Michelle DeRusha's Blog, page 7
July 10, 2018
Learning to Listen to Your Soul: 5 Tips for Beginning a Daily Practice of Intentional Rest {Free E-Book!}
Oh, summer…a time of lazy afternoons by the pool, mystery novel in hand; days at the beach, drowsing to the sound of the surf, warm sun on your back; evenings on the back patio, sipping Chardonnay as the fireflies spark.
Wait…what? Your summer doesn’t look exactly like that? Yeah…mine either.
Case in point: A couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference in Wisconsin, my husband Brad was at a conference in Washington, D.C., and our two boys stayed home by themselves for the first time ever. In...
July 3, 2018
What a Newborn Baby Taught Me about America the Beautiful
A baby girl named Eileen Aldake was born this week. Like every name, hers has a story. And like almost every story, this one includes painful chapters, as well as chapters brimming with joy and hope.
My husband and I first met Eileen’s parents and siblings a year and a half ago in the Lincoln airport. They looked travel-weary that afternoon, a little bit like deer caught in a blinding headlight.
They’d been on the run, persecuted by ISIS in Iraq. They’d lost friends and loved ones to genocid...
June 19, 2018
When You Need a Wake-Up Call to Remember Who You Truly Are
A few weeks ago, as we were throttling headlong toward the last day of school, I called one morning to have my oldest dismissed from class for an orthodontist’s appointment. I spoke to the school’s receptionist, letting her know that I would pick Noah up at 11:30 and bring him back shortly after lunch.
A couple of hours later my cell phone rang while I was out running. When I saw it was the school, I quickly paused the podcast I’d been listening to and answered the call.
“Hi, Ms. DeRusha,” t...
June 13, 2018
How Will You Live Your One Life?
My husband Brad and I attended a memorial service a few weeks ago for a person we hadn’t known well. Between the two of us, we’d probably engaged in fewer than a dozen ten-minute conversations with Dennis in the several years we were acquainted with him. Yet as Brad observed, he always walked away from even the briefest conversation with Dennis feeling lighter and more positive. It seemed important to honor that, and so, on a Saturday morning in early May we slipped into one of the back pews...
June 8, 2018
3 Reasons to Spend More Time Outside
Yesterday, after a long day at the computer, I stepped out my back door and plunked into one of the metal patio chairs.
I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and listened to the melodious chatter of two goldfinches, perched in the river birch above my head. I breathed in the sweet scent of magnolia blooms and felt the cement pavers rough and warm under my bare feet. When I opened my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a hummingbird zip past the lilac shrub, its tiny body a flash of jewel tones in t...
May 30, 2018
How to Rekindle Creativity as an Adult
I’ve been listening to a new-to-me podcast called Slow Home during my morning jogs, and this morning the hosts got me thinking about the importance of creativity – in particular, the act of creating not to produce something, but simply for the enjoyment of the creative process itself.
Toward the end of the episode one of the hosts quoted Albert Einstein, who once said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun,” and for the remainder of my run, I couldn’t stop mulling over the connection betwee...
May 23, 2018
Beginning Again After Disappointment
I admit, in the days following the terrible-no-good-very-bad-half-marathon, I seriously considered giving up running for good. Doubt and fear dampened both my confidence and my longtime love of the sport. I wondered if maybe that terrible race was a sign that after 32 years, my running days were over.
The truth is, it’s hard to begin again after experiencing disappointment or failure. As our mind works overtime, a cacophony of voices chanting a negative refrain, we start to second-guess ours...
May 16, 2018
Relationships, Not Rules, Should Matter Most
Even though we are more than a month past Easter, I’m still reflecting on the story from Luke’s gospel that I heard on Good Friday – the one about the criminal who asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his Kingdom.
I’m curious about the man’s personal story. What was his crime? Did he believe in God? Did he believe Jesus, the man hanging next to him on a cross of his own, was really the Messiah?
Luke offers us frustratingly few details. We don’t know the crime, or crimes, the man com...
May 9, 2018
3 Ways to Fail Better
I set a personal record in my fifth half marathon last week. Except it’s not what you think. My PR was for my Worst Half Marathon Time Ever. And not my worst time by mere seconds or a handful of minutes. My worst time by many, many, many minutes.
This was a race I’d trained for diligently since December – more than five months of near-daily running, incrementally building my distance over time. And yet, less than two miles into the 13.1-mile course on Sunday, I knew.
I knew I was going to ha...
May 2, 2018
When You Find Rot at the Root…Again
Recently I rearranged my office. I swapped the curbside table I’d been using for a legitimate desk to give myself more workspace, Goodwilled a bunch of knickknacks, and shifted the orchid from the top of the bookshelf, where it had sat for the last two years, to the corner of my desk.
Not long after, I noticed an influx of ants, mainly on my desk, but some on the floor beneath it too. I thought at first they were emanating from my laptop. I’m a snacker-writer, so I worried that a few too man...
