Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Imperfect Prose

The Man with the Brown Blanket

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Photo credit: Matt Talbot

“Peaches, sir?” I ask, holding a slotted metal spoon over the vat of canned fruit.

He doesn’t talk, just nods a quick yes. The plastic tray shakes in his hand. I spoon the fruit into a square partition, careful not to drip the juice onto the chicken breast and green beans. We make eye contact only once, his grey-blue eyes piercing mine before they dart away. A ragged brown blanket is stuffed under one arm.

The boys and I are serving dinner at Matt Talbot, the local kitchen and outreach center in town. Rowan is responsible for dispensing small packets of sour cream for the baked potatoes placed in the corners of their trays. He offers one packet, but is allowed to hand out two if the people ask for more.

Noah stands at the end of the stainless-steel counter, plastic gloves wrinkled and baggy on his small hands. He places one cookie on each tray, encouraging the little kids to point to which sweet looks best. The pre-schoolers hoist themselves up by their elbows on the counter, leaning in for a better look. They always choose the cookies with the purple and green frosting.

Noah looks to me when the teenager in the neon pink sweatshirt requests two. I shake my head no, murmuring an apology. The line is long, wending past the gas fireplace to the back of the large room. These last few nights the temperature has plummeted below freezing, and the same is expected tonight. The teenager pauses for a second, holding my gaze with narrowed eyes. She’s angry, I can tell, and I feel guilty.

When everyone’s been served many come through the line again. They are handed a different plate, smaller, to distinguish that they’re on seconds. The man with the brown blanket and the skittering blue eyes sits alone at the end of a long table nearest the food. He comes through the line three times until finally he is the only one left in the dining room, still hunched over his plastic plate, the blanket draped over his shoulders. I watch him as I dip my sponge into the bucket of disinfectant and glide it over the gleaming countertop. I bring a pan to the dish washer in the back room, and when I return to the serving area, the man is gone.

The parking lot is dark and the street deserted as the boys and I pile into the mini-van. I crank the heat and make the right turn onto 27th Street, accelerating toward home. And that’s when I see him once more. The brown blanket is pulled tight around his body as he walks into the darkness.

 

 

When Your Christmas is Ugly

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I told Brad the other night at dinner that this is the first year in several that I have actual felt even a bit of Christmas joy. Three years ago we mourned the loss of my mother-in-law, Janice, who had died in September. The following year my father-in-law Jon was diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before Christmas. Last year was our first Christmas without him. Let me say point-blank: Christmas sucked for three years straight.

It’s so easy to get ensnared in the glittery, caroling, iced cookie expectations of Christmas, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong — those parts of Christmas are beautiful and holy and joyful. But when they are missing, overshadowed by illness, death, grief, depression, fear, loss, anger, ugliness, fill-in-the-blank-with-your-burden, we feel ripped off. Gypped.  We feel like Christmas with all its magic and miracles and jingling joy has passed us right by like a cherry-red sleigh swishing through freshly fallen snow. We feel like Christmas has left us standing on the curb, spattered in dirt-blackened slush.

But listen for a second, friends. I know this, because I’ve been there, up to my eyeballs in grief and anger, bitterness and disappointment right in the middle of the Christmas season. And I can say this because I know it’s true: Christmas is the ugly, too.

Dare I even say it? The ugly, the underbelly, the dirt-encrusted slush? That is the real Christmas.

Our God was born human in a barn. And though we like to pretty it all up with our hand-carved, hand-painted nativity scenes arranged just so on our coffee tables and mantels and hearths, that barn our God was born in, the real Bethlehem-barn, was ugly.

There was no Christmas tree strung with tiny white lights in that barn. No “Silver Bells” and “Winter Wonderland” piped in over the sound system. No gifts wrapped in foil, no perfectly iced sugar cookies, no dainty hors d’oeuvres arranged on special holiday serving dishes and no sparkling punch poured into delicate crystal glasses.

No, that barn was dirty, with dung-caked floors and dim, dusty light and the clattering and thumping of hooves. That barn didn’t smell like a French Vanilla Yankee Candle; it stunk like filthy animals and rank, unwashed bodies. There was blood on the floor of that barn, and amniotic fluid and afterbirth. The mother who gave birth in that barn was a young, unwed woman. The father was a humble carpenter. And the visitors were motley crew of shepherds who’d come straight from the pasture.

It was not pretty and perfect in that barn, and you want to know why? Because God didn’t come for the pretty and the perfect, the sparkly, glittery, arranged-just-so. He came to us as a human being so he could be with us, as close to us as humanly possible, which includes, of course, all of our ugly, unseemly, unsavory parts. Our anger. Our bitterness. Our disappointment. Our grief. Our loneliness. Our despair. Our ugly Christmases.

God came to be with us in that.

Truthfully, these last three years I couldn’t really see that God was with me in the ugly Christmas. I was so angry, so sad, so worn out, I could barely leave the house – the mere thought of twinkly lights and glittery decorations and cheerful music filled me with too much despair. But I see it now. I see now that he was there, right there with me in the muck, disappointment and hopelessness. He was there.

And so I need to tell you this today. If you’re in that place, if you’re in the ugly Christmas right now, know this: you might not see him, you might not feel him, you may be downright hating Christmas right now, but God is with you. He was born in a barn, amid filth and stink, especially for you, especially for this exact moment, especially for the ugly Christmas.

And with Emily Freeman for her December Tuesdays Unwrapped series. 
 

One Small Thing Done in {slightly irritable} Love

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So last Saturday I ventured over to Hobby Lobby to pick up four spools of ribbon. You should know, Hobby Lobby in December is Dante’s seventh circle of hell. I really think they need to post a sign over the door with Dante’s words, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Suffice to say, it took me 40 minutes to purchase my four items. I sweated in my goosedown parka.  I breathed the serenity prayer. I channeled baby Jesus. There was only one woman ahead of me in the check-out line, but she seemed to be purchasing great quantities of something small. I think it may have been sequins. I think she may have been paying for them one at a time. By check.

By the time I burst out the double doors all sticky with sweat, the biting cold actually felt good. But I noticed the Salvation Army bell ringer standing right outside Hobby Lobby looked miserable, her cheeks flushed scarlet, her breath blowing great plumes of mist into the air as she rang the bell and offered miniature candy canes in her bulky mittened hands to kids passing by.

“Aha!” I thought to myself. “A great opportunity for a Small Thing in Great Love! I’m going to buy her hot chocolate!”

{Cue symphony here}

The bad news, of course, was that it was 12 noon, so every Christmas shopper and their mother, sister and Great Aunt from Gothenburg was already in the drive-thru line at the McDonald’s across the parking lot (and yes, if you must know, I drove. I realize it was only about 800 yards, but it was 8 degrees and I’m no fool). I slipped into a parking space and stood in line inside, and I thought the cashier’s head was going to pop off when I ordered a single hot chocolate during the mad lunch rush. And then I thought my head was going to pop off when, 15 minutes later, I was still waiting for the hot chocolate, channeling Jesus again and humming Away in the Manger under my breath.

Finally, steaming cup in hand, I drove back across the parking toward Hobby Lobby. And you should know, while Hobby Lobby is the seventh circle of hell during the Christmas season, the Hobby Lobby parking lot is the ninth circle of hell. That’s the inner circle of hell, people — the pure, undiluted essence of hell.

I pulled into a handicapped spot, clicked on my hazards and prepared to dash down the sidewalk to hand over the hot chocolate when suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. There were now two, TWO, Salvation Army bell-ringers standing outside Hobby Lobby – the same woman I’d seen 20 minutes earlier and another lady, buttoned up to her eyebrows in plaid parka.

For. The. Love. One cup of hot chocolate. Two Salvation Army bell ringers.

I know this whole 24 Days of Advent #SmallThingsGreatLove initiative was launched with Mother Teresa’s lovely words, “None of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love” in mind. But let me just state for the record, right here, right now: I’m no Mother Teresa.

I made an executive decision as I stood on the sidewalk with the cup in my hand and my car in the handicapped spot: I was not going to navigate the ninth circle of hell and the McDonald’s line and the irritable McDonald’s cashier and the ninth circle of hell again to retrieve a second cup of hot chocolate. It wasn’t going to happen. One cup was all the Great Love I had in me for the day.

So I approached the two ladies, and I held out the one cup of hot chocolate, and I explained how there’d only been one of them 20 minutes before (I did glance accusatorily at the other lady who’d appeared in the meantime). I laughed sheepishly and suggested that if they didn’t have germs, maybe they could share the one cup.

And the best part of this story? The ladies were thrilled. Delighted. Overjoyed. It was like I’d just handed over two full-length ermine fur coats instead of one lousy cup of McDonald’s hot chocolate. They laughed at my story and patted me on the back and thanked me like 12 times. The one lady, who, it turns out, had been inside Hobby Lobby warming up when I walked by the first time, announced that I was “paying it forward” (clearly an unHollywoodish paying it forward, but I’ll take it). And when I walked away, I heard each of them insisting that the other one take the cup.

So there it is. It’s not exactly how I envisioned it. This Small Things in Great Love isn’t all pretty and perfect. It’s not a scene out of a movie, complete with symphony crescendo and gently falling snow. It’s real-life – kind of messy, not necessarily what I expected, but still very, very good.

[My friend Mary has joined me in #SmallThingsGreatLove this Advent, and I cracked up when she wrote about a similar experience here.]

So tell me, did you ever try to do a good deed and have it all turn out not quite as you anticipated?

Addendum: After my friend Kristin, mom to a disabled child, read this post this morning, she graciously mentioned to me that it’s not cool to park in a handicapped spot. She is totally right. Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain rude and selfish, and I regret doing it. So, for the record, I’m leaving it in the post, ’cause it’s the truth, but I do want to state that it’s not ever acceptable to park in a handicapped spot, no matter for how short a period, and no matter which circle of hell you are currently in! Thanks, Kristin, for giving me some much-needed perspective on this!

When You’re Looking for an Endorsement

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For the past couple of weeks I’ve been emailing Christian authors to ask if they would consider reading an advance copy of Spiritual Misfit to offer a possible endorsement. [endorsements are those snappy statements praising a book, usually on the front and back covers, and usually by other authors and leaders. Truthfully, I think the only people who read endorsements are other writers.]

Can I just tell you how humbling and awkward this feels to me?

Granted, some of the people I’m asking I know well, so that’s all fine and comfortable. But then there are the ones I call the “reach asks.”

These are authors I read and admire but don’t know personally – people who I think might find something that resonates in Spiritual Misfit and therefore be willing to say a kind word about it; people who are a little more well-known than the crowd I typically run with (that crowd being my Moby Dick-loving husband, two boys and a pet lizard). This process is a little like cold-calling in the olden days – except now you do it by email. You craft what you hope is a well-worded compelling email about the book, you shoot it into cyberspace, and then you wait. And sometimes wait and wait and wait.

Awk. Ward.

Some people accept (and you do a cartwheel in your living room). Some people decline graciously (and you understand but somehow still feel snubbed). And some people don’t respond at all. And those are the ones who keep you up at night. Because you wonder. Do they think I’m an annoying schmuck? Do they think my theology is all whacked out? (I don’t have a theology, just in case you’re wondering). Did they peek at my blog and think, ho hum, whatevs, no thanks, I’d rather get a bikini wax than read that?

You can drive yourself crazy with the wondering.

Until you read this:

“Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! The only recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your letters are written  in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. This ‘letter’ is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not carved on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:-1-3, NLT)

I understand why it’s necessary for me to get endorsers for my book; I get the nature of the process and how publishing works. But I also know these endorsements really don’t matter in the end.

What matters isn’t the pithy praise or awesome accolades someone else might offer about my book, but my life itself – what I say, how I act, how I love, how I encourage, what I do in the name of God. What matters in the end is what my living, breathing, everyday, ordinary life says about God. My own life is the praise. My own life is the accolade.

Because the thing is, friends, your whole life, and mine too, is an endorsement of God’s holy power. Your whole life is an endorsement of God’s love, hope and redemption. You and I are endorsed by God, have been from the get-go, from before the beginning of time. And this endorsement, this “letter” as Paul says, is not written in pen and ink or pixels, but with the Spirit of the living God. It’s not carved on tablets of stone or penned onto fancy embossed paper or shot into cyberspace, but emblazoned on our hearts, on your heart and on mine.

A changed life is the only endorsement we really need, and let me tell you, once and for all, my life has been changed by God. My life is a living endorsement of the power of God to change one lost, wayward, hopeless, desperate soul into a woman on fire for God.

And just the fact that I wrote that sentence and didn’t flinch  is one loud, bold, living testament to the fact that God transforms people in big, bold, beautiful ways.

God transforms us, he endorses us, and we, in turn, with our very own lives, endorse God. Our lives are a testament, an endorsement, of his mighty, mysterious, life-altering, wild power to transform. That’s it, the be-all and end-all of endorsements: the way I live, the way you live.

Let me give you one little piece of advice, because you know I always learn this God-stuff the hard way, right? This is what I learned these last two weeks:

When you go looking for endorsements, look no further than God, your own self and the people around you. Look at what he has done in you, and look at how that has impacted others. And then you’ll know, without any single shred of doubt:

A holy endorsement  is the only one you’ll ever need.

Learning to Pray

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As a kid and teenager, I relied on two basic prayers: begging prayers largely related to algebra and boys, and the prayers I’d memorized in Saturday morning catechism classes: the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Act of Contrition. In college I stopped believing in God, so I stopped praying altogether.

When I came back to faith in my late thirties I struggled with prayer. Often I forgot to pray at all, and when I did remember, I worried I wasn’t doing it right.

I didn’t talk to God like he was an intimate friend or a beloved parent. Instead I approached him like I would a CEO – politely and respectfully, but on-guard. I felt like I needed to be on my best behavior with God.

…I’m writing about prayer over at Prodigal Magazine today. Join me there?