you here!

Filed Under: guest posts, Old Testament, patience, Use It on Monday, waiting

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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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