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A Feature Review of
Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith
Michelle DeRusha
Paperback: Convergent Books, 2014.
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Reviewed by Paul D. Gregory
There are a multitude of ways in which we come to faith. Being raised in a southern Christian home, I learned early in life about personal relationships with God, the importance of prayer and church attendance. My parents taught me early on what it meant to have a personal relationship with God and how that relationship should sustain me through hard times. Mom and dad were also never shy about the importance of prayer. I can remember being “prayed over” numerous times when I was a kid, which resulted in my learning how to pray from an early age. And our family practically lived on the grounds of the church we attended. Sunday morning and night and Wednesday evenings were standard fare with other days interspersed in between. I believe I was 8 years old when I made my first profession of faith, but the transformation of my mind and heart probably occurred much earlier.
Some may be thinking “Yes, but that’s not the way I was raised.” or “That is not the story of how I came to faith.” And you would be right. Our faith journeys are varied and Michelle DuRusha’s book Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith provides another version. Spiritual Misfit is a sometimes sad, mostly funny, heartfelt depiction of how DeRusha came to faith in God.
The chapters in Spiritual Misfit document the stages of DeRusha’s journey in developing a true faith in God during her life. Regarding her early understanding of faith and God, she said “As a child, I never nurtured a real connection to God because that kind of relationship was never presented as an option…” (13). Throughout the book DeRusha was brutally honest about her need for order and structure. This need to have to control things (“Excel Spreadsheet Life”) played a large part in inhibiting her from “letting go” and developing a deeper faith in God early on in her life
Geographical change (“Lost on the Plains”) provided the hairline crack needed to trigger change in her spiritual life. Her and her husband’s move from the Northeast to Midwest “dislocated” her from her home and ultimately fragmented her identity of place. The result was nothing short of a loss of identity, which in the end forced her to search for her new self.
Along similar lines, DeRusha wrote of the painful transition in finding her new self not only in a new location, but also in church (“In search of Church”). Here she wonderfully detailed how she was forced to negotiate a new culture, including becoming accustomed to “Cornhusker” culture. More importantly, she highlighted the difficulty of navigating a new culture of love, acceptance, and emphasis on Jesus.
DeRusha beautifully addressed how she began to discard her absolute need for order and control in her chapter entitled “Why Not?” Ultimately she described how those rigid notions gave way to the realization that one’s ability to fully understand God was impossible (and maybe even detrimental to one’s well-being). She wrote “I began to understand a belief in God as altogether more than I could ever define, contain, or pin down…” (99).
Her chapter “Bible Banger” addressed the issues many people have (although I bet some never voice out loud) regarding the Bible. Although she still wrestles with her tendency toward concrete knowledge and the Bible, she ultimately chose to view these as mysteries on her journey with God.
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