Cindy DeBoer

Morocco

The Bigger Sinner

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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:

I AM OUT OF CONTROL

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When we lived in Morocco, every single day felt like a monumental challenge. It certainly wasn’t because of the people (they were incredibly kind, generous and welcoming). The challenge primarily came from being so out of place – so keenly aware we were foreigners and didn’t have much sense on how to navigate an alien nation. Simple things like retrieving cash from an ATM, adding minutes to our cell phones (no iphones there), getting groceries, visiting the orthodontist, buying underwear, paying bills, etc., etc. were all accomplished so differently from what we were used to they’d suck us dry of time, energy, and brain space. The language barrier also played a part (we often complained of headaches in the evening from speaking French all day long).

For example, we had to pay our utility bills in person in the nearby village. Payments had to be in cash, in an envelope, in the exact amount. If you forgot the envelope or needed even 10 dirhams back, they’d refuse the payment. If you couldn’t say your address clearly in either Arabic or French, they couldn’t process your payment. Some days the office was closed (for no apparent reason) so it was a crap shoot if you’d be able to make your payment or not. It was an enormous headache (quite different than having your bills electronically paid each month…)

Because life was so hard in Morocco, I was immediately stripped of cockiness and confidence. I quickly learned how incredibly incapable, insufficient, and dependent I was. I had NO CONTROL.

We had only been their a few weeks when I woke up one morning paralyzed by fear. I couldn’t imagine getting out of bed and facing the day – there was just so much unfamiliarity and overwhelming newness bombarding me each day, I was beyond exhausted and discouraged. I remember thinking, “I don’t even want to swing my legs over the side of this bed because when my feet hit the ground, there’s no turning back.” So I cried out to God and said, “I can’t do this without you, God. I can’t even let my feet hit the floor until I know you’ve got me completely covered. Help me, God. Help me.”

And every morning, for four years, before arising each morning, I said that little prayer. It’s the only way I dared to start the day. I could have never survived Morocco without that prayer.

Sadly, we had only been living back in Michigan for a few weeks when I realized I had ceased that morning practice. In America, it was just so easy to accomplish everything and I could do it all on my own. In America, I’m confident, self-sufficient, capable and energized. Simply getting money from the ATM is a no-brainer and I use NO brain space whatsoever. The same is true for the doctor’s office, grocery shopping, talking to the neighbors, and parent/teacher conferences. Life’s so simple, uncomplicated and easy back in America, it’s almost as if I don’t need a God anymore.

So it’s no wonder I stopped inviting God into my day before swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

Then came COVID-19.

I have a nasty debilitating, progressive and degenerative lung disease. I am in that “high-risk” group that those in the media treat as disposable by constantly reminding the public that the old and weak are going to make up the bulk of the dead, so the rest of the population need not worry so much.

But because of my lung disease, COVID-19 has given me a new wake-up call and once again reminded me how OUT OF CONTROL I really am. My life is not my own and I am at the mercy of a virus that not even the brightest minds in this entire world can explain or predict.

Every day I wonder if this is the day.

So I’ve returned to that morning practice that I should have never stopped. Before I even swing my legs over the side of the bed, I pray: “Okay, God, this day is yours. You alone know the pathway of an unseen virus. This is all in your hands and I MUST trust your sovereignty. Whether I live or die or am asked to simply sit here for another 12 weeks, give me peace. Whatever your will, Lord, I don’t want my feet to even hit the ground until I know you have me covered.”

And then I get out of bed. My feet hit the floor and I say, “Here we go, Cindy.” It’s weird, but I truly feel like no harm can befall me. Even if the COVID-19 finds me, I know that virus can never steal my joy. Am I afraid? You bet. But I KNOW that I am covered – and that covering makes all the difference.

Tell me, my friends, how are you covering yourselves in this unprecedented crisis? I’d love to hear all your innovative ways!

A Hiding Place (When the next Holocaust comes, you can come live with me)

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Upstairs, on the third floor of our former crack home, awaits a really big and really empty, comfortably furnished attic apartment. Now that we are empty nesters, we’re deciding how best to use it.

An exchange student? A foster child? Airbnb?  

Perhaps.

But because our pastor mentioned the Holocaust this past Sunday and because these Impeachment hearings have only served to heighten the sad division in our nation and the growing hostility between people groups, we had to wonder if was time for a new conversation. We conjectured a scenario where our country reaches a boiling point where the only conclusion is the genocide of a certain people group so that we, as a nation, can truly be free. We wondered if there could ever be a time where we might want to use our attic similar to ‘The Hiding Place’, where the Ten Boom family hid Jews at the real risk of their own family’s safety. We discussed whom might the “Anne Frank” be that we would someday hide in our attic?

I have no doubt that previous to the Holocaust, all the Christian Germans who insidiously backed Hitler in the days of Ten Boom would have insisted, “That (a genocide) would never happen here. Not to us or our Christian country.” 

And yet it did.

So as two people desperate to be anything but naïve, Paul and I speculated:

“Could it be we’re already close to a boiling point? I mean, we know illegal immigrants who, if discovered, will be sent back to Honduras. While most people will say they’re not actually against immigration, they just want people to come legally – what we know FOR CERTAIN is that our immigration system is so broken, a legal entry takes upwards of 20 years. During that time, while our friends would be waiting in Honduras for their legal immigration request to be processed, their American-born children will graduate from high-school, go to college, get married, have babies, get cancer, go on vacations and celebrate birthdays and holidays without them.”

Paul and I decided we’d have no problem hiding illegal immigrants up in our attic so they could stay with their families instead of being deported.

Then we talked about the LGBTQ community who feel oppressed and targeted. What if this country boiled over in hate for this particular group, blaming them for the problems of our country and insisting their elimination is the only answer? Would we be willing to hide gays, lesbians, trans, and drag queens in our attic?

Absolutely, we decided.

From there, we discussed several other groups of people that often get “lumped together” and blamed for problems in our country: blacks, whites, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, the rich, the poor, Republicans, Democrats, the NRA, the mentally ill, the homeless, druggies, Pro-life, Pro-choice, left, right, and upside down.

I’m sure you’ve heard the following comments before – and although they’re not quite as bad as they must have been in 1940’s Germany – they’re still painfully hateful and divisive (and remember, the “they” can be any of the groups I’ve mentioned as well as about a thousand others…):

  • They hate America. They don’t care about you at all.
  • They’re all drug-lords, rapists, and thugs.
  • If only they could see how wrong they are.
  • They cost so much money – they’re draining our economy.
  • They only care about themselves.
  • They only care about one thing and it drives all their other decisions.
  • They’re everywhere – and they’re taking our jobs.
  • They’re stripping our country of what matters most.
  • They’re stealing my rights.
  • They make me feel unsafe.
  • Their beliefs are from the pit of hell.
  • They’re so sure they’re right, they’d kill to protect their beliefs.
  • Etc., etc., etc.

The more we hear these kinds of sentiments and the more they are repeated over and over and over, the more we are convinced they are real and true. And that’s exactly how Hitler convinced a whole country it was in their best interest to extinguish “the problem.”

So Paul and I decided, being the totally woke and cool (do woke people say “cool”?) people that we are, there is not a single people group we would refuse to stay in our attic if they were the target of a genocide.

HOWEVER…

As soon as we felt the smugness of our loving behaviors, it suddenly hit me: “But what if WE’RE on the wrong side of the equation, hon? What if WE’RE the ones being targeted for a genocide because we’re followers of Jesus and therefore we love everybody else, too??”

But Paul, in all his great wisdom, hit me with this: “Hmmmm. But in every scenario we’ve discussed, whether black and white, left or right, rich or poor, there are always two sides to the equation – meaning that in our “boiling point” scenario one side has to be right, therefore one has to be wrong.

However, in Math, an equation is one where two values are EQUAL.

Perhaps the great equalizer, the one who IS the equal sign (=), the one who MAKES all the equations, is God. And with God there are never two sides. There isn’t an in or out, left or right, good or bad, there’s just love.”

So what if we just love everybody? Will we be persecuted for that someday?

Perhaps.

But I doubt it.

I yield back the rest of my time.

God of the City

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Last week our car had its front window shot out (yes, as in, with a gun) while parked in the street in front of our house. At least 10 other neighbors had their cars hit as well and we had to call the police and fill out police reports and we were all late for our morning commitments.


No houses or people were hit, so that’s good. And just four hours and fifty dollars later, we had a new window put in.


It’s the city. These things happen.

 
What is God’s Country?
I grew up in rural west Michigan and figured I had no choice but to live in a rural setting forever. Afterall, everyone called it “God’s country” and I certainly didn’t want to live anywhere God wasn’t.
A thousand twists and turns later and Paul and I find ourselves living in the heart of Grand Rapids. Not the worst neighborhood of our city, but (clearly) not the best either.
I realize that if one has the resources to choose where they live, debating over which locale is best (city, suburbs, country) is completely arbitrary because it’s purely personal preference. We didn’t have to move to the city. We could have stayed in the burbs and we could have stayed at our “big dream house” that we had built in the country. We chose city life.
And now, we have found a spiritual-ness to city life that proves God dwells powerfully here, too.
 
10 Ways We See God in the City:
1 – In the city, we have met people from all kinds of different race, religion, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds from our own. Whenever I hear someone (usually caucasian) ranting about issues/problems with blacks, gays, Muslims, the poor, immigrants, pro-choice, pro-life, atheists, Democrats, Republicans, etc. I will ask them, “Do you know any? Like, do you HANG OUT with anyone from (that particular people group)?” If they reply “Well, not exactly”, I won’t listen any further. If we do not know people who are different from us, we do not have the right to talk about what “they” are like, what “they” do or think or feel. When we made close friends with many Muslims in Morocco, our entire view shifted from what we previously thought or believed about Islam. It is imperative to truly KNOW the “other” before commenting (or worse, ranting) about them and their perceived impact on your own existence. I believe we’re extremely misguided to derive our opinions from Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow.
 
2 – In the city, we drive down bumpy, neglected roads as we take in broken street lights, graffiti, and panhandlers. These serve as a constant reminder that the world is not a perfect place and no matter how hard we strive to curate perfection in our lives (whether by beautifully perfect homes, perfectly edited Instagram feeds, perfectly manicured lawns, etc. ) the truth is, PERFECTION is for heaven and this world is broken. Most of the world suffers unspeakable pain, hurt, loss and brokenness and we MUST NOT forget that truth. For me, I need the daily reminder the city offers.
 
3 – In the city, we see people. People are seen out walking, hanging out at bus stops or street corners, or just visiting one another on their front porches. People in the city don’t drive their cars into their houses (as once described to me by a little Moroccan boy who couldn’t fathom the phenomenon of “garages”), but instead, we park on the street and SEE one another with every coming and going. When Paul and I were younger we sought to escape others, now we seek them and the city just works better for that.
 
4 – We hear church bells in the city.
 
5 – I can hear my neighbors conversations if both our homes have the windows open. Living in the city means you watch your language more carefully. It’s like having a built-in accountability partner.
 
6 – We have nuns playing soccer with the students across the street during Catholic-school recess. I don’t care who you are – if you’re having a bad day, watching nuns play soccer with little kids will just make you happy. It’s like having Julie Andrews out your front window.
 
7 – We may get our cars shot at once and awhile, but you know what? It brought us all out onto the street that morning and we learned the names of a few neighbors we hadn’t met and we all banded together with common loss and concern and empathy. It’s through the hardships that we truly bond with one another. I don’t believe in seeking hardships, but I also don’t think cocooning ourselves in an attempt to avoid life’s hardships is the life God desires for us either.
 
8 – Living amongst those from a lower socio-economic status serves as a daily reminder to not become lovers of money. It’s so dang easy for us to believe we need more, more, more. But when I am surrounded by those who have less, I have to really wrestle with my spending habits and discern if I really need those new throw pillows more than Julie down the street needs diapers for her children.
 
9 – Living in the city you do not need to waste your money on marijuana. If the situation calls for it, you can just stroll over to the park and inhale a big enough whiff to get a little buzz for free.
 
10 – In the city, you can get REAL tacos from little hole-in-the-wall taco stands that serve REAL corn-flour tortilla shells. You’ll never be able to eat a flour tortilla shell again (Gross. Just gross.)
 
But is it SAFE?
 
I don’t particularly care for people driving down my street shooting at our cars (or shooting at anything, for that matter), but I LOVE what Mrs. Beaver said to Lucy in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” when Lucy asked if Aslan was safe:
 
She said, “Of course He isn’t safe, child, but He is good.”
 
 
 
 

Is it possible that snow in April, stupid lung diseases, and other atrocities could be good for us?

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We lived in the most glorious, sunny, mountainous and palm-treed locations both times that we lived abroad. Aix-en-Provence, France and Casablanca, Morocco are two dreamy places to have once been called “home”.

While living abroad, we met people from all over the states, as well as from around the world. Then we all moved on and returned to our “homeland” which means we now have friends scattered around the globe.

Visiting some of our friends in Southern California for the first time changed everything for me and my “Best Places In the World to Live” list. To be honest, my first thought when I encountered the beauty of southern California was not that I wished to live there, but one of feeling sorry for my Californian friends.

Let me explain:
To me, the south of France and Morocco were these magical, breathtakingly beautiful holy sites where God revealed Himself to me. I cried the first time I saw the French Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, the palm-tree lined streets of Casablanca, and the Sahara Desert (to be fair, I do cry a lot…) Every time I encountered new beauty my Michigan-eyes had never known, I was left speechless, breathless, and entered a holy state of worship for a God who could (and would) create such beauty. My Michigan-eyes had beheld a LOT of glorious things in our mitten state, but just nothing like mountains, ocean, desert, palm trees, oh – and that elusive SUNSHINE!!! (Today, on April 11, it snowed in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Need I say more???)

So when on my inaugural trip to California I discovered identical beauty – mountains, ocean, desert, palm trees, sunshine (which can all be seen AT THE SAME TIME, for heavens sake!) – I realized that there was NO WAY my Californian friends could have felt the same depth, love, and appreciation that I did while we all lived in France and Morocco. There is no way that they woke up every day and said, “Lord have mercy! Another sunny day!” (as I did). There is no way they took endless pictures of palm trees (as I did). There is no way they walked the beaches every day and said, “God in heaven, help me to carry this moment with me forever – even into the polar vortex that is bound to hit in the middle of my future Michigan winters” (as I did).

I was CAPTIVATED by the weather and the landscape of those two countries – but only because I come from a backdrop of cold, snowy, and relatively flat Michigan. My California friends who also lived in France and Morocco with us must have greeted each new day with “Just another day in paradise.”

And that difference in our two experiences is such a CRUCIAL thing for us to remember when life gets hard, ugly, disappointing or blizzard-y.

A light shines brighter against a backdrop of darkness.
Comfort is only as comfortable to the degree of discomfort it relieves.
Joy is only as joyful as the sorrow from which it rescues.
Pain relief is only helpful to the degree of suffering it relieves.
God is only as good as to the depth of which we recognize our sin and need of a Savior.

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When we meet people who (seem) to come from a very “charmed” life – who basically seem to escape all suffering in this life (they are smart, rich, thin, never struggled with teenage acne, their kids all make good choices, no cancer, disease, or disorders, no bad hair days, and their dog never poops on the living room rug… Kind of like the sun is always shining in their lives. You know the type…) well, it is tempting for us to wish we were them. It seems like THAT would be the life we all want and should strive (pray) for.

But I wonder…. I wonder if we’d be missing out on some very important things God wants to show us if our lives were void of the pain, the messy, the heartache (the snow?) I wonder if there are actually parts of GOD we would not know if we never knew pain, suffering, hurt and loss.

Why are we given so many different names for God if we’d never need them? If we all pursued and achieved the “charmed” life without any pain and suffering, certainly there are attributes of God we would never know.
 
How can we know God as our DELIVERER if we’re never in a horrible place from which we need delivering?
How can we know God as our COMFORTER if we’ve never been uncomfortable?
How can we know God as our HEALER and GREAT PHYSICIAN if we’ve never known illness or disease or suffered emotional/spiritual brokenness?
How can we know God as our PROVIDER if we’ve never ached for provision?
How can we know our God, the PRINCE OF PEACE if we’ve spent our whole lives avoiding conflict, running from adversity, never challenged?
How can we know our God, the SANCTUARY, if we’ve never been in a place of needing protection?
How can we know God as a REFUGE FROM THE STORM if our lives are always “sunny”?
How can we know God as the BREATH OF LIFE if we never recognize our desperate need for Him in ALL things?
How can we know God as our SHEPHERD if we never see ourselves as lowly sheep?
 
I’m not in any way suggesting we shouldn’t live in California! Nor am I saying God gives suffering – I believe HE IS PERFECT and would never author pain, loss, and suffering. But I do believe, with all my heart, that through the suffering we discover a God we hadn’t previously known – and we come to experience Him and love Him more fully, deeper and truer.

And, after all, isn’t that what He wants most from us???

Rae Dunn, Jesus, and a Washing Machine

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Am I the truly the last one to the Rae Dunn Party? I have only recently discovered it’s magical lure when my sweet friend gifted me a mug engraved with“Sing” after she read my blog on how I’m struggling to sing.
Apparently, RD is the latest craze and people are clamoring and clawing their way to select stores and clandestine gas station rendezvous to get their hands on more of this imperfectly perfect pottery.

Now, much to my chagrin, I am too.

Days after unapologetically jumping that pottery bandwagon, I’m sitting in my car in the black, wee morning hours (which, if you know me, should already clue you in I’m no longer thinking rationally) waiting for Home Goods to open their doors so I can rush in and deploy some rusty high school basketball skills and “box out” any obnoxious Johanna Gaines wannabe’s so I can beat them to the latest installation of Rae Dunn goodness.

The longer I sit here in the parking lot, the more I feel something disturbing in my soul. I’m feeling queasy about this shopping virus I’ve caught. Honestly, the real me – the healthy me – knows this is not what I want to be about. It’s not what I want to do with my precious time. It’s not where I want to spend our money or my energies either.

Furthermore, I need more cute mugs about as much as I need another hysterectomy.

But as I wait in my warm car and contemplate all this I ask myself, “So if this is not who you want to be, then why are you really here, Cindy?”

I should be at home. I have a long messy list of people in real need waiting for me back home: several friends in the midst of difficult, serious trials who could all use a loving phone call, my junior-high discipleship girls begging for an afternoon of my time, my widowed mom needing a “check-in” because I just don’t do that enough, a friend in Morocco hoping for a call as she faces a mountain of paperwork in an attempt to move their family to Canada, and a hard-working-tax-season husband who I desperately needed to reconnect with over a lunch date. And the list goes on…

People. All these people who are important in my life. People I love dearly and care passionately about their wellbeing. But yet, I’m escaping the responsibility of caring for them to instead chase down some stupid Rae Dunn dishes.

Why?

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When our lives were flipped upside down – almost 20 years ago now – Paul and I prayed every day that our lives would better reflect that which we said we believed. Specifically, we wanted our lives to reflect that PEOPLE are always more important than THINGS. At that time, we knew we had been spending too much of our time on things (whether buying things, taking care of our things, saving for more things, scrolling and dreaming about things or just talking about our things) we KNEW this was not the way of the kingdom. So we fervently prayed God would flip that on its head.

For the most part, He did.

So what the heck am I doing here in the Home Goods parking lot about to buy more THINGS while PEOPLE who genuinely need me today wait???

Many smart people have been able to hone in on this pervasive problem that is mine today and name it.

Jon Acuff, the bestselling author of Do Over and Finish calls it a “Hiding Place” – an activity you focus on instead of your goal or living out your true calling. Steven Pressfield in his highly acclaimed book The War of Art calls it the “Resistance” and describes it as a “toxic force that deforms our spirit” and keeps us from our truest selves.

That is definitely true for me. I’m hiding, resisting and avoiding. I’m avoiding the “messy” things in my life by running to a store. Because this is brainless, instant gratification. And, let’s be honest, there’s no REAL cost (because I believe if something costs you only money, it’s really no cost at all). Shopping is just dang easy.

The way of Jesus – the way of loving people with all of me – is rarely easy.
And as far back as Bible times, the earliest followers of Christ struggled with the same crap:

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Romans 7:15 -20 

The apostle Paul doesn’t really go on at this point in the text to tell us how to respond when this happens, except to acknowledge it IS SIN living in us.

And we KNOW that we cannot overcome sin on our own. It’s just not possible.
We sin. We need a Savior. Period.

Holiness begins with knowing just how unholy we are. So that’s where we begin.
We acknowledge we are a sin-full people. We confess. We come clean.

WASH. RINSE. REPEAT.

Jesus – our holy washing machine.

I’m so thankful for a Savior who operates my rinse cycle – who puts my car in drive and pulls me out of the Home Goods parking lot so I can go home and do that which I know I’ve been called to and made to do.

Anyone else care to bravely share what things they do that they do not want to do? Are there things that pull you away from that which you know is right to do?