Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

writing

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?

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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.

My Reaction to the Facebook Reactions {or…Use Your Words, People!}

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So in case you missed it, yesterday Facebook exploded in celebratory glee over the introduction of its new emoticons, otherwise known as “Reactions,” according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. No longer do we need to feel limited by the lowly “Like” button; we now have a heart Love button, a haha Laughter button, a yay Happy button {by the way, the Yay button is only available in Spain and Ireland right now…because apparently the Spanish and Irish are a lot Yayier than the rest of us}, a surprised Wow button, a frowny Sad button and a beady-eyed Angry button.

Ever the late adopter, I posted my own reaction to the Reactions on my Facebook page:

“Am I the only one who doesn’t love the new Facebook emoticons? I have 58 toothpastes to choose from, 148 kinds of deodorant, 9,000 kinds of cereal, 14,000 television stations, and now I have 6 Facebook faces, too. It’s too much! My brain is melting! Choice overload! How about we just go back to “Like” or move on? My head is going to pop off the first time someone gives me the angry face on a status update (go ahead, try it – who is going to be the first?!) ‪#‎curmudgeonly‬ (where’s the face for that, eh?)”

Plus, there’s the fact that I know myself. I already take note of the “Likes” on my posts (oh come on, get over it, you know you do, too). I can see how this is all going to go down…

“Huh. Only four Loves. Why only four Loves? Why 47 Likes but only four Loves? Why am I worthy of Like but not Love?! For the love, where is the LOVE?!”

Or… “Hey, she gave me the Angry Beady Eyes. What did I ever do to her? What did I do to deserve the Angry Beady Eyes? Yeah? Yeah? Fine. Angry Beady Eye right back at you, babe.”

I mean seriously, I’m already a navel gazer. These six new emoticons are only going to plunge me into a whole new level of navel-gazing, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

I was mostly joking last night when I posted that status update about the new emoticons, until later, that is, when suddenly I wasn’t.

You see, I got to thinking about when I was in college. I wrote in long-hand (what, pray tell, is long hand?) to my nana and to my nana’s sister, my great aunt Mary, at least once a month – on my very own monogrammed stationery, no less. And I received letters from them in return. I still remember crouching down to open the tiny metal door of my dorm post office box and spotting the telltale dusty pink envelope, knowing my grandmother’s notepaper, with a rosebud at the top, just above the delicate script, From the Desk of Elizabeth DeRusha, was folded inside. I didn’t keep any of those letters (I got the Anti-Sentimental Gene from my dad), but I still remember how much I cherished receiving them at the time.

Now, I may sound like I am 1,009 years old for saying this, but for heaven’s sake, what have we come to with these Facebook emoticons?  Your coworker posts a sentimental note on Facebook about the death of her grandfather, and you click Frowny Sad Face and move on. Your sister posts a selfie of her new haircut, you click the heart. Finito. Your BFF posts about her terrible, awful, no good, very bad day, and you click Beady Angry Eyes to signify “Grrrrr, those are the worst.” Or do you click Frowny Sad Face to demonstrate empathy? Or do you click both for good measure?

Click. Done. Scroll on. Click. Done. Scroll on.

Facebook’s new “Reactions” simply give us another excuse and another way to skate through life on vapid autopilot. They let us off the hook by allowing us to pretend we are expressing heartfelt emotion – joy, sorrow, empathy, compassion, anger– when in fact, all we’re really doing is taking the easy way out. We’re not connecting, were clicking. And clicking. And clicking. And clicking.

Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg had to say about the Reactions launch on his own Facebook timeline yesterday (by the way, did you know that Mark Zuckerberg has 52,254,708 followers? For reals. It’s practically a ticker tape!) :

“Not every moment you want to share is happy. Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don’t like their posts [ahem, clearly Mark hasn’t visited the Christian Facebook community lately]. People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotion. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the right way to do this with our team. One of my goals was to make it as simple as pressing and holding the Like button. The result is Reactions, which allow you to express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger.”

I hear what you’re saying, Mark, I really do. People do want to express a broader range of emotions beyond the bland, pallid “Like.” People do want to express joy, sorrow, disappointment, empathy, compassion and anger, in real life and on Facebook. People do want to react. But there is an effective, meaningful way to do this, and it doesn’t entail simply “pressing and holding” a button.

It’s called using our words. Our powerful, eloquent, insightful, angry, sorrowful, poignant, beautiful, celebratory, life-giving words.

Words are still important, even in this Brave New World of emoticons and Reactions – especially in this Brave New World of emoticons and Reactions. In spite of what Mark Zuckerberg says about “making it comfortable” to share emotion, the truth is, sometimes emotion is uncomfortable. Grief is uncomfortable. Anger is uncomfortable. Sorrow and loneliness are uncomfortable. What we need is to learn how to sit with and in this discomfort. Words, though not always perfect, allow us to do that in a way that robotically clicking a cartoony “Reaction” never will.

Words have the power to move us to tears. Words have the power to make the hair on our arms and the back of our necks stand on end. Words have the power to make us dance, shout, curse, and cheer. Words have the power to start a movement. Words have the power to change us. Words have the power to change the world.

Words give us life and breath and love. Words are Life and Breath and Love. 

God gave us words because they have the power to connect us — to help us see and hear, to know and understand one another. Words, plain and simple, are a gift.

So maybe the next time we go to click one of those emoticon faces, we can take a second to pause and remember that. Let’s remember that words are a gift we can give and receive…even on Facebook, even in this Brave New World.

{and yeah, when I post this on Facebook, you all better give me a whole lot of those hearts}

When God Says Stay

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Not long ago I had dinner with two friends who are both writers and bloggers. We had a great time together that night, chatting and laughing over our soup and salad and bread sticks. At the same time, though, the whole evening we were together I kept feeling an incessant twinge. I felt it in my gut, in the pit of my stomach – a hollowness, an emptiness. I found myself envying them – their readership and platform, which is larger than mine; the number of speaking engagements they are invited to, which is more than I have; the connections they have with other “big-name” authors, which I covet.

Later that night, tucked into the corner of my couch, I wrestled with competing feelings of emptiness and fullness. On one hand I was filled with the nourishing goodness of companionship and camaraderie. On the other hand, I felt depleted by this sense of perpetual needing, longing and discontent. Truth be told, I was more than a little disgusted with myself. These feelings of emptiness and not-enoughness are not new to me. I’ve been fighting this battle for a long time.

A few days later, I read this in Genesis:

“The Lord said to Issac, ‘Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and I will bless you.”

I felt those words were meant for me. I felt those words were speaking to that place of yearning, that place of not enough. Stay here, right where I have you, I heard God saying. Be grateful for what I have already given you, I heard him say. Live in this land, and I will be with you. 

I knew those words were for me, but I didn’t like them. Frustrated with the fact that I’d felt stuck in the same land for a good long time, I was eager to move on to what I thought were bigger and better things. I was ready to do more with the gifts and tools God has given me. But he said no. God said stay. 

Last week I wrote a post about an issue I am passionate about. I wrote it, I edited it, I worked and reworked it, and then I clicked “publish,” just as I’ve done with the thousands of posts before it over the last seven years. Except this time was different. This time the post took on a life of its own. It was shared and shared and shared some more, and I watched, stunned, as the Facebook button at the bottom of the post clicked toward 700 and then 800 and then 1,000 and then beyond.

In seven years of blogging this has never happened to me. For whatever reason, my blog posts are rarely shared more than 30 or 40 times, and typically they are shared far less than that. But on an ordinary Friday in the middle of January, one blog post clicked with people, and it took off.

Long story short, I sent a brief note to a generic email address I had for Huffington Post Religion with a link to that post, and within two hours, an editor there had emailed me back, inviting me to blog for the Huffington Post Religion page. Just like that.

Except not really.

I’ve pitched the Huffington Post a number of times over the last three years, and I’ve never heard a word back. I’ve pitched HuffPost Women. I’ve pitched HuffPost Parents. I’ve pitched HuffPost Religion. To no avail. Two years ago, in one of a dozen conversations I’ve had with my agent about “growing my platform,” she suggested that what I really needed was to leverage a much larger platform, “like the Huffington Post.”

I laughed when she said that. “It’s impossible,” I told her. “It’s never going to happen.”

There’s a reason I’m telling you this story, and it’s not to brag, believe me (for all I know, the Huffington Post will have absolutely no impact on growing my readership!). The reason I’m telling you this story is because I believe that God always, always has our best interests at heart. He knows the places he has for us. He knows the time that is best for us. He knows exactly when we should stay and exactly when we should go.

I’m not the best listener when it comes to God’s direction. In fact, most of the time I’m a terrible listener. I push and pull and rail and complain. When God says no, I say yes. When God says yes, I say no. In fact, there’s a very good chance God simply shook his head and rolled his eyes this week and said, “Fine! Here’s your damn Huffington Post.” {my God swears from time to time}

Seriously, though, I believe this. I believe God knows. He knows when we aren’t ready, even when we think we are. He knows when we are ready, even when we think we aren’t. God knows.

Whatever it is you do, keep doing it, as hard and frustrating as that may be. Know that even when you cannot see it right now, God is blessing the work of your hands. Know that even when you can’t feel his presence, he is watching over your journey through the vast wilderness. Know that God is always with you, and therefore you do not lack. (Deuteronomy 2:7)

Even Now, Peace Like a River

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A few weeks before Spiritual Misfit released to the public, I mailed out a bunch of advance copies to people – “influencers,” as they are called in publishing lingo. Some of these people I knew a little bit from the Christian blogging/writing world, some were people I didn’t have a personal connection with at all. Many who received those advance copies didn’t respond. This, I know, is par for the course. People are busy; they have their own books to promote; they have their own close writer friends to support. This is the way the system works.

But here’s the hard part: some of the people who had initially expressed interest in my book ultimately didn’t respond either. I heard nothing from them. Utter silence. No response.

I get it. I do. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. People are busy. We bite off more than we can chew. And frankly, people are allowed to not like a book. Just because you send someone a free copy of your book, even if they’ve told you they want to read it, doesn’t mean they have to like it.

But here’s where it gets ugly (You thought you’d heard all my book-related angst and ugliness, didn’t you? Yeah, no. There’s more. Pour yourself a second cup of coffee.) You know what happens when you put your story into the world and into the hands of people you admire and respect and who you want to like you and respect you back, and you hear nothing?

You assume the worst.

Not only do you assume that your writing didn’t resonate with them; you also begin to assume your story itself didn’t resonate.

And, because you wrote a memoir, a story about your own life, you begin to assume that you, as a human being, didn’t resonate.

Maybe they think my story is baloney, you wonder. Maybe they think I’m a lousy Christian, or a terrible parent or a bad person.

Maybe, you worry, they simply decided they don’t like you.

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Once you’re tumbling down this raging river, friends, let me tell you, it’s awfully hard to extricate yourself. I know, because I’ve been caught in the currents of self-doubt, insecurity and, let’s get really real here, self-loathing, for fifteen months now, ever since Spiritual Misfit released a year ago this past April. For fifteen months I haven’t been able to let it go. My brain works overtime, churning out questions, doubts, insecurities, fears. When I can’t sleep, when I’m staring at the shaft of light from the bathroom nightlight, piercing the hallway darkness, I think about those people, the ones who, for whatever reason, didn’t acknowledge my book. I know who they are — believe me, as a first-time author, you know who you send your book to, and who responds and who doesn’t. I obsess over them.

It seems God has had enough of this foolishness, because last Saturday morning, he plunked me into a chair on my back patio and he gave me a stern talking to. God used Isaiah to get right up in my grill. Isaiah is really good at that, I’ve come to realize over the years. When God wants to get all up in your grill, he uses Isaiah. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to my commands. Then you would have peace flowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea.” (Isaiah 47: 17-18)

Did you catch that? Should follow.

That word should is important. God leads us toward the right paths, the paths we should follow, but he also gives us a choice; he allows us to choose whether or not we will follow the paths he has chosen for us. Choose the right way, the way God leads — toward him – and you will float, buoyant and free, in his peace.

Choose the other way, the wrong way – the way of idolatry — and you will be tossed and tumbled about and will ultimately sink like a river-worn rock, straight to the bottom, where you will stay, mired in the muck.

I know how this works first-hand because I’ve chosen wrong for the last fifteen months.

I’ve chosen the approval of people over the approval of God.

I have not listened to his commands, particularly his first one, his most important one.

I’ve chosen the way of not-enough, less-than, why-don’t-they-like-me, why-aren’t-I-good-enough. I haven’t looked toward him, I have looked toward them, toward the approval of my peers, and I have been tossed and tumbled and have sunk, again and again, straight to the bottom, where I’ve settled, stuck, in the muck.

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Thankfully, though, that wasn’t all God had to say to me last Saturday morning in the patio chair. He also said this:

“Yet even now, be free from your captivity!” (Isaiah 48:20)

Last Saturday morning  as the sun tipped over the top of the white pines, God spoke those words to me, right after he’d gotten all up in my grill. Yet even now, he said, even now.  God reminded me that while I may have sunk like a rock to the bottom, into the muck, I am not sunk for good. I am not stuck.

The way to peace, peace like a river, is still open to me.

Even now, after fifteen months of choosing wrong, after fifteen months of choosing the idol of approval over God, even now, it’s not too late to be free from captivity. Let it go, God said. Choose the right path, the one I’ve had for you all along, the path toward peace like a gently flowing river.

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I don’t know if you wrestle with this kind of angst like I do. I don’t know if you fight tooth and nail to keep God first in your life, instead of putting the approval of others and the need to be liked and admired — or any idol, for that matter — ahead of him. I don’t know if you have peace flowing like a gentle river, or if you are roiling in tumultuous waters, fighting to keep your head above the swirling current.

If you tend toward the latter, though, if you find yourself sinking under that weight, remember God’s words in Isaiah, spoken to you, spoken to me, right now.

Even now, no matter how many week or months or years you have struggled in that current of despair, you can be free from captivity.

Rise from the bottom, from the murky depths, God says. Rise to the surface, to peace, in me.

Evening Walk

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After a heavy post Tuesday, let’s go easy with this piece, which I wrote for the Mindfulness in Place writing workship I am taking right now. I am so enjoying the process of simply looking.

 

daisyLast night I walked my dog Josie, just as I’ve done almost every day since we adopted her 14 months ago. Because I am a creature of habit, Josie and I walk the same route every evening. She leads the way, straining the purple leash taut, her ears pricked, nose quivering in anticipation of rabbits and squirrels.

We turn right at the corner, past tees four and five at the junior golf course, on toward the park. Spring’s dandelions have given way to white clover. Wildflowers, something purple and lupine-like, edge the brook, and the air is tinged with the sweet-savory scents of pine and wood smoke.

At the park’s entrance a photographer is shooting pictures of a mother and son. The boy, he looks about seven or eight, wears Harry Potter glasses and clutches a bunch of white daisies, a prop. I want to stay and watch, but he looks miserable, buttoned into a polo and kakis on this muggy, mosquitoey night. The photographer and mom are working hard to lighten the mood, so I walk on.

Under the bandstand the jugglers have gathered to do their thing. I usually catch glimpses of their spinning hoops from a distance, flashes of neon, contained chaos, but tonight Josie and I depart from our usual routine and we sit on a bench. She pants in the shade at my feet as I swat mosquitoes.

Onstage a young woman practices a rhythmic dance with two neon yellow hoops, rolling one down the length of her arm, skipping bare feet through the other. She’s good, graceful and athletic, the props light in her hands.

Behind her, a lanky man tips his head back and balances a long stick on his chin, red plastic plate spinning over his head. He holds out his arms and steps left and right, forward and back, his movements accelerating until the stick tips and the plate falls.

Another man juggles six, maybe eight, balls — they are circling too fast to count – while he chats with a man lounging on a bench a few rows ahead of me.

“There’s a difference between knowing and understanding,” the juggler explains, his eyes steady on one spot, focusing. “Understanding happens when it becomes a part of you.” The balls make soft pats like the steady, quick drip of a bathroom faucet as they land in the palms of his hands.

“It’s more about looking at the pattern, at the shape of the pattern, rather than at the individual balls,” he says, eyes on the sky as the balls wheel. “And it’s about how I feel,” he adds, as two of the balls land with a quiet plunk at his feet. His companion nods, hands stuffed into his pockets.

I watch for a few minutes more – the young woman with the yellow hoops, the man balancing the spinning red plate, the jugglers with their bright pins. It’s a cacophony of individual movement and energy, yet somehow, all together, it’s also a fluid, communal dance. Like the juggler had said, there’s a pattern there, a wholeness amid all that whirling, individual motion.