Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Evi Wusk

When Today Feels Heavy

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I love how my friend Evi Wusk keeps her eyes wide open to God’s graces in her everyday ordinary. Right now she’s in the middle of a 30-day Gratitude Challenge – she’s aiming to reach #1000Gifts in just one month! Yowza! Be sure to stop by her beautiful blog, Gratitude Gal, to say hi, and while you’re there, enter to win the perfect November giveaway – a fresh-baked pie, delivered to your doorstep (details here).
Text and Photo by Evi Wusk

I stopped up short before grabbing the heavy black church door.

“Wow, that looks like hard work,” I said to the men bundled up on a sunny-yet-chilly late October day. As I zoomed in to drop something off at church–doing my normal, checking something off the list quick–I couldn’t help but stop and notice how these two men were lifting large piles of bricks and working on their hands and knees to slide them together into a intricate design.

EviBricks

Snapping a picture of the scene, I wasn’t quite sure why it intrigued me so much, this picture of two men doing cold physical labor to create something beautiful. Maybe it’s because my work is so much more covert. You don’t see the sweat running off me, or the bundled up fingers, or hear the grunt of me sliding a comma into just the right place. Writing is work, but of such a different sort. People come to the ready-made pieces and don’t see the process. There is a reason we call things like paintings and books and music “works” of art, they require effort. They require that the artist go through a sort of labor to birth this new thing into the world.

As is the case with babies, sometimes the labor is short, some times it’s long, but if God is calling you to the work, rest assured that it doesn’t start with the pretty picture. There will be bricks to move–heavy ones, sometimes bricks that we’ve put in our own way, bricks like fear, anxiety, perfectionism, pain we just can’t let go.

God does not promise us comfort–in fact just the opposite. He promises a life that follows the pattern of Jonah. If you recall Jonah was spit out by a whale in a place where he didn’t want to be. Awesome. Why did I sign up to be a Christian again?

All joking aside, perhaps the beauty lies in standing in the creative tension, in loving the labor and knowing that even though we can’t quite see the full picture yet, that we’re putting our brick in for today. I don’t believe that God calls us to “some-days” and grand plans as much as he calls us to small acts of love today, in our life situation right now.

You can see the work or you can see the beauty that’s unfolding all around us. And perhaps the bricks seem a bit lighter when we realize we’re not being called to lift them on our own. In John 4:36 it says both the sower and the reaper will be glad together. I see that as a call to adventure, to take the courage God is offering me today to move my brick, and play a small part in the story God is telling to our world.

#201. Seeing people literally working and walking on the cross.

Day 13 Challenge:
Create something. Many people say they’re not the “artsy type,” but we’re all creators. Make a meal, make someone’s day, make a craft–and do it in the spirit of thanksgiving, giving back what we’ve been given by overflowing to others.

* This post is part of Evi’s 30-day Gratitude Challenge. Subscribe to her blog or post a comment here to enter her random drawing for the most perfect November giveaway ever: a homemade pie! 

EviWusk2Evi (say it like Chevy) Wusk is a mom, teacher and lover of words and licorice. Her work aims to reimagine and honor schools, businesses, and churches through gratitude. Evi lives in small town, Sterling, Nebraska with her hubby, Ralph, and kiddos, Charli and Oliver. Connect with Evi at her blog and on Twitter.

 

 

 

Thinking about writing a book but have absolutely no idea where to begin? 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 launches a week from today (Monday, November 17!). Click here for details and registration information.

How to Get Published2

 

Authentic You: What I Want for Her {day 21}

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I’m so grateful to my friend Evi Wusk for writing these beautiful words about the authentic life she desires for her young daughter. And I have to tell you, too, that Evi wrote this poignant piece in 20 minutes flat as we sat across from each other at Bagels and Joe earlier this week. I told her I wanted an IV of whatever was running through her veins. She blamed it on the chipotle mayo – but I ate the same sandwich, and I didn’t write squat in 20 minutes!

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My one-and-a-half-year-old just plopped down on my tummy. I didn’t experience this type of jostling with my first pregnancy. That nine months was all naps and snacks. This second round of getting rounder is much less serene.

I had a moment of panic last week with my toddler at the dentist’s office. The receptionist noted, “Well, your next appointment will be in April.” April . . . April . . . I trolled through the numbered days in my iPhone only to see a surprisingly clear month. I realized then that I’d be off on maternity leave with a one-month old. The circus juggling act of getting one carrier + diapers + another child + myself (dressed and not crying–me and the kids) all into my car and to a dentist appointment buzzed through my mind as I turned my mouth into a smile and said, “Yes, the fifteenth will be fine.”

How is it that people get these kiddos to 18 with all their limbs and a nice pair of eyeballs intact? As I think again about new motherhood, this new little one, and the world he or she will grow up in it’s hard not to wonder. What is it that I really want for my daughter if I can somehow wedge my thoughts past simple survival and car seat loading?

I want her to be healthy. . . to never know hunger in her own belly.
To see the beauty of a Nebraska gold-soaked sunset.
To enjoy a random Tuesday dinner with a spouse, talking through struggles in a way that leads to laughing.
To feel a passion for something.
To know the pain/joy of helping.
To wear an outfit that isn’t what’s popular, just because.
To feel the pain-then-joy of exercise.
To know how it feels to be on a team.
To plug into those things that are life-giving and unplug from what sucks energy away.
To watch a movie with someone sitting next to her–close on the journey.
To know motherhood . . . if that is what she wants.

In all of it I want her to know what the real deep goodness is and how to realign her life to it, to somehow see God in even her e-mail inbox or that smudged-up mirror.

To not only know God, but to be aware of her own deep wanting for God that helps her see with new eyes the needs she can help. So that she might match up the “needs doing” with her “can do” in an artful way that leaves her sleeping at night and waking early ready to meet the day.

I want her to know that–no matter what the world or its systems or eighth grade divas might say–she is more than enough. She’s God’s poema (Eph. 2:10), God’s masterpiece. That the things she’s done wrong can be laid aside, all because of how beautiful she is–not just on the outside, but in the deep her-ness that is hard to define. That her essence, the authentic part of her, is already redeemed, is worth fighting for, worth thinking of, worth loving, worth knowing, and definitely worth taking to the dentist.

Evi — you say it like chevy —  is a giggler who delights in words, good licorice and stories over a good beer or a cup of coffee. She lives in small town Nebraska with her daughter Charli, her husband Ralph and their dog, Daisy. Visit Evi at her blog, and follow her on Twitter.

Everyday Grace: Trusting that God Will Come Through Tomorrow, Too

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We are continuing our Everyday Grace guest post series today with Evi Wusk from Evi Like Chevy. I’ve been acquainted with Evi for a couple of years now – we’ve even worked on a few projects together at church (we are both members of Southwood Lutheran). But just recently, after the Jumping Tandem Retreat, we’ve spent a little more one-on-one time together, and I am grateful for the opportunity to get to know her a little better. I love Evi’s passion and enthusiasm, her unique ability to connect with young adults and the fact that she brings a gargantuan bag of Twizzlers to share at church meetings. 

Be sure to stop by Evi’s blog to introduce yourself and say hello. You can also connect with her on Twitter.

Evi made this graphic, too, which she is kindly letting me use for the whole Everyday Grace series in July.

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I said yes without thinking. That was my first mistake.

When Michelle asked if I’d write a guest post for her blog, I naively hit the send button after keying three quick letters, y-e-s. Maybe if I’d taken the time to write out a sentence–which probably would have stated that I’ve never done this before–I would have seen my enthusiasm for what it was: naive stupidity. As soon as I lifted my finger off the enter key, it sprung up to cover my mouth as my cantaloupe eyes seemed to bust out of my head. What have I done. . .ahhh. . .just what do you think you’ll write, anyway? Undo. Undo!

So, a week later with my panic lulling more like Eyore in the background than Tigger bouncing on my eardrum, I wrote a midweek blog post. As I cleaned up the last phrases, I sat back and thought. . . I should save this one. What if God doesn’t show up the week I’m supposed to write for Michelle?

The poor theology in this question rolled its eyes and said, “You’re kidding, right?” Sure, I can say in my best sing-song, Sunday school voice that “God always shows up, God is always present. , and God is faithful,” but do those words do any heavy-lifting in my actual life? I don’t want to trivialize these deep statements, but I’m starting to wonder how much I know but don’t really KNOW.

Do I ever live the subtle difference between knowing faith and living faith?

If I know God always shows up, why is it so tough to hit publish on one itty-bitty post? Why does it raise my anxiety to spend a draft today instead of putting it in the bank, safe for later. Do I ever have the gumption to leave tomorrow’s blank gleaming white–trusting and knowing that God will fill it in?

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.” – Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

When Michelle asked for everyday grace, I spent so much time looking for the everyday–commonplace, ordinary, normal–stuff that I forgot everyday grace shows up every single day. Sure, things and people disappoint, but we’re called to live in response to a God who never will.

Ever.

Every day, day in, day out, day in, day out God is wedging a halo on things as normal as dishes in my sink and laundry folded (yet never quite put away). The concept of God’s faithfulness is slippery as my mind tries to grab it. It’s so foreign I can’t translate. Has the love that I give out been so off the mark, so poorly intentioned, that I can’t imagine a totally selfless and faithful love? I’d think my intentions are pure when I send out a card or give a listening ear, but when I’m in the presence of a constantly present, ever-faithful, giving-and giving-and then giving some more-type of love I don’t quite know what do with it. I just melt.

It’s the God who can evoke a posture like that Who can give us courage to leave a blank page for tomorrow and spend what God’s given today.

Evi Wusk is a licorice-loving mom and wife whose passion is teaching. She writes about faith at her blog, Evi Like Chevy, and loves spending time with her giggly daughter Charli and bearded hubby Ralph.

Because Sometimes You Make a Cake for No Reason

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I baked a cake last Saturday. A lemon bundt cake with lemon glaze. When I saw the recipe at Katrina Kenison’s place, I knew I had to make this cake, in part because I admire Katrina Kenison and I want to be just like her, and in part because it was a cake-baking kind of day, all drizzly and cool and gray.

I bake a cake about once a decade. Brad is the baker around here – he makes the boys a homemade birthday cake every year, in fantastical shapes like Thomas the Train and Nemo and Bowser Jr. I’m the birthday cake dish-washer. Twice a year I sigh at the eight bowls of frosting in every color of the rainbow scattered across the kitchen and I wonder why we can’t just head to the bakery department at Hy-Vee. For Rowan’s second birthday Brad worked on a Winnie the Pooh cake for about five hours, and when he lifted Rowan up to the counter for his first glimpse of the masterpiece, Rowan yelled, “Elmo!!!” We still laugh about that.

Katrina claimed the lemon bundt cake was super easy to make. But I think that might be a relative term. Maybe super-easy for a person who makes a cake more than once a decade. Still, even though my glaze looked a little funky, in a slightly curdled kind of way, and even though Brad and Rowan sucked the juice from the lemon and made lemon rind lips before I realized I still needed the freshly squeezed juice for the glaze, the cake tasted good. So good, in fact, I ate two slices one right after the other, and then promptly cut a generous slab, wrapped it in tin foil and gave it to a friend. Some cakes, especially those with two and a half sticks of butter, are simply too good to have around.

Katrina wrote a beautiful story about her cake. She baked it every day when a friend was dying. He couldn’t eat much toward the end, just a forkful or two of this cake, but that was enough to keep Katrina baking and delivering cakes to his door until she didn’t need to anymore.

My cake story is a little more mundane. I made a cake on Saturday, and as it baked we read our books, curled into the couch, the sweet aroma settling into every corner of the house, the rain pattering on the windowpanes. We admired the cake as it cooled on the rack. I took pictures, because that’s what you do when you make a cake once every ten years. And then we cut huge slices when it was still faintly warm, and sat at the kitchen counter eating cake in the middle of the afternoon. I even made a pot of coffee, because you can’t eat two slices of lemon cake one right after the other without a cup of coffee in your favorite mug to go along with it.

And as I pressed the back of my fork to the crumbs on my plate and let the last remnants dissolve on my tongue, I leaned back on the kitchen stool, satisfied. Because sometimes, once every ten years or so, you have to make a cake for no reason.

So tell me, what was the last fun or decadent thing you did for no reason? 

{And about those multiple birthday cake pictures … I apologize – I got way carried away on the cake nostalgia!}

My friend Evi has a brand-new link-up, and I’m sharing this post over there,
because I’m sure God smiles when we bake a cake for no reason:

evi like chevy