Cindy DeBoer

The Bigger Sinner

February 17, 2025 by Cindy DeBoer 2 Comments

I didn’t want to hire a maid when we lived in Morocco even though everyone else did. I thought my actions would show my Moroccan friends and neighbors how Americans can sometimes be hardworking and resourceful and that, as a Christian, it was wrong to demean Moroccans by exploiting their cheap labor (the going rate for a maid in 2007 was $10 – $12/day). I thought my friends and neighbors would be so impressed at how selfless, kind and generous I was.

I was so wrong.

Morocco offered no welfare programs, food assistance, or low-cost housing back then (it’s changed a bit in recent years). Without government assistance, per se, the country operated under the unspoken, nation-wide understanding that the “haves” must help the “have-nots.” One of the five pillars of Islam is to give alms to the poor, so culturally, this practice of assisting the poor came quite naturally for Moroccans (over 99% Muslim). One of the primary ways the “haves” helped the poor was to employ as many house staff as possible. It was very common for average families (equivalent to middle-class here in America) to have at a minimum, a maid, a chauffeur, a gardener, and a house guardian. After a dear friend explained these cultural dynamics to me, she said, “I know what you’re trying to do by not hiring a maid, Cindy. You don’t want to take advantage of the cheap labor. I’m sure you’re trying to display how selfless you are. But in reality, your friends and neighbors here will view you as selfish for not offering employment to as many of your impoverished neighbors as possible. Moroccans already view Americans as too wealthy and self-serving. You’d just be cementing those views and showing them that Christians are no different.”

I was mortified. My actions conveyed the exact opposite of my intentions. Embarrassed, we hired a maid the next day.

Our first maid lasted only a few months. Amal was a gregarious twenty-something with master-chef cooking abilities and an indefatigable work ethic. She’d sing while she cooked, danced while she cleaned, and giggled contagiously while helping our kids learn Arabic. She adored our family, and we adored her. But then we suspected she was stealing from us. Eventually, she took a wad of cash we had stashed in the back of our dresser drawer—money we didn’t need, but had hidden there “just in case…”

Because Amal and I had only ever communicated in spotty French—a second language to both of us—I enlisted my tri-lingual Canadian neighbor to serve as Arabic translator (Amal’s first language) for our little conversation about the sin of stealing. Amal immediately melted into tears but refused to admit guilt. In a shame/honor culture (unlike our right/wrong western culture), it is more important to save face than to be honest. I told her she could keep her job if she’d just admit she had done it. She refused to confess but continued crying uncontrollably. I felt so sorry for her because I could see she was in misery. She loved our family and didn’t want to lose her job. (Americans often paid their maids more than Moroccans did).

However, before leaving, Amal gathered herself and she and my neighbor/translator had a long conversation at the door in Arabic. I understood none of it. My neighbor later explained that Amal was still not admitting guilt, but had posited that IF she had, in fact, taken the money, it would have been because, in a sense, the money belonged with her and her community, anyway, due to the fact they had great need, and we had great abundance. She said we were “too blind” to see the poverty around us and should have been convicted of our excess. She said it was sinful for us to keep so much wealth for ourselves, but she recognized we were good people who just didn’t know the right thing to do. She said people like us (every American is considered wealthy in Morocco) should be doing more for those in need and we should have at the very least, hired more house staff. She said families in her neighborhood were struggling to feed their children while we kept money tucked away for no reason.

Amal ended by saying, “If the wealthy won’t do what Allah has asked of them, the poor need to show them how to do it.”

**********

Our home and lifestyle in the little fishing/surfing village where we lived, Dar Bouazza, felt very middle-class to me. However, in a country without a middle-class, per se, we were lumped-in with the tiny sliver of society considered “wealthy” by most Moroccan standards. Dar Bouazza was surrounded by shanty towns in every direction. These neighborhoods were often a huddled mass of shoddily built cinderblock homes with corrugated metal roofs. Most “homes” lacked proper kitchens, running water, or bedrooms. Many shared a community toilet, and the families slept on froshes, the same cushions that served as their couches during the day. Sickness ran rampant. Unemployment commonplace.

This means that every day, when Amal entered our four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with running water, a stove, a refrigerator full of food (so much so, that sometimes things go bad and are tossed), two cars, computers, books and toys, and an overflowing coat and shoe rack, she struggled with the injustice of it all. She’d wash our clothes (more than truly “necessary” for a family of six) in our very own washing machine and as she hung them out on the line (we weren’t that well off… we didn’t own a dryer!) each morning, she’d watch us drive off with our kids— carrying their big lunches and big backpacks—taking them to their private school up the street to the left and think to herself, “They’re nice people, but how can they justify living like this while just up the street to the right lives my family who can’t even afford to have dinner tonight. Why won’t they help the poor more?”

(L) – Our house – the narrow white town house in the middle, adjacent to an empty lot full of garbage, mice and cockroaches who paid us regular visits. (R) Photo from Amal’s neighborhood – a five minute walk from our house.

**********

I’ve never forgotten Amal’s challenging words from the day I fired her. As the years have gone on and I’ve let them simmer and settle into my Christian worldview, I think she may have been right. I now often wonder if our sin of withholding our wealth (socking away money we weren’t “using,” purely for security’s sake) while surrounded by abject poverty there in Morocco was, perhaps, the bigger sin than her stealing from us.

The thing is, Amal’s actions broke a UNIVERSAL law no one questions regardless of what religion you ascribe to (thou shalt not steal). But the hoarding of money is perfectly “legal” worldwide. If we had reported her, she would have gone to jail, not us. It’s the thing that we, the “haves,” love to get all worked up about, isn’t it? We love to point our fingers at the thieves (the desperate “have nots”) and essentially say, “Her! Go get her! She stole from me what is rightfully mine!”

Yet, no one ever questions if perhaps we were thieves, too.

**********

Despite what lies our current leaders are peddling, most migrants are NOT criminals (see references below) and are either asylum seekers, or people seeking work for a brighter future for their families (desiring employment enabling them to send remittances back to their home country). This is a difficult reality for us Americans to understand because we’ve never experienced that degree of desperation. But the rights of asylum seekers are protected by international law. The human right to seek refuge when fleeing danger and persecution is recognized world-wide.

Study upon study on immigration proves immigrants (both the documented and the undocumented) are far less likely to commit crimes than nationals. In fact, in cities where violent crime has been on the decline, a larger number of immigrants directly correlates to a lower crime rate! The last thing an undocumented person would want to do is draw attention to themselves. And yet, as they’ve risked everything to come to America in seeking safety and/or a chance at a better life, we, the richest nation in the world, are essentially telling them “No! Get out!” largely because “It’s the LAW, damnit!”

It’s almost as if we, America, have these “wads of cash stashed in the backs of our dresser drawers” (i.e. surplus of employment, land, space, opportunity, resources) but we get all upset when immigrants come and take any of it. Yes, of course, many have come without proper documentation (which is NOT a crime, by the way, only a civil offense)—which means they have, indeed, broken a law. So they are the ones who get in trouble and are detained and deported and we get to point our bony little condescending fingers at them and yell, “Them! Go get them! They are taking what is rightlfully mine!”

But if it’s true, that our American “dresser drawer” has “cash” stashed in the back for “just in case…”, perhaps we need to ask ourselves this:

Could it be that we are thieves, too?

Which begs the question, who’s the bigger sinner?

Glossary of terms (These are words I realized I was using incorrectly until my kids educated me):

Migrant: person moving from one country to another
Refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster and have COMPLETED a thorough screening process (which can often take years to process while they wait in refugee camps), and have been CLEARED to resettle in the US. They are 100% legal.
Asylum seekers: people looking to apply for asylum because of documentable dangerous conditions in their home country. Asylum seekers sometimes reside within the US borders while waiting for their case to be heard by an asylum officer of the U.S. government, and they sometimes wait outside the US border. If granted asylum, they are 100% legal residents.
Illegals – a derogatory term that dehumanizes immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The moment someone submits an asylum claim, they enter into the “system” and are “documented” with legal rights. Coming to America without proper documentation is NOT A CRIME, but an administrative infraction punishable by deportation, not incarceration.
Undocumented Immigrant: someone who has traveled to another country without proper documentation

References:

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/03/immigrants-are-significantly-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-the-us-born/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CA%20surprising%20finding%20was%20the,educated%20men%20in%20recent%20decades.%E2%80%9D
https://theconversation.com/proof-that-immigrants-fuel-the-us-economy-is-found-in-the-billions-they-send-back-home-227542#:~:text=Several%20studies%20indicate%20that%20remittances,wages%20of%20over%20$466%20billion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/18/briefing/the-myth-of-migrant-crime.html
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/immigrants-and-crime

My Broken Family

September 6, 2024 by Cindy DeBoer 2 Comments

While living overseas, our family had several fortuitous opportunities to experience and explore both Europe and Africa. Unfortunately, traveling as a family of six on budget airlines with minimal luggage allotment meant almost ZERO space for souvenirs.

One time, however, we just had to make an exception. During our two years living in France, we were offered a chance of a lifetime to attend a conference in South Africa. Although still a 10-hour flight south across the entire African continent, we lunged at the opportunity positing, “Well, we’ll never live this close to Africa again – let’s go for it!” (Geeesh! How wrong that assumption turned out to be!)

We stayed in the eerily deserted post-apartheid city of Johannesburg, visited the shanty towns of Soweto and the mostly white Afrikaans capital city Praetoria, and scouted for the “Big 5” on an African Safari in Kruger Park. I’ve been told I use the phrase “life-changing” too often, but South Africa truly WAS life-changing! (And now that I think about it, why would I want to participate in anything that doesn’t, in some way, change/improve me???)

Because South Africa soaked deep into our bones, I simply HAD to find a way to bring home some kind of tangible thing from that country.

After scouring the open-air market, I opted for a sculpture made from ebony wood. It’s a carving of a six-member family embracing one another in a circle. To me, nothing symbolized our family’s unity via our unique path in life better than that carving.

I gingerly hauled that unwieldy, lead-like, behemoth in my hand-luggage all the way “home” to France. It faithfully watched over us from its perch on our mantle for two years. Then I carried that hulking thing back to America in a padded handbag where it again found a home on our fireplace mantel. Three years later, the sculpture was one of very few decorative items to make the “cut” for our limited luggage space and accompany us on our move to Morocco. It was THAT special. Strangely, it felt like that carving carried some power of actually holding our family together as we bounced around the world.

Although ebony is wood, it’s extremely heavy, shiny and smooth so it looks and behaves more like stone, or even dense ceramic. And so, when someone accidentally knocked it off our fireplace hearth in Morocco, it crashed onto the tile floors and broke into at least 20 pieces.

For weeks, I mourned the loss of a “treasure.” But once I got a hold of myself, I decided that even if it’d look ridiculous, I’d glue the many pieces of my sculpture back together. And then it fell and broke into pieces again. And again. And again.

Today, my beautiful sculpture has more fault lines than the San Andreas.

However, I continue to proudly display this special carving in my home. It will always remind me of another place and another time when our family lived in faraway places and was as unified and whole as a family can possibly be.

I was dusting recently when I picked up the sculpture and the “Mom-piece” snapped off in my hand. My heart skipped a beat. I immediately felt this was a foreshadowing of my imminent death. For someone with a nasty lung disease, those thoughts are not entirely irrational. Pummeled with intrusive thoughts of how a dead mother would be better for my kids than a needy, sick mother, I moped around for days waiting for a lung to collapse (common with my disease) and death to ensue.

Which, (obviously) never happened.

I squelched those negative thoughts with a reminder that the sheer fact I wake up each day means I’m definitely supposed to still be here. In spite of this stupid lung disease that originally thrust a 10-year life-expectancy in my face, in a medically baffling twist, my life keeps drumming on rather normally 11 years later. I looked down at my pathetic ebony sculpture – which now looked like total garbage that most normal people would have decidedly chucked by now – and decided that I MUST, both literally and figuratively, stay attached to my people.

So, in a death-defying act, I grabbed the glue.

As I glued myself back onto the others in my family, I ran my fingers over all the cracks, fissures and holes and became overcome with emotion. I suddenly realized that this – THIS UGLY MESS OF A SCULPTURE – is eerily representative of our family today in REAL time.

I’m still not entirely sure how it happened, but over the last several years we’ve been battered, stretched and tested and I think every one of us has felt akin to this sculpture when it landed splat on the hard tile floor and broke into bits. We, too, have been feeling very broken. No longer representative of who we once were, and unsure of who we’ve become.

Of course, sometimes things break. Of course, relationships will take hits. Of course, we will find ourselves splayed open at times. Of course, we will not always be as shiny and polished and new as a freshly carved ebony sculpture sitting in a market in Johannesburg. That “shiny” moment, that “new-beginning” feeling, and that “unmarred” occasion is gone and cannot return. Similarly, life is always pushing us forward and beautiful new beginnings disappear in a breath. And there’s no rewind. Just forward. Just like life pushed our family forward from continent to continent, it also now moves us forward through changing seasons of relationships and our polish is getting worn down. Whenever we take the risk of relationship, we must accept there will be some falls that result in cracks. We’ll inevitably get hurt and we’ll inevitably hurt others.

If we’re alive, there’s no escaping the cracks on this pilgrimage.

Unexpected Cracks

No one tells you that this parenting gig gets harder when less “parenting” is actually involved. No one warns you that as middle-agers you don’t, in fact, get to just “hang out” until Jesus comes because the hardest relational work is still before you. As we attempted to figure out what life should look like at this juncture (Are we still parents? Are we just peers? Should we call? Should we give them space? Can I bring them lasagna?) and walk the thin line between overbearing and uninvolved, our kids described a sense of disorientation and disillusionment. We’ve had to work our way through difficult changes, challenges, and seasons of life that none of us anticipated or prepared for.

Yet, as I smeared Gorilla glue into the seam of the sculpture where “Mom” belongs, it hit me what a beautiful thing glue is.

When it comes to relationships, Gorilla Glue is “grace.”

Apart from grace, all people and all relationships would be laying in a big heap of ebony shards.

Grace means I see you, I know you, and I know your heart. And no matter how I’ve been hurt, I still want you in this circle with me and want to keep you glued on.

Grace means I do not have to fear making a mistake. If I do, I know you’ll pick me up and glue me back on.

Grace means if we disagree, there’s no risk of permanent separation because we have this glue. We will hold tight to one another agreeing that God gives us grace SO THAT two imperfect people can, in fact, get along.

Grace means if you forget my birthday or I forget yours, or if we don’t hold the same value to a family holiday or personal event or informal gathering, it’s okay – we’ll hand each other the glue.

Grace means that if I don’t text back soon enough, I won’t be exiled because we’ve got glue.

Grace is the substance that holds us together EVEN when the world suggests we walk away to “find ourselves” or tells us relationships are “toxic” when, in reality, they’re just NORMAL and require the NORMAL amount of hard work.

Grace says, “I know you didn’t mean it. You were just having a bad day.”

Grace says, “I know you love me. Even if I’m not feeling it today, I know it’s true.”

When your head hurts due to ugly crying from a conversation gone awry, or from a door-slamming fight, or from an overwhelming feeling of abandonment from someone close to you, grace is the calm that washes over you and gives you the strength to just let it go, or to make the phone call, or to offer the olive branch and go out for beers together, or to apologize (even if you’re 100%, without a doubt, absolutely sure, it’s not your fault).

Glue puts us back together no matter WHO snapped off and no matter WHY the break happened and says, “We’re better off together WITH cracks, then not together at all.”

Apparently, the Japanese figured this all out long before me:

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a concoction of lacquer and gold, resulting in pottery covered in a web of gold cracks. The philosophy behind the practice says when a vessel breaks, the brokenness should never be disguised or give reason to cast off the piece, but instead, it should be recognized simply as a part of the history of the vessel. In fact, Japanese tradition posits pottery with lots of Kintsugi actually INCREASES in value.

Today, as a family morphing into a new season, we are less certain about who we are and what, exactly, our roles are in this stage of life. But we are seeping glue (grace) out of all our collective seams, and I’m pretty sure that means we’re worth more now than ever.

It’s Been Ten Years… So Why Am I (still) Alive?

November 22, 2023 by Cindy DeBoer 10 Comments

On the day before Thanksgiving, 2013, in a closet-sized, moldy-smelling exam room, a University of Michigan pulmonologist confirmed my fear: the shortness of breath I’d been experiencing was due to a rare, progressive, degenerative, and often terminal lung disease, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). Paul and I sobbed the entire drive home from Ann Arbor.

Not surprisingly, a rare disease doesn’t draw the research dollars compared to something like, say, cancer. I get it. Why put out a toaster fire when a whole city is burning down the street? Lack of research funds translates to a lack of up-to-date information as well as a cure. So even though sources were minimal, I scrambled to learn everything I could about this unwanted guest residing in my lungs. Most everything I read at that time suggested women with LAM (it’s a sexist disease – only women get it) had, on average, 10 years to live from the time of diagnosis.

Attempting to make sense of my imploded world after learning my years on this planet would be reduced, I wrote a blog about it and it kind of went viral. You can find that original blog here. And now, as someone shocked to still be alive, I feel compelled to revisit that original blog. Although it reads like a re-imagined list of life priorities, in actuality, it was a simple attempt to find the meaning of life. I had to. I’d been handed an “expiration date,” and I would never again have the luxury of NOT thinking about how I’d spend my precious days.

A humbling and unexpected experience these past 10 years has been watching from the sidelines as many, many other women with LAM have passed away. Especially during COVID. What a gut-wrenching time as numerous LAM-sisters lost their lives (don’t even get me started on how I believe society failed us, the vulnerable…) And for mysterious reasons most likely tied to hormones, LAM tends to spread more quickly and be more severe for women under the age of 40. This means that often, the deceased are younger than me. These precious ones are taken to heaven during child-bearing years – often leaving young children behind.

So what the heck am I still doing here?

Why them and not me?

New Thoughts for a New Decade

It seems to me God chose the wrong “mama” to take home. Why wouldn’t he take the one who has lived more than half a century and watched all her children enter adulthood than the one in her 30s with small children at home? Did God goof?

This line of thinking has kept me up at night and given me many a migraine these past 10 years.

NOT the reasons I’m still alive:

I always believed our single most important purpose here on earth was to bring God glory. I think, like the good Calvinists we were, we learned about “saved by faith alone” at a very, very young age so that we didn’t freak out about trying to please God and think our salvation depended on it. But simply glorifying God can NOT be why God keeps me (and you) here on planet earth. Because, if he truly just desires our praise and glory, he’d receive it even MORE PERFECTLY and MORE ABUNDANTLY from us in heaven. Here on earth, we fall short and screw it all up much of the time. God would have us all at his feet in heaven if glorifying Him is all we were created for.

Other Christians tell me that we’re supposed to just be grateful and bask in God’s beauty and goodness. They say that by doing this, we please God and that THAT is the meaning of our existence. Be HAPPY, Be THANKFUL, and WATCH more sunsets, they say.

I find that sorrowfully lame as well. For one, I’m not so sure how I feel about the “goodness of God” anymore anyway. I think, as is clear in the Beatitudes, that HIS definition of “good” is not the same as OURS. For another reason, I feel like we wealthy, privileged, and first-world Christians love to use thankfulness as our panacea. We dodge the responsibility of leveraging all our “#blessings” to help “the least of these” by incessantly repeating how darn thankful we are.

What would SHE say is the reason I’m still alive?

I can’t stop thinking about what one of my younger deceased LAM-sisters (that’s what we call each other) would say to me. How would she, as one who passed away in her 30’s and left behind several young children, feel about me and my choices, as one whom God spared and has made it to 57 years old?

If it were possible that this LAM-sister could watch me from heaven, would she be pleased that I spend all kinds of hours feeling sorry for myself? Would she say I’m living my best life as I watch more HGTV or reruns of Friends? Would she want me to obsess more about shopping – buying new cars, better clothes, and bigger homes with my bonus years that she was robbed of? Would she think the hours I spend taking care of all my “stuff” and buying more “stuff” is honorable? Would she be supportive of God’s decision to take her home early yet spare me as I hold grudges, argue with my husband, gossip with friends, or spend hours trying to change someone’s political bend?

Just the thought of all the ways I cheapen this existence – this ONE PRECIOUS LIFE, while she, my LAM-sister doesn’t even GET an existence, sickens me.

When I wallow in self-pity and pilfer away my days in meaningless activities, it feels to me, that in some way, I’m dishonoring the legacy of my LAM sisters – or of anyone who has gone before me who really should still be here on earth. I feel that if I’m not living my best life, I’m basically saying to those deceased: I don’t like the gift of life I’ve been granted. I’d rather be you.

The Good Life

It’s such an existential question: what are we here for? As I write this blog, I’m finding it much easier to identify all the things I am NOT placed on earth for. But when I parse out those things, I’m left with a conclusion that makes me tremble. I’m left with the conclusion that there IS STILL SOMETHING LEFT FOR ME TO DO. Not to just simply be, but to BE fully alive and DO something. Which begs the question: How do I know if I’m fully alive?

I don’t know.

I often think I’m really living and living abundantly. But then I see other people (Christians) who are doing it so differently from me and are as equally convinced that they are the ones actually really living.

But what I do know – and you know this, too – is that there are these holy-moment times when we feel very much alive and we don’t want them to end and it’s almost as if we can feel God smiling down on us. For me, those moments are when I:

Sit with a patient at my psychiatric hospital who may be battling things like suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, anger, fear, hopelessness, or helplessness, or any number of mental struggles, and just listen to them. Not necessarily speak – but just sit with them in the moment.
Sit oceanside and get all caught up in the mystery and massiveness of a God who holds the oceans in his hands and cry my eyes out for at least an hour.
Scoot my 2-year-old granddaughter down the sidewalk in her Little Tykes cozy coupe and pretend we are going to Costa Rica to sell strawberries, but then abruptly stop because she sees a yellow wildflower and yellow is her mama’s “favowite.”
Watch a sunset over a small inland lake in the middle of Michigan with my high-school sweetheart whom I’ve now been married to for 37 years.
Give with extravagant generosity – more than the world would say is prudent.
Soak in the chatter when all four kids, their partners, and grandbaby have gathered in our home and I hear them cover things like Israel/Gaza, refugees, which breed is better: weaner dogs or Bernadoodles?, who’s the best SNL character ever, a new book release by Jedidiah Jenkins, best practices in sourcing quality coffee, the takeaway from the morning’s sermon, and does anyone want to go to the border and learn about the crisis firsthand from a non-bias, NGO?
Walk. Whether in the flower greenhouses in the spring, Meijer Gardens in the summer, the woods in the fall, or our neighborhood in the winter after a fresh fallen snow. I FEEL God when I walk.
Spend time with the six junior high girls in my small group at the Potters House School
Tell Alexa to play a random favorite worship song and instruct her to “turn it up” so loud that the walls of this old former crack house just shake in worship along with me.

So while I may have failed at planting more trees and visiting our local nursing home regularly (goals from my blog 10 years ago), I’m learning there are definitely some actions that bring light and life (either to me or to the life of others) and, in return, make the world a better place to be.

I want to be all about ACTIONS that bring LIGHT and LIFE. I want to do more than just “be” and kill time until Jesus calls me home. I want to DO some things.

WAIT A MINUTE! Can Saved-By-Faith Christians actually SAY THAT???

There was a time when Paul and I sold just about everything we owned, packed up the four kids, and moved abroad to just live for Jesus in a place where not many others do. Somewhere during that time, someone told us we were “works righteous.” In other words, they suggested our actions indicated we were trying to EARN God’s gift of salvation. That accusation stung hard and burned deep. And I still reflect on it. Why does it still hurt? Because for the life of me, I can’t NOT DO things. It’s what gets me out of bed every day. It’s what I feel deep down in my bones – that whenever and wherever it is possible, we have been called to DO something that matters.

In general, I find it is the Christians who would rather not DO anything difficult or unsavory, who like to call “foul” on their fellow believers in action.

It seems to all come down to this: Love God, Love others. The Bible seems very clear to me on HOW we are to love others – to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the alien in our midst. To love our neighbor as ourselves. THIS, to me, is the life well lived. Not necessarily the easy, comfortable, feel-good life – but a life that matters.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not think God demands us to live a life void of pleasurable things that simply exist to make us happy (think sports, entertainment, food, etc.). I think he maybe even takes pleasure in watching us be pleased. BUT… WHAT IF… WHAT IF we were most pleased by our actions of loving others??? Then, our “pleasurable experiences” would be the ACTUAL things he has CALLED us to do in this life!

Maybe we need to recalibrate what brings us pleasure and joy.

Maybe THAT is the intersection of our great joy and God’s great joy.

God-Breathers

Our pastor once taught us about YHVH – the Jewish name for God. It was a name so sacred, that Jews couldn’t even say it out loud, they only breathed the word. And, ironically, YHVH is the actual translated word for BREATH. So, the name of GOD, which they dared not say, but only breathed, is the word BREATHE!

So, if I’m still alive and every single breath I take is actually me breathing in and out the very name of GOD, I can also conclude that as a God-breather, I am to blow my breath towards all those who do NOT know God and do not know from where their breath comes.

Now THAT is a reason to still be alive!!!

God-breathers, WE are God’s plan for this earth, we have a purpose, and we’ve been called – oh, so clearly – to bravely breathe the message of God to others. ALL the others. And love them. Love them with a costly, extravagant love for as long as we have breath.

A Movie or a Movement?

August 17, 2023 by Cindy DeBoer 3 Comments

While America salutes and spars over “Barbenheimer,” I decided to circle a different wagon and checked out the Sound of Freedom. And Whoa.

Just Whoa.

Spoiler alert – the movie is about trafficking children for sex and make no mistake about it, there’s nothing “entertaining” or “comfortable” about those two hours and fifteen minutes.

And yet, I loved it. Not in the way I love chocolate, or Paul, or books. But I loved it because it stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest and it’s got us all talking about something far more important than The Bear or high school football.

All the social media platforms are reverberating with posts from the (predominately Christian) viewers who are disgusted and angry about this “atrocity.” Messages like the following abound:

Every Christian needs to see this movie!
Did you know the “left” didn’t even want this movie made?
Watch your children!“They” (traffickers) are everywhere!
Stay away from the mall! “They” (traffickers) are all over the mall!
This is why I don’t travel abroad!
Somebody (else) needs to do something!

By all means, let’s feel the anger and the rage. Rage! Rage! Child sex trafficking is evil at its core. But honestly, friends, the responses above are based in fear and really do absolutely nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. If creating a raging population is the culmination of this movie, then what good is it really? Awareness is nothingness if not paired with action. We Christians love to get all worked up about things. What we don’t seem to love as much is DOING something about those things.

In the words of the great Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Dr. Seuss

To be honest, I found myself quite frustrated with this movie mostly for what was NOT said. Where was the call to action? Where was the QR code at the end of the movie that connects us to anti-trafficking agencies? Why wasn’t a list of organizations fighting against child sex trafficking offered up in the credits? At the VERY least, tell us how to donate to Tim Ballard’s own organization: Operation Underground Railroad (OUR).

THIS collective blood boiling simply cannot be the end of the conversation.

This movie needs to spark a MOVEMENT.

Paul and I first heard about the sex trafficking of children about 20 years ago from the founder of International Justice Mission (IJM), Gary Hougan. (In fact, OUR is a fairly young operation and was “made in the image” of IJM). Gary had been invited to speak at our church and talked very frankly about the global crisis of child sex trafficking. Never has a congregation sat so still and so quiet. I was especially shaken by the account of a 5-year-old girl in Cambodia who had been chained to a bed and raped over 10 times a day before IJM rescued her. At that time, our own daughter, Grace, was also five years. I could NOT get past the contradiction that while Grace – all dolled up in her purple corduroy dress and white tights – was learning about Jesus and eating goldfish crackers in her safe and serene Sunday School classroom, another little girl EXACTLY HER AGE was, somewhere in the world, chained to a bed and being raped all day long. I ran to the bathroom to rinse out the puke in my mouth.

Near the end of his talk, Gary said people often approach him after he has shared about IJM and ask what they can do. Some want to fly to Thailand, or Cambodia, or Honduras, or Columbia and raid the brothels with him. They want to “go after” the bad guys. Others want to “love on” the poor children rescued from these terrorists. Fresh with new information that leaves us reeling, some well-intentioned people offer to jump in and try to “fix” it. As the quintessential act-first-think-second-person that I am, that is EXACTLY what had been going through my mind: “Lord, tell me what I should do. I must DO something! There’s got to be a way IJM can use a nurse and an accountant! Send us, Lord! Send us!!!”

But Gary’s last statement was the most pointed of all and it was directed right at me. He said, “The problem is, if you’re not a well-trained cross-cultural lawyer, or if you’re not a therapist with PTSD expertise, or if you’re not a bad-ass private investigator who’s willing to go face-to-face with the world’s worst criminals, then I can’t use you. We just don’t need doctors or nurses, engineers, accountants, teachers, and mechanics.” (Of course, he had to list OUR two professions…) And then he went on: “If you REALLY want to help rescue children sold into sex slavery but you’re not from one of those three very specific professions, then what we really need is your money. The bottom line is this: with more money, we can hire more professionals and we can rescue more people – especially children – who are trapped in the sex trade. If you want to make a difference, just go work hard at the job God has given you and then send money.”

After the service, we asked Gary what kind of response he usually gets after speaking to a crowd like this. He looked around at the huge sanctuary (we were a church of around 8,000 – 10,000 at the time) and said, “Initially, there’s significant interest. But in a month? There will most likely be just a few of you still involved. People tend to push hard stuff to the back of their minds which leads to forgetting about it.”

Our family has traveled to Guatemala multiple times with a ministry that primarily focuses on feeding programs for starving widows and children in the poorest mountain regions of Guatemala. The ministry hosts church groups week after week, month after month, year after year to help foster a “marriage” between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the world. On one of those trips, while winding our way through the mountains toward Chichicastanengo, I had a rare private moment with the director so I pummeled him with questions: “With all the groups you host down here, what percentage would you say continue to stay in touch and support the work here in Guatemala? His answer nearly doubled me over: “Probably less than 5%. Most often, I never hear from the teams serving here again. But we must do all the work to host all these people all year round in order to find that 5% because that 5% represent most of our financial support. Most people just get busy back in America and forget about us.”

Oh, Jesus-people of the world! Let us not get too busy that we forget about these precious children enslaved in sex trafficking!

The Least of These

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?”

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done for me.” Matthew 25:35 – 40

We traveled with our kids to some crazy, off-the-wall, eye-opening places in their younger years. And no matter how young they were at the time – we would follow it up with: “With knowledge comes responsibility. So, now, the challenge is yours, child: what will you do with this knowledge?”

(I know, I know… we messed our kids up good with that kind of talk. But I have no regrets.)

So, dear friends, what are we going to do with this knowledge of child sex trafficking?

We can no longer say, “I just didn’t know.”

Now, we all know.

Set me free, Lord. Set me free.

I believe this movie can do even more than just help children in sex bondage be set free. I believe this movie has the power to set us ALL free.

Free from the traps that make us fist-clench our money.

Free from the fear that we’ll never have “enough” in our bank accounts.

Free from the lie that a 10% tithe is enough. (In truth, American Christians, on average, tithe 2.5% of their annual income. My husband, the public accountant who practices in THE MOST philanthropic county in America where you’d expect giving to be off the charts, confirms this statistic.)

Free from the lie that we need a “X” amount of money saved up for a potential unforeseen crisis or for retirement. (Who dictates this anyway? I don’t know, but I know it is driven by fear.)

Free from the lie:“If we only had EXTRA cash like so-n-so does”we’d be able to give more. (“Extra”is so nebulous. I don’t consider myself “extra”, but I just counted and I have 23 pairs of shoes. Oh dear God – we ALL have so much “extra.”)

Free from the false belief that we can only give generously when we have serious excess. (Let’s be honest, we tend to give from our excess, not our first fruits.)

Oh Lord, set us free from these lies so that we can go forth with ridiculous, EXTRAVAGANT generosity and help these little sons and daughters made in your image to be set free from the tyranny of sex trafficking. Because the actual truth is that we all have too much. Every single one of us can dig a little deeper and give a little more. I wonder if there are any of us that have ever given until it actually hurt? I know I haven’t. And yet, I believe these exploited children deserve nothing less.

WE are God’s plan. He put YOU and ME here on this planet for such a time as this. There is no PLAN B.

Let’s do this, friends. Let’s go.

Organizations that fight against sex-trafficking (click link to access website):

International Justice Mission

Operation Underground Railroad

Sacred Beginnings

Leaky Breasts and Other Hot Messes

April 13, 2023 by Cindy DeBoer 2 Comments

Recently, while at work at the psychiatric hospital, I caught a glimpse of myself in a patient’s bathroom mirror and noticed a large wet spot on my t-shirt just below my left breast. It was an odd location for a spill, but I chalked it up to my clumsiness and threw on a hoodie to conceal the spot. But minutes later, I felt wetness on my right side, too. I snuck away into the bathroom and peered under my sweatshirt. Sure enough, just like a breast-feeding mama who forget to put her nursing pads in place, I had two huge wet spots under both my breasts.

My heart picked up pace and I felt flushed. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Not only can I not even REMEMBER those breast-feeding days, my chemo-riddled body is decidedly void of hormones that might stimulate lactation.

Now, a psych hospital is a dizzying busy place that offers no time to “deal” with such a situation. I pressed on in my work and did my best to feign a “caring nurse.” Honestly, I didn’t care about anybody anymore – I just wanted to know why the heck my boobs were leaking! My t-shirt grew more and more soggy as my shift wore on. I secretly took my pulse, temperature, and blood pressure. All normal. I tried to convince myself I was fine. But as soon as I could steal a minute away, I Googled, “Why are my post-menopausal breasts leaking?” My heart sank as I discovered there’s no reason EVER that old ladies’ boobs should leak. Except cancer.

I don’t know how I made it through those 8 hours at work. I was certain I had cancer and I was certain this was the beginning of my end.

Once home, I shared me news with Paul and told him it had to be cancer. We shared a few somber moments of quiet fear. This wasn’t the first time I’d been certain of pending doom, but this time really did feel ominous.

This is my shirt when I got home from work.

I purposely procrastinated on calling my doctor the next morning. I wanted one last day of living without confirmation of cancer. Grief hung around my neck like a chain of bricks. I cancelled lunch with a friend. I lied to my daughter and said I didn’t have time to talk. I googled some more things which nudged me further off the cliff of despair. By nightfall, full-on hysteria had set in. All I could think of was all the things I’d miss by dying so young: my daughters getting married, meeting our future grandchildren, publishing my book, and family vacations and holidays. And – worst of all – I didn’t want to die before my sweet mother. She’s already lost one daughter way too soon, I didn’t want her to suffer like that again.

Totally exhausted from whipping through ALL five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance – in less than 24 hours, I decided to decompress with a hot shower. While there, I looked down at my tired breasts and thought, “Man, they sure don’t look sick. It’s so weird that these two things that have served me so well, are going to be the death of me.”

And that’s when I received my shower epiphany. I suddenly wondered if these worn-out breasts weren’t to blame after all. As quickly as I could towel-dry, I ran downstairs to our laundry area and picked up the bra I had worn to work the night before. I grabbed a scissors and without any reserve of destroying a perfectly good $50 bra, I cut into that sucker and the “gentle padding” that lined the cups. My heart sank when the padding was only that: a “barely there” bit of thin foam. However, something prompted me to go full-on surgeon and rip into the center of the foam. Lo and behold – there, at the center of the padding was a little thin plastic case of nothing. It held NOTHING, because the SOMETHING it once held had already leaked out all over me and my t-shirt at work!

That stupid old bra of mine had probably been worn and washed so many times that the little silicone “enhancer” pads had basically cracked – bathing me in silicone juice.

Who thought this was a good idea to hide silicone pouches inside a piece of foam? Definitely a bra made by a dude.

So, it doesn’t look like I’ll be dying today, anyway.

Now, there’s two ways to process this leaky breast ordeal – either I’m an idiot OR… I’m just suffering from some form of PTSD like the rest of the world and will hastily jump to “the sky is falling” when there’s the slightest inkling something is off. I prefer to believe the latter.

It’s true though, isn’t it? Aren’t we all on edge? In no way am I suggesting this is akin to military-service PTSD. Not even close to the same thing. But it is feels to me that we, all humanity, is experiencing many of the symptoms that categorize PTSD. No one is sleeping anymore. When in public, our hearts stop at every loud “pop” or “bang” thinking we’ve just been shot because, well, there’s a good chance we have been. When people cough or sneeze into our personal space we wonder if we’ve caught the next deadly strain of COVID. We turn on the evening news with fear and trepidation wondering what terrible thing a leader has said or done, or what natural disaster has laid claim to unsuspecting regular people, or what new inciting incident will now add to our growing racial divide? It’s like we’re all expecting Freddy Kreuger to walk in on us at any given moment. Every day there is something, isn’t there? Something that adds to our unrest and builds our stress-level.

So how do we live peaceably in this world full of turmoil and conflict?

Oh friends, I’m not even talking to any of you anymore. I’m full-on talking to myself now.

I’ve got to take my own medicine. As a psychiatric nurse, I often give my patients advice on how to “wind down” when they are all “wound up.” My best tips include things like deep breathing exercises, reading scripture, go for a walk, talk to a trusted friend or family member, connect with nature, do something kind for someone else.

But my number one piece of advice to my troubled patients in these troubled times and which I’m currently desperate to receive is this:

GIVE YOURSELF GRACE.

It’s okay if we’re not okay. For now, it’s okay to acknowledge we are struggling.

It’s okay if tasks take a little longer than we’d like them to.

It’s okay if we’re forgetting things more often than we used to.

It’s normal if we’re not sleeping as well as before.

It’s okay if we’re not “sprinting” out of the fog, but instead feel more as if we’re crawling.

It’s okay if we feel our faith has been rattled. That’s standard fare for PTSD.

It’s perfectly fine, healthy, and good to be seeing a therapist and we need to put an end to any stigma associated with mental self-care here and now.

COMFORT FROM SCRIPTURE

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4: 6-7

Amidst such a tumultuous time in history, it’s not going to make sense when we find that peace, friends. It WILL surpass our own understanding as well as that of others. But, it’s that EXACT radical and unexplainable peace that is ours for the taking.

I’m thinking I need this verse tattooed on my forearm or something. I certainly forgot all about it when my bra burst.

We’ve been through a lot, friends. Life has just been A LOT. And there really isn’t any sign on the horizon that things are going to get better this side of heaven. Our only hope going forward is to trust the promises of HE, THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN BE FULLY TRUSTED.

A FINAL GIFT TO YOU

If I can leave you with just one positive thing today, let it be this: Put this song on your favorite listening app and play it over and over and over until it gets stuck in your head like Baby Shark or It’s a Small World:

Andrew Peterson’s: Be Kind To Yourself.

And if you’re looking for a new tattoo, this part of the song, where Jesus is speaking, would make a good one:

You can’t expect to be perfect
It’s a fight you’ve gotta forfeit
You belong to me whatever you do
So lay down your weapon, darling
Take a deep breath
And believe that I love you

Do You and I Have Blood-Dripping Fangs?

July 21, 2022 by Cindy DeBoer 3 Comments

Paul and I have a Libyan friend who, despite growing up in nearly 100% Muslim Libya and being raised by a devout Muslim family, converted to Christianity as a young adult after learning about Jesus on Christian satellite radio. Our friend, whom I’ll call Mourad, (his life would literally be in jeopardy if his Christianity were revealed) shared with us his account of the first time he ever traveled outside of Libya.

Mourad had been invited to a Christian conference in France to share his experience of life as an “underground” Libyan Christian. He told us he was both thrilled and terrified to leave the comfort and safety of the only home, city, and country he had ever known. After successfully navigating the airport in Paris, Mourad stumbled his way around the city until he found the train station where he’d board a train to his final destination. With an hour to burn, Mourad eyed a coffee/food kiosk and decided to grab a bite to eat.

Concerned the barista wouldn’t understand his French (he had only used online tutorial sites for a few weeks now), Mourad practiced his order while waiting in line: “short black coffee” and a “croissant almondine.” He was so surprised when she understood him! But he was even more surprised when he understood the barista’s response when she brought him the two items, looked at his credit card and said, “I’m sorry. Cash only. Our card machine is broken.” Mourad panicked. He didn’t have any Euros – only Libyan dinars. His eyes darted around the train station hoping to find a hidden ATM. He saw none. He felt his cheeks redden and worried the growing line of people behind him were frustrated. He silently chastised himself for choosing to wear his Libyan jellaba which was a clear indication of his religious affiliation, not to mention his nationality. He was contemplating just walking away when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Mourad described it this way:

“I turned around and here’s this tiny little lady – maybe 80 or 85 years old. She didn’t even reach my chest. She smelled like roses and coffee and her eyes sparkled when she talked. She smiled at me and said, ‘Let me pay for it. You appear to be new to France and I like to welcome new people. I’ll pay this time and maybe someday you can do the same for someone else.’ I thanked her but then told her I didn’t accept money from strangers. So, she extends her tiny worn hand to me and says, ‘Hi, I’m Elsa Benowitz. Now I am your friend. Now you can let me pay!’ Then she actually winked at me and told me to grab my food and have a good day!

I was flabbergasted. I knew immediately she was a Jew. A name like Benowitz can only be Jewish. But as I looked at this sweet, tiny, generous woman before me, my mind pounded like a jackhammer. I couldn’t make any sense of it. My whole life I’d been told that Jews have blood-dripping fangs – that their blood-lust toward Muslims is so profound they will lunge at you. I was told their eyes are so full of evil, you can identify them simply by their glare. Muslims in Libya believe Jews have a certain smell – the smell of blood – and that when they meet Muslims, they will either spit at you, hurt you, or kill you. This sweet woman in front of me was the antithesis of all that. I’m sure she assumed I was Muslim, but she emanated kindness and love. She even shook my hand and paid for my lunch!

I’m an educated young man. I’ve graduated from university, have a prestigious career and now I am a Christian. I know how to think logically and rationally and make sound deductions from evidence. I know how ridiculous it must sound that I believed Jews were ‘blood-thirsty pigs’ whose primary goal is to kill Muslims and eliminate the Islamic faith. I know now it is unfathomable that I truly believed Jews had fangs and wanted to suck our blood – but I did. For 25 years, that is all I had been told and I had every reason to believe it based on hearsay. I had never met a Jew. But in that moment, at that little coffee stand in a French train station, my world of beliefs came crashing down. I was forced to reconcile everything I’d been told to what I was seeing before me: a kind, compassionate human being.”

Mourad shared that story with us nearly 10 years after it occurred, yet he still choked back the tears as he recalled the moment his heart was forever changed toward Jewish people by simply encountering one elderly Jewish woman.

I think this story serves as a powerful reminder for those of us who strictly adhere to a narrative that we’ve only been told – something we’ve never questioned, explored, or researched. Sometimes, without even meaning to, we end up on a path that we did not choose but others put us on.

For way too long now, major news outlets – Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, all of them! – have been telling us what to think and believe about those who disagree with us. They spend more time telling us how “evil” the other side is than they do telling us the news. If you don’t believe me, take just 15 minutes during primetime to watch the channel that is opposite of what you usually watch. Within minutes, you will be cringing because the narrative insists “the other side” (which is talking about YOUR side) is hateful, deceitful, heartless, and selfish and whose goal is to destroy America and destroy “the other.” Sound familiar? Cable news may not be suggesting “the other side” has fangs and will suck your blood, but it’s not too far off.

Maybe – just maybe – we need to think (critically) for ourselves and draw our own informed conclusions about people, issues and problems and not listen to a group of people who make money from building a viewership.

When our kids were young, we always told them to think for themselves and to not decide how they felt about someone until after they’ve had personal experience. Kids are notorious for telling other kids how to think and act: “Don’t play with Susan. She’s mean.” “Don’t sign up for that teacher. She isn’t fair.” “You’re gonna hate that coach, he plays favorites.” We’d often remind our kids that the perceptions of others DO NOT HAVE TO BECOME YOURS. We would say, “Decide for yourself how you feel about these people.”

I bet you’ve told your kids the same thing.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11

So why do we find ourselves today conforming to a culture of hate and divisiveness based on what news sources are peddling? Even now as adults, we are listening to voices that insist they have the corner on the truth – these “kids” on the playground of life who are saying, “Listen to me! I know what you should feel and think!” I cannot imagine I’m making a revolutionary statement here, but I feel I need to say it: NO media outlet has the corner on truth. None.

I know this because of personal experiences that refute the narrative of hate that BOTH sides are trying to propagate. The only thing I can know FOR CERTAIN comes from what I’ve actually experienced. And in my experience, it has been unanimously true that whenever I have met someone who is unlike myself – whether that be in religion, politics, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or sexuality – it altered my previous belief and feelings that had only been “handed” to me from someone else.

God became BIGGER to Mourad the day he saw Jews as actual image bearers of the one true God and I think the same awareness is available to all of us when we meet and engage with others who are not mirror images of ourselves.

May we all be a little more like Mourad.