Calm down, Margaret. It’s probably nothing to worry about. Who gets breast cancer in her thirties? she said to herself when she felt a lump on her right breast.
Life is full of twists and turns.
Margaret Feinberg, author of Wonderstruck, was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer of 2013. Following her diagnosis, she had to undergo months of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries.
As she walked onto the battlefield of cancer, she was faced with this question: Will I fight back with joy? She decided that she would, and that choice changed everything.
“Whenever we fight back with joy, we practice a defiant joy that proclaims the darkness has not, and will not win,” Margaret shares. “Jesus demonstrated defiant joy as He approached the cross — and we can, too.”
Laughter and joy are an important part of Margaret’s life. For her, though, joy is more than simply a mood, or a
response to good circumstances. Joy is her heritage. In fact, joy is every Christian’s heritage, she says.
“Sometimes I think we forget that all that we see — all of creation — was fashioned in joy. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were present during creation, delighting and taking great pleasure in all that was handcrafted. You and I were created in joy by our God, who is full of joy. Joy is where we come from. It’s our heritage.”
Margaret points out that laughter and joy disappear in the midst of hardships, and we must be intentional about seeking them out and surrounding ourselves with people who laugh.
“I recently talked to a friend going through a tough time. Toward the end of the conversation, she said, ‘Thank you for your time, but most of all, thank you for your laughter. I needed that.’”
The challenge comes when our situation is screaming that God is anything but good, and that we have every reason to reject joy and embrace self-pity.
Margaret points out that joy has nothing to do with our circumstances, though. Instead, joy comes from the knowledge that we are loved by God.
“You see,” shares Margaret, “joy emanates out of the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us. The two are intertwined. It’s interesting that in the listing of the facets of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, joy follows love. When we know how much we are loved by God, joy percolates in our hearts. We walk lighter, laugh harder, smile wider — even in the spooky face of adversity.”
Lessons from the Furnace
“But if not.”
Margaret saw these words tattooed on a gentleman in a coffee shop, and she asked him about their significance. They’re from the Bible, he told her. From Daniel 3.
In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were faced with a decision: would they obey the Babylonian king and bow down to the golden idol, or would they risk being thrown into the furnace?
The three Hebrew men said to the king, “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up” (vv. 17-18, NRSV, emphasis added).
Margaret says, “Followers of Jesus live in a tension. On one hand, we are the people who ask, ‘What if God?’ as we seek His will, His power, His redemption for our lives. We know nothing is impossible for God. He can cure any disease, meet any financial need, mend any relationship. But we also know sometimes people still die, declare bankruptcy, and divorce.
“Yet we are encouraged to keep seeking God and His miraculous power — to heal, restore, redeem — in our lives as well as in the lives of those we love. That’s why we must also declare ‘But if not’, much like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did in Daniel 3. Even if God doesn’t respond in the way we hope or ask for, we will still be people who walk boldly in faith.”
Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, all of us on life’s battlefield are faced with a choice: will we give into disappointment, doubt, and despair, or will we fight back with joy, regardless of the outcome?
Margaret wrote Fight Back with Joy to encourage everyone who’s in a fight — whether the battlefield is a terminal illness, a heartbreaking divorce, a job loss, depression, broken dreams — to fight back with joy.
“On a daily basis, we’re tempted to give in to anger, frustration, depression, becoming highly critical or a control freak,” Margaret says. “But what if, no matter what tough situation you’re facing, you began to fight back with joy? What would that look like?
“That’s a question we all need to ask. The book and Bible study are filled with tactics and tools to help you do just that — plus what you need to do and say when someone you love is going through a difficult time.”
Article adapted from Home Life Magazine.
Emily Ellis is the publishing team leader of magazines and devotionals at Lifeway. Originally from Boston, she studied Hebrew at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
