Simplifying Life

The 5.7 Billion Dollar Question (the one nobody is asking…)

January 18, 2019 by Cindy DeBoer 6 Comments

When we were young – perhaps our early thirties – we had an excess of money and were picking up steam to make considerably more. Our trajectory was secure. We owned all the pretty things, had a solid retirement account, the kids’ college tuition neatly tucked away, and, should we have died, our offspring would have inherited a rather bulky birthright.

Isn’t that the dream? The holy grail for most Americans?

We thought so, anyway. We truly believed we were living the dream.
But then, one day we heard a sermon and it all came crashing down. It wasn’t like this was the ONLY thing that changed EVERYTHING for us, but it was certainly a catalyst. I don’t remember the sermon’s title or all the contents, but at one point our pastor asked a question that Paul and I had never been asked before:

“What might we have been blessed for?”

I initially felt outrage: What do you mean, pastor? Blessings tell us of God’s goodness and love toward us and they teach us thankfulness – that’s what they’re for! We’ve worked hard for this wealth and you’re not gonna make us feel guilty for being overly blessed! Every wealthy Christian knows money isn’t the root of all evil, but the LOVE of it! We don’t love it, pastor!

Christians, in general, like to talk about gratitude and its pivotal role in our faith walk. We like to say true joy is found when we learn to identify all the #blessings God has given us and then truly be thankful for them. We name it “contentment” and proceed to enjoy 80 or 90 years of thanking God for being so “loving” toward us.

But is all that just a smokescreen? Is the posture of thankfulness purely a panacea – a way to placate our fears? Are we maybe just afraid to take those blessings one click further…. to dig deep and take just one brave step beyond thankfulness? It’d be a brave step because we just might arrive at the scary question, “But what have we been given all these blessings FOR????”

When Paul and I started asking God that question and earnestly prayed, “Lord, what do you want us to do with this wealth? How now should we live?” the answer wasn’t exactly what young wealthy people want to hear, but we had no doubt we had heard from the Creator of the Universe. He simply told us: “Hold it loosely.” God didn’t tell us “Give it all away”, but simply to let go of our death grip on it.

Before you think we’re some wackadoos who think even the shape of our shower suds is a message from God, it’s not like that. His words to us were not written or spoken, it was just something we both knew – felt in our souls – after a devoted season of specifically asking God how we were to live in the midst of abundance.
Hang with me – this blog is not about me and my husband. Please don’t even glance our way. I only share our story because we HAVE learned that as soon as we “held our wealth loosely”, we were able to let it go. When we prayed for wealth accumulation to no longer be the summation of our lives, we were supernaturally given the courage to release it. We soon discovered we had an answer for that seemingly scary question:
What have we been blessed for? Well, for the sake of OTHERS, that’s what for.
It’s as simple as that.

For us, that revelation led us to flip our spending lives upside down in an attempt to put others before ourselves. We have a long way to go, but suffice to say the opening paragraph of this blog is no longer true.

My point, however, is not about personal wealth but how might the same scary question regarding blessings be applied to the wealth of a nation?
When I read Suzanne Collins’ book ‘The Hunger Games’, I was blown away at the resemblance of America to the “Capital” – the district from her dystopian novel which consumes and hoards all the wealth at the expense of all the other subservient districts. The Capital flaunts and celebrates and justifies their wealth with exaggerated exuberance. They make no concessions that they are the biggest, the best, the richest and most, well, #blessed in all the fair land. They do not mind that others are dying around them, as long as they are able to continue to live their opulent and indulgent lifestyle.

I was convicted to the point of tears when those books and the subsequent movie came out. I am convinced Collins intended the Capital to mirror America and, to be honest, I’m still extremely uncomfortable with the ongoing conviction. I don’t think any of us really want to acknowledge how much we have, especially in relation to those who have not. That would be painful and we don’t like pain. It’s better to not think about it – stay busy and preoccupied – we conclude. I know that’s how I keep the pain at bay, anyway.

But I think, if nothing else, ‘The Hunger Games’ should encourage those of us who can identify with the Capital (developed countries) to at least be contemplating:
“For what have we been blessed FOR?”

This fall, my husband and I drove across America to bring a car to our daughter in Los Angeles. Something like 2,100 miles. Sometimes we drove nearly 3 or 4 hours without seeing a single building, city, or person. We drove through countless stretches of fields, forests, and mountains – over rivers and around lakes – and couldn’t get over the expansiveness of this country. We are a land and people so rich in resources: fields, food, forests, water, beauty, unoccupied space, strong military, hard-working people, medicine, health and healthcare, research, energy, strength, education, innovation, creativity, and – most importantly – we are predominantly influenced by a faith that teaches selflessness and generosity. We, as a country, have far more resources, I believe, than we could ever expend entirely on ourselves.

If you’ve ever traveled to the third world, you know what I’m getting at. You understand the comparison without me pointing it out. If you’ve been to those places, you’ve seen the other “districts”. You know the atrocity of our wealthy and wasteful ways as those just outside our borders would be thrilled to simply eat from our dog’s dish.

America, WE are like a wealthy relative – perhaps a ridiculously rich, young uncle – who observes his poorer relatives starving, dying of preventable diseases, suffering from lack of clean water, fleeing homes to escape violence or gangs or a dictator who would rather behead a dissenter than being seen as weak, and yet, he mostly looks the other way. We are, indeed, THAT relative (who’s been specifically instructed by his Father to take care of his oppressed and suffering family members) – who finds out a cousin sent their 11 year-old daughter into the sex trade in Mumbai out of desperation to feed his starving family, who knows of a sister in Pakistan enslaved to a lifetime of hard labor for simply borrowing money for her daughter’s medical expenses, who discovers a Honduran niece was forced to flee the country after the small pillow factory she owns was targeted by gangs threatening to kill her if she didn’t pay an impossibly high bribe.

But the wealthy young uncle decides that instead of helping those relatives, he will build a wall around his abundance and choose the culturally acceptable posture of thankfulness. The rich uncle sits in his air-conditioned vacation home sipping fine wine and declares, “I’m so unbelievably blessed. I feel so very safe and comfortable. With all the walls around me, I have no worries, no fears, no suffering. And I’m so glad that I recognize just how thankful I am because that makes the enjoyment of all my blessings okay. Thank-you God for all these #blessings.”

America, there is NO doubt – WE ARE that wealthy young uncle. We can say all we want that it’s not our responsibility to care for the poor and hurting in this world and that they’re really not “our family” or “our problem”, but then we’d simply be skipping right over the question:

“What might we have been blessed for?”

Lord, help us all.

Why Chip and Joanna are BIG, FAT, LIARS (But we should all be watching their show anyway…)

September 8, 2016 by Cindy DeBoer 11 Comments

I speak from experience. We just moved into our first (and last) fixer-upper. We chose the house because of the neighborhood – interesting social, religious, and economic diversity in a walkable neighborhood close to downtown Grand Rapids. We never once thought it’d be “fun” to do a fixer-upper. In fact, because we don’t have cable, we had never even heard of Chip and Joanna or seen their show before we were already knee deep in sheet rock.

But, curiosity got the best of me – and when our spring break hotel had cable, I binge-watched like 28 episodes of “Fixer Upper.” And now, like the rest of the world, I have a huge fan crush on the duo. This fact pisses me off, because I really want to hate them for making fixing-upping look “fun”.

However, as a REAL LIFE fixer-upper, AS WELL AS an expert on all things “Chip and Joanna”, I feel compelled to share our experience and contrast it to their show to expose them for the liars they are (or, to be fair, could it be they just have some incredibly crafty film editors??? It’s just not possible they are so perfect, is it???):

THEM: Chip and Joanna generally run into one “minor snag” per renovation where they have to call the owner and ask for additional funds.
- US: With REAL LIFE fixing-upping, the shocking discovery that you have blown your budget to crap happens daily. (In fact, if you’re seriously contemplating a fixer-upper, you might want to ask yourself if you’re okay with selling your plasma, hair, AND sperm – because the good Lord knows it’s gonna cost you EVERYTHING else…)

THEM: The Gaines’ kids are always polite, excited for their parents’ latest project, and eager to lend a hand.
- US: In REAL LIFE fixing-upping, your kids grow deaf to your endless requests for “help”. Our kids needed to take muscle relaxers to alleviate facial tension from all their eye-rolling.

THEM: Chipanna (I’m just going to call them that from now on, because they do life together so nauseatingly unified, they might as well be one…) don’t have to wait three weeks for the dry-wall guy to show up, four weeks for the plumber, and an eternity for the carpenter who promised every day for a month he’d be there tomorrow….
- US: In the REAL WORLD, you might as well get your Pokemon Go up and going – because you will be killing ALL KINDS of time waiting for MR. NEVER-GONNA-HAPPEN to show up.

THEM: Chipanna never accidentally rips out a support beam, or blindly drives a nail into a water pipe, or gets impatient putting polyurethane on the wood floors causing it all to bubble and have to be redone.
- US: Just sayin’…..

THEM: I’ve never seen Chipanna break a pane of stained glass window in a fixer-upper where the stained glass window was THE ONLY redeeming quality of the piece of crap house they were renovating…..
- US: Again, just sayin’…..

THEM: Joanna never swears at Chip.
- US: In REAL LIFE fixing-upping, well…… no comment.

THEM: Chip has all kinds of sweet pet names for Joanna – like Jo, Jojo, Mama and Buttercup.
- US: During our renovation, my husband had some choice names for me, too – but nothing like those…

THEM: Chipanna never accidentally purchase a crack house.
- US: Yes, in fact, we did.

THEM: Chipanna never seem to have to deal with probation officers who show up at the door looking for the previous tenants.
- US: Yes, in fact, they’ve been at our door more than once.

THEM: Joanna always looks so darn cute. Whether it’s at the work site, antique shopping, or during the big reveal, she’s invariably stunning.
- US: Me? I showed up at the work site every day with bed head, bags under my eyes, my shirt on inside-out (to save on washing my paint clothes so often) and wearing an old pair of too-small running shorts which gave me a not-too-attractive constant wedgie.

THEM: Chipanna always seem to throw together a hearty and healthy meal at the end of their long, hard work days.
- US: In REAL-LIFE fixing-upping, your evening meals look like this: McDonalds, Subway, Subway, Subway, and then every fifth day you “cook” and make everyone a tuna-fish sandwich that tastes like paint because of all the paint-brushes you have “saved for later” in your refrigerator.

THEM: Chipanna always gets the house done on time. Who are these freakin’ demi-gods that they always meet their deadlines? How on God’s green earth do they do it???
- US: Even though we gave ourselves SEVEN FREAKING MONTHS for our renovation, we weren’t even CLOSE to being finished when we moved in. Our house looked like a crack house and the worst-ever-KOA-campground had a baby. For our “big reveal”, our house looked like this:
  Living Room – still awaiting paint
  
  Solarium – aka our temporary kitchen. And yes, that’s a random toilet waiting to be installed
  
  Family room – no freakin’ idea what we’re gonna do with this mess
  
  Back stair-way – complete with protruding nails that impale you if you get too close!
  
  Upstairs hall – and yes, that’s right, there’s no door to the bathroom because we can’t find it.

THEM: Chipanna will once and a while make a joke about mice – but you never see any – or remnants of any other vermin for that matter.
- US: Our house had a horrific mice infestation. There was mice crap in every single cupboard and drawer. Oh – and the previous tenants left multiple piles of petrified dog crap dispersed throughout the entire house as little “welcome” gifts. Just lovely.

THEM: Chipanna always find shiplap in their reno-houses.
- US: What is it with WACO and shiplap???? A hundred years ago, people in Grand Rapids had very different ideas of what was “beautiful”. As we removed a hundred years of “decorating” layer by painstaking layer, we found: 8 (yes, EIGHT) layers of crispy wallpaper, ugly faux brick paneling, 6 layers of disgusting, asbestos-laden linoleum and 1 layer of tile that looked like an 8-yr-old installed it. Then – wait for it….. wait for it….. Lo and Behold! We finally discovered some shiplap! However, it was on the walls to the FREAKIN’ BASEMENT – the cold, dark, cinderblock Michigan basement that no one besides myself and spiders will ever see. How poetic.

HOWEVER – and this is why I will love Chipanna forever and ever a-men – it’s the reason we should all be watching more of their show: “Fixer-Upper” is far LESS about fixing up houses, and far MORE a beautiful tribute to marriage.

-Chip and Joanna tackle the notorious marriage-breaking endeavor of home renovation week after week and exemplify how we can love, honor, and respect our marriage partners even in challenging circumstances. I can’t get enough of them.

They inspire me to be a better wife, person, and Christian.

– I love how they genuinely enjoy each other and laugh at each other.

– I love how Joanna laughs when Chip bloats his stomach (why do all men think this is funny?) Joanna seems to really, genuinely find Chip charming no matter how ridiculous his antics. And soon, I started to find Chip charming, too. But then I realized this: my husband does these silly little things, too. I had just had grown so cold and calloused – I was choosing to roll my eyes at him instead of seeing it’s just my prince trying to impress his princess. He needs to see me impressed.

– Joanna looks at Chip likes he’s just the most handsome, strong, wise and powerful man she’s ever met. Wives – listen up – I think if we all looked at our husbands the way Joanna ogles Chip, we could probably save a lot of our marriages – because I really believe this is something all men are starving for.

– I love how they listen to each other before speaking.

– I love watching Chip watch Joanna. He looks like he wants to just lick her all-over.

– I love how they share hard news with one another – acknowledging the news stinks, but then, collaborating to find a way to “deal with it”. Ahhhhh – that’s beautiful marriage communication right there.

I think this is genuine Chip and Joanna – that they’re not just “putting on a show.”

They are the real deal – and we’d all do well to try to emulate them in our marriages. I pray for Paul and I to have a love for each other that’s a fraction as strong as Chipanna. And THAT, my friends, is the REAL reason I will keep watching Fixer-Upper. We might even have to get cable…

But we will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER to INFINITY, tackle another Fixer-Upper ourselves.

Why I'd give booze/drug money to a beggar:

February 12, 2016 by Cindy DeBoer 4 Comments

n_hudley_homeless500x279 *He was 5 years old when his mother’s boyfriend sodomized him. When he was 7, the people that lived in his house threw a party where everyone got stoned – so stoned, in fact, that they passed the boy around as their sex toy. A year later, he started smoking weed, too, just to escape the pain. When he was 10, he raped an 8 year-old girl because he thought that was normal behavior. When he was 11, his mom’s latest fling prostituted him for drug money. At 12, the boy sold his first Ziploc baggie of marijuana. The money kept him from being pimped-out that weekend. It also offered him a way to escape the pain of his beatings from the boyfriend – by remaining high himself. It wasn’t long and cocaine became the drug of choice.

Because he knew of no other way to get through a day, he was soon addicted. He ran away from home at 14. He was incarcerated at 15. His repeated drug offenses combined with his tendency to steal money for drugs were more than any of his extended family or friends could take. He had burned every familial bridge and lost every friend he’d ever made by the time he was 16.

By the age of 18, he was a homeless, drug-addicted, high-school dropout with a record of two felonies and five misdemeanors. He couldn’t find a job to save his life.

At 19, after a failed suicide attempt, he was admitted to the psych-hospital where I work. It was his third attempt in three weeks. He was diagnosed with “Severe Depressive Disorder, Drug Abuse Associated.” He was done. He wanted out of this hell-hole that many of the rest of us like to call “the good life.”*

After he was discharged from the psych-hospital, I saw him begging on the corner of US-131 and Wealthy Street on a frigid, snowy Saturday. I was pretty sure if I gave him money, he’d use it for drugs. Drug-abuse is the only effective coping skill he’s ever known. It’s what keeps him from attempting suicide EVERY day. I knew that seeing him alive meant he was numbing his pain with drugs – otherwise he’d surely be dead.

I gave him money.

But it didn’t make me feel good about myself. I felt a pit in my stomach. It’s such a cheap way out of helping the poor, the needy, or hurting. It’s so freakin’ easy to roll down the window and throw someone some cash, isn’t it? Or maybe we’ll opt to take the even easier path and keep the window rolled up tightly, lock the doors, and tell the kids in the backseat, “You see those beggars? They’re scammers. They just use that money for drugs and alcohol. You shouldn’t give money to beggars because they never use it for food or rent. I even read somewhere that sometimes beggars make more per year than daddy does!”

We are a busy people – we American Christians – with a million things to do just today. So instead of parking the car, walking over to him, shaking his dirty hand, and offering the beginning of a nurturing relationship by taking him out for lunch – we either snub him or flip him a few quarters.

Getting out of the car and hearing his story will take time. It will take energy. It will take enormous emotional capital. And it will probably take a hellava lot of money (more than a few quarters) to help this guy. Investing in him may take years. Maybe the rest of your life. You will get dirty, tired and frustrated. It’s not going to be easy. But it’s probably the ONLY way you’ll make a difference in this boy’s life and – I’m just guessing here – it’s probably what Jesus would do.

One life at a time. That’s how we can make a difference. Just one at a time. We get out of the car and make a difference.

There is simply NO POSSIBLE WAY that we can know a beggars situation simply by observing them on the street corner. There is NO WAY we can know what hell their life has been to bring them to this place. Why is it so easy to assume they are taking advantage of us (we who are sitting in our warm cars) instead of assuming life has beat them into this state of desperation? And when we drive by and refuse them any help at all because of the possibility they are taking advantage of us, we are passing sweeping judgments on all beggars.

But today, as I see my friend begging on the overpass, I’m in too much of a hurry. I don’t have time to park my car and chat with him. I wish I did. Because THAT is the only way to truly know and understand his circumstances. It’s the only way to have any hope of offering real, practical, and sustainable help.

So on this day, if I refuse to park my car and go talk to the young man, I must choose between the two lesser options: do nothing and drive on by risking that without drugs or alcohol to numb his pain he’ll try to take his life again, or give him money that I know he will use to buy drugs.

I’m going to choose to support his drug habit today. And I pray that I will continue simplifying my life to free up time, money and energy so I can actually INVEST in hurting people. I want to be the kind of person that doesn’t put a band-aid on problems (giving money), but chooses to dig deep, work hard, and sacrifice much in order to find lasting solutions.

I want to be the one who parks the car and strolls on over for a conversation.

*This is a fictitious person – made from a composite of people’s stories I’ve heard over the years. Any resemblance to an actual person is entirely coincidental. But people just like this boy really do exist in my city, in your city, in every city. And they frequently show up at my psych hospital as suicidal. Sadly, I’ve even heard more horrendous stories than this one. Last Saturday, however, I really did give money to a beggar I personally knew at the highway overpass in Grand Rapids.

10 Simple Steps to Freedom from Spring Cleaning. Finally.

March 20, 2015 by Cindy DeBoer 1 Comment

When I found out I had a disease that would likely reduce my years on this planet significantly, I wasted no time and jumped into conservation mode by eliminating things from my life that are not important, not necessary, or just no fun. I’m trying to focus my time and energy on things that really matter.

So, with the words of our bronchitis-encumbered friend, I’ve kicked spring-cleaning to the curb, because “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

I have never understood why spring-cleaning is a thing anyway. What kind of fun-Nazi came up with this concept? Just when the temperature and the birds and little kids are all beckoning us out doors, we are guilted into cleaning our homes from top to bottom like some freakin’ locked-up Cinderella.

Not this Cinderella. No more.

So if you want to put an end to the guilt-trip called “Spring-Cleaning” – you can use my secret non-cleaning methods, which will certainly NOT earn you a headlining piece in Better Homes and Gardens, but WILL most definitely help you reclaim one of life’s most precious commodities: time.

The key to freedom from Spring-Cleaning is prioritization and simply determining how often certain chores are TRULY necessary. Here is my list of spring cleaning chores and the frequency I give them:

Dust baseboards: Never. Why bother with this total time-sucker? Who cares about dust ALL THE WAY down there by your already stinky and dusty FEET????

Washing windows: Every other year. Maybe. However, if the Sparty’s are doing well in March Madness AND your daughter plays spring soccer AND you’re planning a spring missions trip to Guatemala, you can stretch this out to three. Maybe four.

Wash sheets: Whenever you darn well feel like it, and never a day sooner. Who are these people that wash their sheets weekly? These people who make us feel less than just because we’d rather have a root canal than wash bed sheets? Who are these masochistic individuals who are willing to endure the stubbed toes, the broken fingernails, the SWEAT that breaks out when replacing the previously ill-fitted and now significantly shrunken fitted sheet??? They are not my friends, I’ll tell you that much.

Wipe down interior of cupboards and clean food and crumbs out of silverware drawer: Whenever the dishes and silverware coming OUT of the cupboards are as sticky as those going IN to the dishwasher.

Clean out the refrigerator: When something spills and makes a sticky mess. (I was just a young bride when I noticed on my mother-in-law’s calendar the little word “refrigerator” inked in the last Wednesday of every month. I asked her what that meant and she said, “That’s refrigerator cleaning day. I take everything out and clean the inside thoroughly, and then pull it out from the wall and clean behind it, too.” I choked. She had been thinking so highly of me up until this point. I could sense her disappointment. We had been married at least TWO years by that time, and I had never once had a “refrigerator day.” Could this be a thing? Cleaning behind your refrigerator??? Why has nobody shared this information with me before? In a rare, raw act of defiance, I decided then and there that on this one issue I would seriously disappoint my sweet mother-in-law and choose “NO!” I will NOT have a monthly “refrigerator day!”)

So, just to be clear, when I say “clean out the refrigerator”, I’m simply referring to dumping moldy-oldies and just scanning the interior to make sure no living creature will crawl out at you when you reach inside. I am NOT talking about cleaning under or behind the beast. For me, that is done approximately: NEVER. So far, 29 years of being an independent refrigerator owner and NOT ONCE have I cleaned behind one!

Organize closets: When you can’t shut them.

Wash walls: Do you eat off your walls? Do you lick your walls? Do you prepare your meals on your walls? Do you unthaw your frozen meat on your walls? Do you fold your clean laundry on your walls? Do you change your baby’s diaper on the wall? I rest my case. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wash walls. Every 10 – 15 years you will repaint them anyway. Good enough.

Vacuum under the bed: Unless you have a dog who sometimes eats food she shouldn’t which makes her a little psychotic to the point of thinking that the under-bed space is actually a doggy doo-doo zone and leaves you a mess that ferments for several days before you discover it, there really is no reason to vacuum under the beds. I claim “outta sight, outta mind” for this one.

Professionally clean carpets: Do NOT waste your time OR your money on this scam! (I’m pretty sure the government owns both the carpet cleaning industry and the dry cleaning industry. They are both fake covers to extract more money from the unsuspecting American public by pretending to do something that is purely bogus! Surely by now, in our advanced human evolution, we ALL realize that dry cleaners simply step out back, shake out the garments, and then throw them in a funky-smelling plastic bag proclaiming, “Voila! Clean!” Likewise, I guarantee you that one hot minute after the carpet cleaner’s truck pulls out of your driveway, the Kirby vacuum cleaner saleswoman could bust into your house and suck up mounds and mounds of disgusting dirt, lint, and dog hair from your “clean” carpets and furniture making you feel that somehow you don’t love your family well for being so dirty and that what you really want to do is spend ten times too much on a vacuum cleaner. Let me save you the HEADACHE: do NOT bother with EITHER ploy to get you to pay for something unnecessary! I promise you, that little Eureka Wind-Tunnel that your grandma bought you for $59 at Walgreens and proudly gifted to you at your bridal shower a mere 28 years ago… she still works juuuuuuuust fine! Fine, I’m sure of it! Have faith!)

Carpet cleanliness in America is so overrated. Go ride your bike with your kid in this glorious spring weather – something terribly underrated.

And last but not least: Dog Care. I just read an article on spring-cleaning for your pets – a serious exposition on why my dog Buddy needs extra special attention at this time of year, too. Well, let me save you those wasted hours as well, my friends. My special secret that only takes a few seconds and keeps Buddy smelling April-fresh year-round: spray her frequently with spring-scented Febreeze! While the manufacturer and PETA probably do not endorse this practice, it could very well be the best spring-cleaning tip I can give you!

(I initially learned of the spring-cleaning concept from the Dutch Master herself, my Grandma Visser, who single-handedly raised the bar on the phrase “Dutch clean.” I’m noticing a bit of a cold sweat here as I contemplate posting this possibly too-honest list…. She was also a very large, very candid woman who made me cry on more than one occasion simply by speaking her mind. I believe I’m hearing her voice posthumously in my head right now – “Girl! Have you no shame???” Well, probably not, Grandma. Probably not.)

If I Had Only Nine More Years Left to Live

December 24, 2014 by Cindy DeBoer 1 Comment

It has been a year since I was diagnosed with Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) a helluva stupid lung disease that is slowly consuming my lung tissue and sucking the life from me. There is no cure. It has been a hard year – and my disease has progressed even though I specifically, repeatedly, desperately asked God to not let that happen – and I feel constantly compelled to reexamine my life and it’s meaning. Last year, on Christmas Eve, I wrote a blog entitled “If I Only had 10 More Years to Live” – and how having a potentially terminal illness changed my life’s goals almost immediately. Living with this diagnosis for a year and letting that reality sink in has taught me even more – and I felt compelled to update that “bucket list”.
It’s like my own constitutional amendments…

1) Contrary to what I wrote a year ago, I will NOT be keeping Snickers in my car 100% of the time to have on hand for panhandlers.
I piloted this program for several months and after single-handedly eating SIX bags of snack-size Snickers, gaining FOUR pounds, and only passing out ONE candy bar – I’ve decided I MUST come up with another plan or I won’t die of LAM, but Snickers toxicity! Because poverty and homelessness literally keep me awake at night, I’ve got to DO something. Ignoring the issue is not an option for me. I’ve decided I’m going to have Degage vouchers with me at all times to give out to panhandlers. They are coupons from our local inner-city mission that can be redeemed for a meal, bus fare, haircut, or hats and gloves. Even BETTER than a Snickers. Check out your own city mission and see what they offer – because every city has some (that is, homeless people AND helpful solutions).

2) I will watch less volleyball.
I adore my daughter and want to fully support every endeavor that is important to her (and all five of my kids). However, the amount of time that sports are sucking from the life of our generation is sickening and I don’t want to be a part of that madness anymore.

Our culture has dictated societal “norms” for sports involvement that simply require more from our family that we’re willing to give. There is a great quote by Krishnamurti that made me realize I was succumbing to a dangerous trend: “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted in a profoundly sick society.”

This lifestyle of dinner-in-the-car, homework-on-the-sidelines, texting-conversations, weekends-at-the-tournament, no-time-for-church, and washing-the-uniform-at-midnight, CANNOT be the best distribution of time that God had in mind when He planned for Christians to be His hands and feet! When we attend every stinkin’ thing our children participate in – in this world that has run amok with children’s athletics and child-focused activities – we are actually giving our children TOO much attention and thus making them our false god. Our children need our love and support, not our worship. Maybe if we took our children off the throne, we’d have more time for all the things Jesus told us to be about: the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the hurting, the marginalized, each other.

If I really do only have 9 years left to live, I want to have time for friends with cancer, widowed neighbors, young moms with screaming toddlers, teens from the inner-city, the stranger in the backed-up check-out line who looks like he’s ready to cry, AND my kids! I love my kids profoundly – and by saying I want to give them a little less side-line attention does not mean I love them any less. I just want to try to make the remaining distribution of my limited time a reflection of a heart that breaks for the things that breaks God’s heart. My WHOLE world is not my children.

3) Maybe if I watch less volleyball, I’ll have more time for the things that I didn’t get around to (but really MEANT to!) from last year’s bucket list: ICE CREAM dinners at the trailer park and time with nursing home residents who don’t get any visitors. Or maybe I’ll combine the two and load up my car with kids from the trailer park and together bring 20 gallons of ice cream to the nursing home! To me, that sounds like a taste of heaven.

4) And this whole Ferguson mess taught me something: I need to make some black friends.
One of the richest experiences of our lives has been living in Morocco and making true, deep, lasting friendships with Muslims. When Islam has a name, a face, an address, a friendship, it changes your perspective on all things “Islamic”. I love these people in Morocco. And they love me. And so I’m extremely cautious before deriving any kind of conclusion about what is really happening is the Muslim world.
During the Ferguson debacle, I realized I don’t understand racism in America hardly at all. While in America, I have largely lived in an all-white, middle-class, Christian bubble. I didn’t mean to do that – it just kind of happened. I certainly don’t know enough black people deeply enough to say I can understand their life or our differences. That fact made me so sad. I tried to keep my mouth shut through all of the debates going on over that mess in Ferguson. Maybe I’ll weigh in when I have a bunch of black friends and feel I understand their hearts better. I’m not talking about exploiting some fake friendships. I really do want some black friends – and I just want to acknowledge that right now I’m ignorant. And ignorant people should keep quiet.

5) This past year has taught me I need to spend LESS time with my mother-in-law…
This is one of the hardest for me because I was wrongly believing that I was the only one who could help her and meet her needs. But what I’ve been failing to do was accept dementia. Dark. Unfair. Cruel. Relentless. And I can’t fix it or make it go away and going to visit her every day was only leaving both of us exhausted. I have to let it go and accept that we are losing her slowly to this ugly disease. I can give her only what I can give her – no more, but never any less either. This has helped me in other areas of my life, too. I’ve learned I’m a fixer and I hate it when I can’t solve problems or make them go away. But accepting that OUR SAVIOR came, specifically, to carry all our burdens, means that all we have to do is show up. We don’t have to fix them or carry them or worry about them, we just need to be fully present in the midst of them. He really DID come to set us FREE!

6) A year later, and I’m STILL not gonna watch any Reality TV (Sorry all you DWTS fans – but I just don’t get it) Apparently, however, we as a family are going to occasionally curl up in blankets and absorb five seasons of Parenthood and try to solve issues like autism, teen sex, affairs and cancer with the family Braverman.

7) And on the no dusting and vacuuming vow I made last year… WELLLLLLLL, the truth is really two-fold. One, I’ve learned that a house full of dust and pollen and dog hair is REALLY bad for my failing lungs and I really do want to make those two suckers last as long as possible. And two, when I can write words in the dust on my coffee table, it distracts me so much I can’t even think. So, truth be known, I’ve started dusting again. But not washing windows. And don’t even ASK me what my closets and drawers and laundry room look like. Housework? Paring it down to the necessities – and it feels so right.

In fact, THAT’S IT! – That’s what you do when you feel you’ve been given your expiration date…. You pare it all down to the necessities – discovering what it is that you truly need and what truly makes you feel most alive!!! Thank-you, Jesus, for coming to earth a baby, living to know all pain and suffering, dying to conquer death, and being ALL that I would truly ever need.

“For lo, I bring you good news of great joy that shall be for all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2: 10, 11

Wiser Why's

February 25, 2014 by Cindy DeBoer 4 Comments

I am told that when life just doesn’t make sense at all it’s okay to ask God, “Why?”

When maybe a single phone call, lab results, a fire, or a funeral, leave you suddenly questioning who is God, really, and if He’s truly good and concerned about what’s going on down here or if He’s just hanging out with the angels playing Settlers of Catan and watching Downton Abbey.

There are a few things that I know to be true but they don’t necessarily help: I know God can handle our questioning – people love to remind me of that. I also know that I don’t necessarily need an answer to the “Why?” in order to find peace and joy. And I know that God will meet us where we’re at, which, sometimes, is in the middle of the unknown. Those statements are all true, but presently feel so cliché and have not been all that comforting lately. But I’ve also learned something in this season of asking a whole lot of “Why?” questions: when I come up with some Wiser Why’s, I just feel better. That’s it. Asking a different, wiser set of “Why’s?” just seems to be carrying me these days – better than any cliché reminders.

When I want to ask of God: Why am I only 47 and have to start thinking about death because of this stupid lung disease? My wiser Why is this: Why is it that I have been given a disease that gives me years to live instead of one that gives me only weeks or months?

Why did my sweet friend Jill have to die at 44 yrs. old, in the prime of her life, leaving behind a loving husband and 4 amazing kids? My wiser why is this: Why, Oh God, why, would you give insignificant little me the gift of 15 years of a beautiful friendship with someone as spectacularly special as Jill?

Why is it so freaking cold in Michigan? I should be asking: Why is it that we have a heated home and yet I know full well just 20 minutes up the road there are people who have no home at all?

Why is every stinkin’ day a blizzardy-day in Michigan this year? I could be asking: Why did God choose to make snow white? He could have chosen to make it black, you know.

Why does it feel like this winter will never end? A better Why would be: Why, out of all the ugly- brown-70’s-ranch houses in West Michigan, did we choose this particular ugly brown house for our down-size – which just so happens to have a miracle bush by the front door which just so happens to attract chirping birds ALL WINTER LONG providing us with the sounds of Spring – ALL WINTER LONG?

Why can’t we take a trip to Hawaii like my sister? A much wiser Why would be: Why don’t I run to the bathroom, stick my head in the toilet and give myself a swirly? We like to tell our kids: ask a junior-high question (a question so focused on jealousy is definitely a junior-high question!) and you’ll get a junior-high answer.

Why do some people do and say hurtful things yet seem oblivious to the hurt they leave in their wake? A wiser Why would be: Why am I so stuck on the hurt that has been done to me instead of looking to where I may have been the hurt-er?
Why can’t my husband or children ever replace the empty toilet roll with a new one? A wiser why would be: Why, Lord, did you choose to give me a husband who loves me and four (fairly normal) children? Why do some people pray for those things forever yet not receive them?

Why can’t I lose 20 pounds and have a figure like my co-worker Hillary? A much wiser why would be: Why is it that I have never known true hunger?

Why can some people eat like crap, smoke cigarettes, and drink their liver silly yet still live into their late 90’s – but even though I DIDN’T live like that, I might get robbed of a few decades? Perhaps a wiser Why would be: Why is Josiah so ridiculously funny that we can sit around the dinner table and laugh with (at) him for hours – helping us to realize we can know bliss without the aid of substances?

Why did my cousin Zac, who was more like a nephew and one of Andy’s best friends, have to die last summer at the age of 23 in a tragic, senseless car accident? My wiser why is this: Why, heavenly Father, did you pick bright eyed 5-yr.-old Anand out of all the millions of homeless and orphaned children in India, to be adopted by his family, to be brought home to America, to be renamed Zac, to touch and bless the lives of all who knew him, and to teach us all a little more about passion, love, and zest for life? And this one: Why, oh why, was he ALWAYS smiling?

Why do you allow pain and suffering, Almighty God, when I know darn well you could stop it all if you wanted to? A wiser Why is this: Why did it take me getting a diagnosis of a potentially terminal illness to stop the crazy-cycle life I was living and slow down enough to notice people, to notice need, to notice beauty, to notice quiet, and to notice God?