Cindy DeBoer

Cindy DeBoer

Old Is The New Hot

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In this culture where beauty, youth, and tight buttocks are valued more than oceanfront property and where ageism has moved from theory to fact, it is no wonder we fight aging with the tenacity of an NFL middle linebacker. Our culture tells us our best years are behind us once we hit 50 and we might as well start shopping for our headstone and buy the ham on buns for the “after” party.

But I beg to differ.

I turn 55 today. And because my daughter loves me so much she gave me this card:

And she couldn’t be more spot on. Because “hot” is defined as someone who’s got it going on. Someone who turns heads when they walk in the room (even if it’s because her skirt is tucked into her spanx). Someone who knows who they are, likes it, and holds their head high.

THIS LIST, my friends, showcases why we 50-something women are simply the hottest. We got it going on, girls. Yes, we do. Our 50’s truly are the BEST:

  • Our eyesight diminishes. Yes, at first blush, that may seem like a negative – but it’s also true for all our friends and siblings at this age – which is our saving grace. After spending an entire day out recently visiting multiple places and people, I came home and checked my face in the mirror (after bedecking my READING GLASSES!) and discovered I looked like a freakin’ clown – my eyeliner was lopsided on my left eye and practically extended out to my ear on the right eye, my lipstick was bleeding into all my lip wrinkles, my blush looked like war paint painted on by a four year old, and my foundation made a brown line at my jaw line! But I just shrugged my shoulders and had a good belly laugh! Afterall, I had only been around others who were even older than me that day – so I’m sure they never noticed!
  • Dusting becomes optional. One unbearably hot summer night in 1991 after our church softball game (does anybody play church softball anymore??? Those holy ball field events should be resurrected to help save America) we were invited to a couples’ home at the spur of the moment because they had a swimming pool. I remember sitting in their family room after the swim and noticing thick, thick dust on everything. I could have written my name on the coffee table, the TV, and the windowsills. I was 25 years old and thought that woman must be such a lazy slug of an old lady (she was 50-something at the time) and I was all kinds of ignorant judge-y toward her. Now that I’ve turned 50-something, I have the utmost respect for that woman. She was just mentoring me and showing me and how to live my best life. These days, you can come to my house anytime you want – even unannounced! – and I will be happy to “mentor” you, too!
  • We become a GRANDPARENT!!! I’m pretty sure this is the coolest thing about our 50’s. COVID hasn’t let me have much time with my grandbaby. But I’ll tell you what – she is good, she is kind, and she is IMPORTANT. She’s already speaking 4 languages fluently, searching for a cure for LAM, and solving our refugee crisis and she’s barely five months old. She’s already the best child that ever walked this planet and she’s not even walking yet.
  • We finally feel liberated enough to not wear any makeup at all when going to public spaces where actual people may see us. We know that we will scare people and we know they will talk about us, but we care about THAT as much as we care about the 973rd TikTok video our kids want to show us.
  • We know things. Important things that all the younger girls only wish they knew. Things like:
    • Never wash a chenille throw blanket
    • Never dump rice down the garbage disposal
    • Maybelline works just as well as Estee Lauder
    • It’s okay to let go of friendships that are exhausting.
    • The deli makes delicious food and if you serve it in your own bowls, no one has to know.
    • Unless you enjoy bladder infections, never hold your pee in
    • Never waste money on a strapless bra. Simply tucking down your straps works just as well
    • It’s so much quicker to run out and buy new miniblinds than to clean old ones
  • Road rage seems to just disappear. With so much more time on our hands, we just don’t seem as frazzled. We’re not running 18 children in 23 directions for the 47th day in a row and somehow we’re just more relaxed now. I now love driving and I now drive the actual speed limit and let other cars merge in politely instead of zipping past all the doggone slow drivers and flipping them off for making me late for the really, really, really important awards banquet of the sport for which my child spent her life learning only to sit the bench all year.
  • We can now walk in our basements. The 50’s mean we finally have enough time to get around to sorting all those kids’ memory boxes and 30 plus years of “I’ll-get-to-it-someday” stuff. School art class “masterpieces,” little league trophies, Halloween costumes, birthday cards, special-moment baby clothes, the wedding dress, the wedding invitations, napkins, and programs (why, oh why???), and the china you always thought you’d need but never used – it is time, my friends – to say good-bye. Our 50’s are for dealing with basements. Not a moment before. Young mommas and anyone below 50, don’t you DARE take a precious moment from those precious years to dig through the boxes of “stuff.” You will have PLENTY of time for that when the last baby packs up her suitcase and moves out.
  • We get a to get a dog again. This is definitely a blessing, but also a significant marker of the “downhill phase” of life. Upon getting married, most of us get a dog to see if we can take care of living things. If it works out alright, we decide to have children. Now, the children are gone and we’re pretty sure we screwed them all up, so we console ourselves by getting a dog again because dogs have pea-brains and don’t need therapy when they get older.
  • We find Jesus. We may have known him our whole lives, but there’s something about our 50’s that unveils a whole new dimension to our spiritual life. God comes to us bigger, better, more loving, more inclusive, more merciful and gracious and more everything in our 50’s. I’m betting this continues on from here to the end. Perhaps it just takes living 50+ years to NEED a Savior to be all those things in order to experience him in all those ways.

To me, Jesus has been the very best part of my 50’s. Both now and forevermore. Amen.

“Wisdom belongs to the aged and understanding to the old.” Job 12:12

My Magnum Opus: The Parenting Marathon

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Not my actual legs

I recently volunteered at a triathlon and discovered many interesting things about these athletic beasts. Besides being insane for paying actual money to brutalize their bodies and not knowing the difference between fun and pain, I noticed that at the finish they usually fell into one of three categories: 1) The nonchalant. “Yeah, I just finished a triathlon. No big deal. I’ll probably do it again tomorrow. 2) The triumphant – “Woooooo Hooooo!!! I f****** finished!!! Hey mom – take my picture!!! And 3) The Puker. No explanation necessary.

Well, I just finished my own marathon of sorts and I see that I am clearly from the third category. I am a puker.

Last week, our fourth child moved out for the final time and now it’s just me and Paul again. It’s been 30 years since it was just the two of us and I truly feel as if we’ve just completed a 30-year marathon – running, running, running as if our life depended on it and pushing our minds and bodies to their utter limits.

I remember the day we took our first newborn home from the hospital like it was this morning. We pulled into the garage, turned off the car, and shut the garage door behind us. I looked at Paul, then into the backseat where baby Andy was all nestled comfy-cozy in his way-too-big car seat and said, “Oh shit. Here we go.”

We were so young, naive, and impulsive and I still can’t believe the good people of Zeeland Hospital felt that just because we were able to produce the proper car seat, we were able to care for a CHILD!!! But, despite our inhibitions, we unbuckled the kid, brought him inside and gave him our best effort.

Then in a flash there was baby number 2. Another flash and a blink later came child number 3. And right in the middle of diapers and sippy cups and horrific sleep schedules, we thought it’d be a good idea to adopt a child. And wham – there she came – on a TACA flight out of Guatemala in 2001. We were still relatively young and naive, and our impulsivity had only gotten worse – but at least now our resume included parenting 3 other children.

The years went by like a melting ice cream cone on a hot July day. I licked and licked and tried to savor the taste of each delicious lick – but life melted away so quickly, I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten some of the taste.

Last week was so weird. The day we moved the last child out for the last time, we returned home to a nearly unbearable quiet. I flashbacked to when little children would come running to the door to greet us whenever we came home. I felt a deep ache in my soul knowing those days are fully, completely, dreadfully behind us.  Paul and I stood in silence for a few moments as neither of us knew what to say.

We also didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if we should run upstairs and have loud sex, have a solemn moment of prayer and build a commemorative altar from the kids’ college binders, or crank up some fantastic Queen and Bon Jovi and dance on the living room furniture.

Nothing felt right.

Except maybe a nap.

Or puking.

All I know for sure is I am not well – something deep inside of me is still longing. My head, my heart, my soul, my entire body aches and most days I feel like puking. We’re definitely going to need some time to recover, process and debrief this 30-year parenting marathon.

Some days I feel like stealing away to Figi, or Tahiti, or the Galapagos Islands and just stare at the ocean for about 30 hours. One hour for every year of parenting. And when I’m done with that I will cry, shout – no, SCREAM into those seas or to whomever else will listen (God?) for the absolute audacity of time to move so quickly. Can’t you do something about that, God? Do you not know that I am dying and I don’t have time for wasted time? Do you not know that I need more of it? Can you slow it, kind sir? Please, for the sake of the sick and the suffering, can you slow it down???

Standing in our quiet living room that post-marathon day – heaving and gasping for air as I “puked” all over Paul and the floor – I realized parenting may have been the hardest thing we’ve ever done (or will do), but it is nevertheless our magnum opus – the best we have to offer the world. We just completed a 30-year-marathon of birthing, raising, and releasing HUMANS into the world!!! We lived as large as we knew how to and gave those kids a hell of a ride all the while screwing up some parts of it royally. But one thing I do know: If I should die soon, I will not regret having poured myself out for those four kids and teaching them that, above all else, we ultimately live to give God the glory for every single one of our gifted breaths.

Well, now that I’m done puking, I guess I’ll make dinner.

My lungs still hurt and I need to take a lot of deep breaths before we get back up again and relace our shoes for whatever God has next for us. For this moment, I need to just sit for a bit. Not Figi or Tahiti or Galapagos. Just here in Grand Rapids for a bit.

Just a bit.

I’ll get up shortly. I’ll get up.

Life isn’t waiting for me. We have much to do! We have to revisit the things we used to enjoy when it was just the two of us, we must help Syrian and Central American – and now Afghanistan – refugees!! And the Hondurans, the Haitians, and Lebanese as well!!  We have no time to waste to share ALL the necessary things with our adult kids before we lose our minds and can’t remember the things. We need to spread love to our neighbors in our struggling neighborhood, and rock this grandparenting gig, and give our best gifts to our local urban school and church, and give my mom the best possible finish to this life and at least a million other things.

No, we’re no longer running the child-rearing marathon, but I sure as heck don’t want to hang up my “running shoes” yet either! Although we now run just the two of us and are navigating the course with a stupid lung disease, a few more aches and pains, and at a much slower pace, we still beg of God to help us “strip off any weight that slows us down and especially the sins that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT)

Time to run our next marathon, Paul. Let’s get after it.

Leave It Broken

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When we bought our hundred-year-old crack house we discovered that somewhere in its history a previous owner made an egregious err in personal assessment and believed themselves to be “handy.” They tackled a variety of home improvement projects such as brick laying, replacing windows, updating trim and doors, installing sinks and faucets, and building closets. However, I’m almost certain my 6-year-old nephew could have done a better job.

We’ve had snow leak in through the ill-fitting windows, faucet levers that scrape the wall, crumbling brick and leaking roofs – all due to this “handypersons” handywork. We have gaping holes in our baseboards, incomplete and mismatched trim boards in every room and doors that were hacked down at the wrong angle in an attempt to accommodate unlevel floors.

Check it out:

Clockwise from top left: 1) Insulation peeking out because “handyperson” didn’t know how to cut the brick to reach the wall 2) Drywall where handyperson measured once and cut twice 3) How our “handyperson” paneled with wainscoting 4) Hard corner to tile – so “handyperson” filled it in with caulk.

I’ve seen young children make living room pillow forts and back-yard tree houses with better craftsmanship.

Initially, we figured we’d fix everything and be DONE with renovations once and for all. But as soon as the home was functional (as in, an operational kitchen, a door to the bathroom, and a place to flop a mattress) we were so exhausted from all the fixing-upping, that we simply halted the projects. We figured we’d wait a few months, restore our energy and excitement for a “completed” home, and then finish things.

That was 6 years ago.

It hasn’t been a matter of money, nor even enough time or energy. What’s held us up is this:

It’s extremely difficult to keep fixing-up your home when some neighbors are heating their home with their stove.

It’s hard to justify spending money on crown moulding and matching doorknobs (it’s not even arguable that these things are frivolous) when you pass multiple homeless people on your way to buy the materials.

It’s gut wrenching to spend about $800 on any project on our home when we’ve learned of multiple neighbors being evicted due to inability to make rent (typically around $800 in our neighborhood.)

We’ve repeatedly had the dilemma of choosing home improvements over “life improvements” of others.

So, six years later, our home is still not done.

Just because we can afford something doesn’t make it right.

**********

More importantly, in addition to the ethical battle of money stewardship, we noticed that waking up each day in a home marked by broken things, unfinished work, imperfections, and missing pieces, has helped to remind us that we live in an imperfect world, inhabited by imperfect people with imperfect lives.

The entire WORLD is broken and unfinished and only Jesus can fix this mess. So we began asking ourselves, why should our home reflect anything different?

In our former homes – both our country estate custom-built “dream home” and our downsized 70’s ranch in the burbs – everything was pretty, polished, working and stylish. We were very much in control in those homes and felt we had essentially achieved perfection. No brokenness, no problems, no worries.

In those dwellings and environments, it was much easier to forget about the pain and suffering in the world. It was easy to pretend (albeit subconsciously) that the world wasn’t broken. It was fun to live like that – without daily reminders of a suffering world. I often justified those “perfect” dwellings by asking – What’s wrong with making our homes a haven to rest from the weary world?

It seems to me that the only reason having a (near) “perfect” dwelling could be wrong is if it causes us to forget about those who are in desperate need of God’s love and care and/or if we ever forget that WE (those who believe in Jesus) are God’s plan to meet those needs (there is no plan B).

So if you, like me, love to watch HGTV and love to design, improve, and fix-up your home, maybe we should rethink things a bit.

Maybe we don’t need to fix everything to where it all looks “perfect.”

Maybe we should stop striving so much for beauty and completion.

Maybe we should let heaven be the only perfect home and accept some brokenness and imperfections in our earthly homes.

Maybe the broken things will actually help us stay tuned-in to the brokenness of our world and remind us to ask God for our role in its healing and restoration.

Maybe we should leave some things broken.

What a Diet Coke can teach us about CNN, Newsmax and political divides

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I confess. I have a dangerously sick addiction to Diet Coke. I know, I know, I know – it’s terrible for me and it’s going to kill me. I’m pretty sure, however, my lung-sucking lung disease is gonna get me first.

But actually, I’m more afraid the way we VIEW Diet Coke could kills us all. As I stared at my beloved DC can the other day, I realized it held a truth that could possibly help us make better sense of the current division in our country and world. This truth, I think, could either save us or, at worst, kill us.

Hang with me while I make the point:

When I was very young – perhaps only 7 or 8 – I annoyed the heck out of my mom with questions she couldn’t possibly answer in a way I’d understand. I asked her if we were white collar or blue collar, Reformed or Christian Reformed, Jews or Gentiles. She always had an intelligent answer and I knew without a doubt she was the wisest woman on the planet. So when I asked her if we were Republicans or Democrats I should have had no reason to question her. But when she replied without hesitation, “Why Republicans, of course!” I pushed back a little and asked:  “But how do we know that for SURE, Mom? I mean, what MAKES someone Republican?” She answered, “Because all Christians are Republicans. Republicans believe life is sacred and should be protected. Democrats think it’s okay to kill babies, take money from those who worked for it and give it to those who didn’t, and make lots of rules that take away our freedoms. Democrats are socialists – as bad as the Russians or the Chinese and they will destroy America – and we won’t be a Christian nation anymore. Jesus would be a Republican.”

I nearly vomited my Cocoa Krispies at the thought of the evil people who think it’s okay to kill babies and destroy America. Yes, of course, Jesus would be a Republican.

So that is what I always believed to be true. My wise mother had told me it is so.

                                                                         ************

I made a new friend in college while working the night shift as a phlebotomist in a busy city hospital – the farthest from our conservative rural neighborhood I’d ever worked. She was a fellow nursing student who also loved books and Jesus. We were fast friends. But one night our “downtime” chatter turned to politics and she left me dizzy with new thoughts. She said she was a Democrat! Incredulous, I said, “I thought all Christians were Republicans! Are you sure you love Jesus?” She assured me she did. And went on to explain that while growing up, her mother told her Republicans were rich, selfish and greedy lovers of money who only care about themselves, getting richer, and the unborn. Her mom told her Republicans refuse to help the poor, the widow, the orphan, the refugee or those oppressed – people, she reminded me, Jesus made clear we were to care for. Her mom also said Republicans really don’t care about reducing the number of abortions or they would support public policies proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies – like contraception education and distribution. She told her daughter that although Republicans claim to be the party of life, they all own guns and aren’t afraid to use them on bad people, they have no issue with the death penalty and they don’t feel it’s necessary to be provoked to start wars. Her wise mother told her real Christians are Democrats.

************

So this begs the question: whose mom is the liar?

I’d say neither.

My Mom was looking at the Diet Coke can this way:

My friends Mom was looking at the Diet Coke this way:

And both are accurate depictions of the SAME can of COKE (life as a Christian)!!! But because the can is round, rotating it is necessary to truly understand what makes up a can of Diet Coke. One view is simply incomplete.

************

Allow me to share another example:

Several years ago Paul and I and our boys traveled to Israel to visit our Israeli friends, the Leifer family. They lived just outside the Gaza strip in a kibbutz (a Jewish communal-living community). We were surprised to learn the factories in their kibbutz had always employed residents from Gaza resulting in many friendships between the Jewish and Muslim employees. However, in 2007, Israel closed off the Gazan borders and tall, electric fences were erected. Palestinians were no longer free to come and go in and out of Gaza. Palestinians who worked in the kibbutz immediately lost their jobs and were out of work – as well as bereft from their Israeli friends. The Leifer family told us they were very sad when the fences went up around Gaza – wishing it hadn’t come to that. They, and many others from their kibbutz, stayed in contact with their Palestinian friends and provided them food, clothes, medicine and other goods now scarce in Gaza by passing it to them through holes in the fence.

Our Israeli friends saw this view of the Diet Coke can:

However, since I started paying attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict nearly 20 years ago, my perception of the situation as an American living in America was this: all Israelis and Palestinians hate each other. And because the media highlights every single attack between the two territories, to outsiders looking in it seems like the skirmishes happen every day. After a while, it’s easy to believe both parties just have an insatiable bloodthirst in general.

It seems the only narrative we hear here in America is this view of the Diet Coke can:

But, again, the can is ROUND and depending on your position relative to the can, you will see a very different perspective of the SAME CAN! However, the can (the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in this case) is real, complicated and difficult and if we don’t rotate the can to get all the different views, we’re not considering the whole story.

************

I anticipated (as had most of the country) there might be some “issues” on January 6 when the joint session of Congress met to certify the electoral college votes for president of the United States. I planned my day allowing a few hours to watch the news. However, I’m always conflicted on which news source to watch. My daughter and I decided to do an experiment and we put CNN on the TV and beside the TV we mounted my laptop live-streaming Newsmax. We watched in awe and even took notes.

On January 6, for the 2 hours I watched things unfold, these two news sources reported it like this:

CNN immediately labeled the events an “attack” and called those involved “insurrectionists.” They focused on the most aggressive protestors and showed footage of very violent attacks on police officers. Audible cries from police officers could be heard. They repeatedly showed the footage of a window to the Capitol being broken and protestors climbing inside. They estimated the numbers who breeched the walls of the Capitol and entered the building to be in the “hundreds” and that the crowd outside numbered in the “thousands.” CNN aired interviews of participants using obscenities, giving the camera the finger, and wearing emblems of the Proud Boys and Qanon. Protestors declared they were there to “kill Pence” and “use whatever means necessary to take their country back.”

Newsmax referred to those involved as “protestors” and early on suggested they could be “Antifa.” They did not show the footage of attacks on officers or the breaking of the window and instead interviewed multiple peaceful protestors who said they came to DC that day only to pray and express solidarity for an election they felt was stolen. At the exact time CNN was declaring “hundreds” had entered the Capital, Newsmax said there were “approximately 6 people who have entered.” Newsmax showed a group of people standing in a circle together praying. For most of the broadcast, Newsmax cameras were on the opposite side of the building than CNN’s cameras. CNN had chosen the side where the crowds were the biggest and most aggressive. Newsmax had chosen to broadcast from the calmer side of the building.

My daughter and I just shook our heads. Neither broadcast was lying outright – just choosing to only report one perspective. It’s no wonder our nation is divided. It’s no wonder no one knows who to trust anymore – because some of the most watched news networks refuse to rotate the can of Diet Coke.

The biggest problems occur between us as a society, and indeed, even as individuals when our preferred news sources go so far as to claim any other perspective of the SAME CAN OF COKE either does not exist, is fabricated, or is distorted.

Because they want your viewership, they’d rather insist the Diet Coke can is NOT ROUND instead of ROTATE the can.

Lovers of God, of truth, of sanity and all that is good – please let us never forget TO ROTATE THE CAN!!! This, I believe, is the only way forward in love – is to do the hard work of learning to understand one another. Because only when we’re able to love each other – even those who see the can from another perspective – can we live in the wholeness and freedom and unity that God longs to give us.

When we refuse to ROTATE THE CAN we build up a disbelief, a false narrative, a distrust – which often then bends toward hate – of those who are simply looking at another perspective to the SAME CAN OF DIET COKE.

The thing is, we’ve been warned. The most reliable of sources (the Bible) made it very clear that the enemy of our souls would do everything he could to “steal, kill and destroy” us and he does this by his one and only tool: deception.

Hey friends – let’s not let that wicked, wily enemy take us down with a stupid can of DIET COKE!!!

I Will Send You Flowers

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I first realized I had a problem in the middle of the night. Since Mr. Insomnia is a regular third partner in our marriage bed, it was nothing new for me to still be wide awake at 3 a.m. But as I stared blankly at the ceiling for what felt like hours, the dark thoughts blanketing me were definitely new: “Why am I even still here? I add no value to this world anymore. Why stay? My life has no purpose anymore.”

And as daylight approached and slowly lit up our room, my soul became increasingly darker.

As a psychiatric nurse, I know darn well the symptoms of clinical depression and suicidal ideation… apparently, however, only in others. I almost missed it entirely as it crept up in my own life. Although it happened insidiously – like a drippy faucet that floods an entire basement – I still got very wet before I knew I needed help.

By the grace of God, I found the strength to confide in my husband how bad things were. He knew just the people to rally around me. In very short order, I had a friend’s condo waiting for me in Florida (much of my sad state can be blamed on SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder), a friend who dropped everything in her busy life to come join me, one of the largest bouquets of spring flowers sent to our home, and a few timely phone calls that provided just the right “pick-me-up.”

Perhaps my lung disease has heightened my isolation, the heavy impact of COVID, and the resulting depression; but I also know of many, many others who (bravely) have shared similar heavy, dark emotions. I truly believe most of us are suffering some version of sadness and loss (perhaps PTSD?) from this insufferable COVID year.

Giving testimony to the state of our collective psyches is the universal rise in psychiatric hospital admissions, suicides and suicide attempts, drug dependency and alcoholism.

Fellow humans – we’re suffering. First of all, it is critical that we admit it. We were not created to live in this type of isolation, fear, and guardedness. We are starving for human interaction and a life laced with laughter, loved ones, long dinners, and live music. And if and when we come to terms with the suffering we’ve endured, we’re going to have to reach out and get some help.

So here are my BEST words for you today: GO AFTER IT! TAKE WHAT YOU NEED!!!

If there’s anything this last month of my life has taught me is that advocating for yourself is not only good and necessary, but it is a God-breathed practice of honoring the life he gifted us. Contrary to some ridiculous lie I picked up somewhere along the Christian way, to admit you need help and then asking for it is NOT a sin.

I think that for most of my life I viewed the word “Help” like any other four-lettered offensive swear word. I don’t know if it’s my restrained Dutch background, being an Enneagram 8 or just plain the sin of pride, but I’m so averse to asking for help, that I’ve wallowed in pain/suffering for days, weeks, months and years without ever telling a soul.

I wish I was the only one wired like that – trying to handle all my suffering alone. Because it’s a miserable way to live and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But sadly, I know I’m not the only one.

But lately I’ve been wondering about the redemptive work of evil. Even things as evil as COVID. What if a redeemable purpose of this COVID-crap is that it FINALLY brings some of us to our knees? What if those of us more stubborn types are finally humbled to the point of asking for help? Can it be that God is using something so ugly and BAD for our physical health to actually make us more spiritually and holistically healthier???

What if NOT finding the good in all of this bad we actually miss God?

What if he’s waiting for us to find HIM in all of this?

What if we surrendered our “political” posturing or “I must be right” attitudes or “You’re all stupid” positions and instead just focused on God and how he uses suffering to mature us?

What if we asked God to USE Covid to change us and mold us into who He wants us to be?

What if we all come out of this on the other side BETTER versions of ourselves instead of WORSE?

This year – this entire COVID nightmare – is NOT the time to pretend you are okay if you’re not. This is NOT the season to portray life and joyous living to the world while you’re dying on the inside. This is NOT an okay time to act like you’ve got it all together. This is NOT the time to play the hero.

We are in troubled, difficult times. We’re tired and like never before, we NEED each other!!!

This is a season for raw honesty. This is the season to find your trusted tribe and humbly reach out to tell them exactly what you need. One way we’ll know we are better off as humanity is when we can see people working together, building one another up, and helping one another in every possible way.

There have been so many times in my life when confronted the ugliest, rawest, most painful realities of this world (sex-trafficking, racism, child-slavery, refugee crisis, abortion, etc.) I often conclude with this statement, “Well, I do not know exactly what I can do about it, but one thing I know for sure, doing nothing is NOT an option.”

I don’t know what would have happened if my tribe had not come around me in my darkest days. I’m so thankful they didn’t choose to do nothing. I do not know exactly what I CAN do about the broad suffering around the world in response to COVID, but, as always, doing nothing is NOT an option for me. So, if you’re reading this blog, you are my friend and I want to help you. If you are having a hard time of it right now, shoot me an email (via my website) and I PROMISE YOU, I will send you a bouquet of flowers.

I am NOT joking. Sometimes I try to be funny and people don’t get me because I’m really not all that funny. This is NOT one of those times.

I’m totally serious. If you’re struggling today, e-mail me asap and I will send you flowers.

Is it really such a wonderful life, George?

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I don’t remember when the tradition started, but our family watches “It’s a Wonder Life” every Christmas Eve. “What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down!”

We know ALL the lines and would drive you nuts were you to watch the movie with us.

But much to my chagrin, George Bailey could not cheer me up this year. I even shed tears (tears of jealousy perhaps?) that George could be so happy amidst his turmoil. I ooohed and ahhhed at all the right places, but what I really wanted to do was throw my cold pizza at the TV and give George and Mary the big middle finger. All I kept thinking is, Is it really such a wonderful life, George? Even now, four days into 2021, I’m not feeling it.

Because of my stupid lung disease, 2020 and its lousy leech the COVID virus reeked some serious havoc on our family. We are all angry, hurt and still flailing around trying to find some footing in this madness. Okay – I’m sorry, family – it’s mostly me who is mad, hurt, and flailing around. I’m mad that my shitty lung disease makes me extremely vulnerable should I get COVID. Which in turn makes me mad because I fight so hard against LAM and take all these stupid drugs and suffer their stupid side-effects and yet some “Karen” who got a D+ in high school science still insists scientists the world over don’t know what they’re talking about so she will not wear a mask to the grocery store and is probably going to give me COVID which I’ll die from. I’m mad that a silly little virus will probably take me out instead of this respectable lung-sucking, incurable disease I’ve valiantly fought for years. I’m mad my college-aged kids have had to forego plans and dreams and move home instead and now I have to listen to Band Camino and Billie Eilish and watch TikToks and eat kale. I’m mad at them for having friends – friends they actually want to SEE – which exposes me even more to COVID dangers (They are 19 and 22 for Pete’s sake – who doesn’t want to hang with their friends at that age? What kind of witch am I???) I’m mad at my husband for working so much and seeing so many clients which also increases our COVID exposure (Even as SO many have lost work and cannot pay their bills! I’m the lowest of sinners.) I’m mad that no matter how many times we calmly discuss what is “safe” behavior and what’s “foolish” and what’s a “risk worth taking” and what’s “asking for it”, the four of us still fight about COVID and never quite land on the same page. I’m mad at friends who see it all differently than me and gather all willy-nilly with their families and friends and post the most gorgeous pictures with everyone’s hair and makeup done up just so. (I don’t even know what makeup is anymore and I think I ran out of real shampoo sometime in July). I’m mad that COVID forced me to quit a job I loved and left me bored as a fly on horse shit (I would imagine that would be a very boring way to spend a day, anyway). I’m mad that my poor daughters have such an angry mother and I worry that if I die, their last memory of me will be me sobbing on the sofa with matted, greasy hair wearing the same sweatshirt and sweatpants for the 11th day in a row and watching reruns of Fixer-Upper.

This whole sucky-year and the pain and division and loss left in its wake is just NOT the way things are supposed to be. And I’m mad and losing it.

I have now slept 5 days straight – as in ALL day, AND ALL night. I don’t know if it’s a bad LAM week, or COVID, or depression. Knowing my luck, I probably have the effing trifecta.

I know this is shocking. I’m usually happy-go-lucky, full of optimism, hope and cheer. You’re supposed to read these blogs and feel all rainbows-and-unicorns-sprinkled-with-Jesus euphoria. Somehow, my excessively toothy grin and obsession with things like shiny bracelets and exclamation points make people expect joy and optimism from me.

I’m sorry, not today, bub.

I am lonely and in need of commiseration. So I sat down and read the whole book of Lamentations tonight. Then I read Job. Jeremiah, Job and I wallowed in self-pity together.

And then it hit me – there is a REASON those books of the Bible exist! God could have kept them out of our canonized scriptures, but he didn’t. He knew that there WILL BE seasons of lament! Sometimes that is all we can muster and sometimes, like these current times, it’s just enough.

To be honest, I’ve not been very happy with God this past year, have you? I mean, if God is supposed to ONLY bring us peace, calm, reassurance, happiness and gratitude – well, then, he failed miserably this year. And if I believe I am entitled to THOSE emotions because I follow God, after a year like 2020, it’s only natural I’d be left with anger at God because it feels like he abandoned me.

But reading those laments in scripture felt like God saying to me: “Oh no, Cindy. You’ve got that all wrong. There is definitely a time to mourn and be sad and even mad at me. It’s okay. I can handle it. Just like Jeremiah cried out for his people, and as Job cried out for his health and family, you, too, may certainly lament all this loss and hardship.”

I suddenly realized I am, indeed, George Bailey – but I’m still in the MIDDLE of the movie! My ice-cold hands are clutching the railing of a high bridge over troubled waters and I’m in the MIDST of crying out to God!!!

My angel Clarence simply hasn’t showed up yet.

And then I knew that this is the place I must wait. Instead of deliverance, I must pray for patience. I don’t know how long God will make me wait on this cold bridge, but I know Clarence will show up. For now, I wait and lament.

This is what Lamentations is all about. The cry in the wait. The cry without answers. The cry alone in the dark.

I am not feeling ridiculous optimism and joyful anticipation of 2021. I know that’s what I’m supposed to say to you as I wrap up this blog. But I’d be lying. I just know we are definitely allowed to lament – even encouraged to do so. And because I’m old and have been down so many, many hard paths before, I also know lament doesn’t last forever.

I know this, because I know how the movie ends. In fact, I know it by heart. I know that Zuzu is sitting on George’s shoulder and she hears a bell ring on the Christmas tree and says, “Look daddy! Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”

And then George winks and the credits roll while everyone sings Auld Lang Syne.

It’s okay to lament now, because we know how the movie ends.