Featured Author Cherie Burbach

Born in Wisconsin in 1966, Cherie Burbach began writing poetry and short stories when she was a young child.  After graduation she entered the field of marketing, where she could use her writing and artistic skills.  “The principles behind marketing, how it motivated people and created perceptions, really intrigued me” Burbach has said.  Marketing became an outlet for her creative side; she could use her writing and design skills and apply them to the business world.  This combination of business coupled with creativity has served her well, especially with The Difference Now, as she wrote the book, painted the cover and the chapter graphics, and used her marketing expertise to help promote it.

While her writing talent was evident from an early age, Burbach lacked confidence in her writing.  Up until a few years ago, she didn’t keep any of the poems or stories she’d written.  She estimates that she destroyed roughly a dozen novels and hundreds of poems over the years.  When her father died when she was 31, she decided it was time for this practice to stop.  The Difference Now has been well received by the public, and is in part a personal accomplishment after years of struggling with this lack of self-confidence.  Enjoy this excerpt.

What is Your “Difference Now” Moment?

Sure, you’ve been through some things in your life.  You’ve made mistakes, had things happen to you that just shouldn’t have, and now stand here today wiser and stronger.  You know you are different today than yesterday, more self confident, more sure of yourself.  And yet... there are those days... when you doubt yourself just a teensy bit.  The days when you question your ability to move on from this latest set back, or when you wonder if you’ve really moved ahead at all.

We all have moments like this.  Hopefully they are brief and quickly consumed by our present day self – the one so much smarter and together than the girl we once were.  But have you ever sat down and consciously thought about when it was you became different?  When those subtle transformations that took place and suddenly every unkind word heading in your direction didn’t pierce your heart and cause you to lose a step?  When did you wake up and realize you were changed, more resilient, and more beautiful than the younger girl without the crow’s feet that you left behind?

Was it a day?  A moment?  Did you wake up and declare, “Yes, I’m no longer that other girl”?  Or did you just one day, in a peaceful minute look out into your yard over a cup of coffee and realize you were different than some days before?

Many of us change slowly and gradually over the years.  We wake up and just realize we are the comfortable woman we wish we were all those years ago.  Sometimes there isn’t an epiphany, just a slight acknowledgement to our self while we are sending the kids to school or writing our umpteenth email for that day. 

My “difference now” moment came while I had lunch with a friend, a month after losing a job that I loved and put all my energy into.  That loss was just one of several other turbulent events for me in the years leading up to it.  She asked me how I was doing with the job hunt, and also how my dating life was going.  Neither of these things are subjects I ever had a positive word about before.  But as I answered her I felt a self-assuredness I knew existed recently but hadn’t ever acknowledged   I told her, “I’m doing fine.”  I said it with such calm that I found it felt good to let the words flow from my mouth.  It felt good because I actually believed it, even though at that particular moment I didn’t have a new job yet and certainly didn’t have a serious boyfriend.

As I told her this she got a look of ease that someone can only get when they finally see their friend succeed after continually watching them struggle over the years.  She knew my history. 

I was a girl, just like you, that had my struggles and problems.  I thought I would never get to a place where I didn’t have them.  And you know what?  I was right – everyone has them and if we’re lucky we have them throughout our life.  I’ve learned from each mistake and acknowledged them as my personalized lesson from God.  I grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father and as a result my life was filled with self-doubt. I lived with self-esteem issues, took up with the worse people for me, consistently made bad choices on the whole.  I worked hard and yet perfected the art of self-sabotage.  Five years ago my father’s alcoholism drove him to suicide, and my need for love and understanding grew that much deeper as I grieved his death. I prayed and listened to God, and realized that sometimes we just need to quiet our expectations so we can embrace all He is trying to give us. 

After my father died, I realized that despite being 30 years old I still resembled the girl that used to cry in her room and write poetry quietly while my father would drink and scream and threaten in the other room.  And when I would finish writing, I would immediately destroy whatever it was I had written.  I made a promise to myself that from that point on, I would not destroy my writing, or anything else in my life that God had graced me with.  I believed then that my writing was a gift from Him and even if I never published, it would be disrespectful to destroy it as if it were nothing.  I now believe that my writing is part of the legacy God had intended for me, and after years of destroying my words, I finally put together a book of poetry and published it.  The response I’ve received is terrific.  Each person that has read my book seems to be moved in a way that draws upon their own experience.

Today, my book is doing quite well, and I take comfort in placing my life in the hands of God.  Not only that but I just got married to a wonderful man I know I met at just the time God intended all along.  And to think, just over a year ago, I predicted it all.

What is your “difference now” moment?  Perhaps it will come like mine on an ordinary day having lunch with a friend as I told her on March 17, 2003, “The difference now is that I don’t believe I deserved the bad things that have happened to me.  I really believe I’ve got better things waiting for me up ahead.”

Cherie Burbach is the author of The Difference Now, a best selling poetic journey of forgiveness, faith, and self acceptance especially pertinent to women.  For info on Ms. Burbach can be found at her website:  www.thedifferencenow.com