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Michelle DeRusha's Blog, page 26
October 29, 2015
Real Friendship Takes Intention…and It Starts with You
Iraise my arm, unfurl my fingers halfway. I’m about to wave, and then I stop.
It’s a little red car, just like hers, but it’s not my friend Sarah driving by. She moved to Tennessee this summer, butI still see her everywhere.
It feels a little bit like grief, this loss – like when you spot your loved one across the pyramid of Golden Delicious in the grocery store or dashing out of the post office as you pull into the parking lot. Yourealize, in a split second, that it’s not her, of course it...
October 27, 2015
What To Do When You’ve Lost Sight of the Whole Point
I wrote in this month’s edition of my Back Patio newsletter that I’m feeling creatively droughty lately. I have been for a while now. I told my mom on the phone recently that it feels like I’ve said everything there is to say. This seems like it might be a teeny-tiny problemfor someone who makes acareer as a writer.
In this month’s newsletter I also admitted that this drought feelslike more than plain old burn-out. There is something deeper at workhere.
The truth is, I’ve been playing by the...
October 23, 2015
Weekend One Word: Quiet
So we’ve talked about how I’m goal-oriented, right? I make lists. And then I get great delight incrossing itemsoff those lists or putting neat little check marks next to the items I’ve accomplished. Sometimes I even write an item onto my “to do” list after I’ve already done it, just so I have the satisfaction of putting a line through it or a check mark next to it.
Yeah. I’m one of those people.
So when I read this verse from 1 Thessalonians this week, you can guess which word leaped off the...
October 21, 2015
Better Together: How To Nurture a Cross-Cultural Friendship
A few weeks ago the good people at (in)courage asked Deidra Riggs to participate in their Better Together series, a conversation about what it really looks like in real time and in real life to love our neighbors as ourselves and to walk around in someone else’s shoes.
Deidra then turned around and asked me if I would be willing to join the Better Together conversation and talk a bit with her about our “cross-cultural friendship.” I didn’t hesitate to answer a resounding YES! This is a topic...
October 20, 2015
When God Grows You Without You Even Noticing
I’ve been doing more speaking over these last few months than I have in the past — mostly smallish events, women’s retreats and church conferences and the likearound the greater Lincoln area.When I looked back at my 2015 calendar last week I realized I’d spoken at sevenevents this past year, which seems like a whole lot for someone who regularly tells herself that she doesn’t like public speaking.
I realized something important as I looked at the list of churches and retreats I’ve spoken at...
October 15, 2015
How to be Wide-Open to Receive
Did you know that if you are quiet and still enough, you can hear the sound of leaves falling from the trees?
That’s what I heard as I lay on alounge chair in the corner of my back patio last Sunday afternoon. I closed my eyes, restedmy cheekon my two hands, curled my legs into my chest, and listened to the leaves fall.
As the warm breeze blew the leaves light as petals from the tree at the edge of the street, I heard their gentle tap onthe roof,the whisk as they brushed thewindow panes, the...
October 13, 2015
How Many Steps Does It Take to Make A Difference? {hint: not as many as you think}
I was running my standard route a couple of days ago, and as I glanced up from the pavement I literally stopped in my tracks. The tree branches arched over the path to form a tunnel of sorts, and theearly morning light filteredthrough the canopy, falling dappled and soft onto a carpet of crisp leaves. To my left a spray of cat tails stood regal and proud in the marsh, set against a cerulean sky. A warm breeze blew, dancing shadows across the concrete and releasing a shower of leaves like an...
October 10, 2015
Weekend One Word: Roots
I read this verse earlier this week, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since. The rest of it reads like this:
Let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
If you look closely at these words there is a “when-then” order here, which goes like this:
When you let your roots grow down into Jesus and when you let your lives be built on him, then your faith will grow strong in truth, which will then lead...
October 8, 2015
Who Are You?
October 6, 2015
The Truth of My Shadow Side
I had to admit I didn’t believe in God before I could begin to believe in God.
I realize that doesn’t even really make sense. But it’s the truth.
I grew up in the church but had “a hard fall from faith.” That’s usually what I tell people, even now, when I need to give a cursory overview of my spiritual journey. The reality, though, is that I didn’t believe in God for most of my adulthood, perhaps even for much of my childhood.
For a long time – decades — I didn’t admit that to anyone, most e...
