.007 |  THE SIDE OF JOY NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

ON THOSE EVENINGS Leif and I were too exhausted to cook, we found respite at the grocery store’s deli counter. We became regulars, learning the employees’ names and stories. They were generous in allowing us to sample before ordering since my taste buds fluctuated with treatments. The roasted beet salad that tickled my taste buds one week became intolerable the next.

Our dog, Hershey, always joined us for the outing. He sat quietly in his canary yellow tote inside the grocery cart.

After staring into the deli case one evening, Leif and I decided to search the other aisles for taste inspiration. We strolled each row, admiring the new products. Then we meandered back to the deli, where Leif ordered a toasted avocado and chicken sandwich. The tacos beckoned me.

We took our favorite seats in the food court and enjoyed the meal, chatting for some time afterward before heading to the parking lot.

Approaching our car, I sensed something missing.

“Where’s our superpup?” I asked.

Leif barreled back inside. He found customers circling a shopping cart with a yellow satchel. Something was wiggling inside the bag and no one knew quite what to do.

“That’s mine!” Leif blurted, scooping up the tote.

We had abandoned Hershey for more than an hour.

Leif and I laughed all the way home, but Hershey’s disapproving stares indicated he was not amused.

In eight years of pet ownership, I’d never forgotten the furry third member of our family. I suspected it wouldn’t be the last time.

Absentmindedness marked our days. It wasn’t unusual for either of us to walk into a room and wonder, What did I come in here for? Or stop by the store and return home with everything except what we intended to buy. Clothes soured after being disregarded in the washer. Trash overflowed when we forgot to place the cans by the curb.

As if someone had slipped thick, fuzzy earmuffs over my head, I only half-heard anything anyone said anywhere. Poor Leif bore the brunt of my scatterbrain. He somehow remained patient when explaining yet again, “Honey, your sunglasses are on your head.”

Some of the fogginess resulted from the chemicals flowing through my veins, but much of it sprang from sleeplessness. Tucking my cell phone under the blanket to protect Leif from the light, I’d press a button to check the time: 3:17 a.m. The strangling grip of insomnia set in again.

Anxiety and worry preferred midnight ambushes. In the inky blackness, the pull of negative ruminations became overwhelming. Like a toilet bowl, my mind swirled, circling the filthy realities of cancer. Most of the medical statistics were outlining my odds based on a mere sixty months in the future, not the many decades young people hope to enjoy.

In those dark hours of the early morning, I listened to the tick-tock of every clock in our house, stalked by anxiety that filled the spaces between seconds.

When I managed to find sleep, I fell prey to night terrors, lifelike dreams of the disease spreading, of death approaching. I’d wake wet and tangled in sheets, gasping for breath.

Leif endured nightmares too. He dreamed one night of my funeral and woke with the deep pangs of a widower’s loneliness.

The nights became a bloody battleground. Though sleep provided a source of much-needed strength and rest for my weary body, mind, and emotions, capturing shut-eye felt like a tug-of-war against darkness. The shadow of every negative outcome loomed larger and more ominous at nightfall. Insomnia left me spinning around the uncertainty of unpaid medical bills, inconclusive test results, the next painful treatment.

The chemical-induced state brought crankiness, an inability to remember, and searing hot flashes. One night I ran out the door to the deck. Ripping open my pajamas, I flapped my arms like a chicken to cool off, hoping none of my neighbors owned night-vision goggles.

The Queen warned us the effects of the chemicals were cumulative. Several rounds of treatment later I realized what she meant: the side effects would result in more pain—she just couldn’t tell me how much or how long. The list grew to include anemia, fatigue, rashes, extreme irritable bowel syndrome, mouth sores, and receding gums. Even my toenails fell out.

How do you fight hard when you have hardly any fight left?

Just when I thought things could not get worse, the phone rang. Though the details of the conversation differed, the words were all too familiar.

Dad.

Elevated tumor markers.

Biopsy results.

Cancer.

Nearly one hundred days after my diagnosis, my father was diagnosed with cancer too.

“Not my papa!” I screamed to an empty room. Now my mother had to watch her only child and her husband of forty-six years battle cancer side by side.

I went downstairs to deliver the news to Leif.

“I committed to fight back with joy, but this is too much,” I admitted. “I’ve surrounded myself with a team. I’m learning how to grieve. I’ve worn vivid colors and cracked silly jokes. What more can I do?”

If only I could grab coffee with the prophet Habakkuk. Perhaps he would have helpful advice for what I now faced.

The book that shares his name allows us to eavesdrop on a man who expresses his fears, doubts, and questions to God. From the opening chapter, Habakkuk appears baffled by his circumstances and, more importantly, by God. He spies the rainclouds of trouble rolling in for the people of Judah. The Babylonians have been on the move, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Now their eyes are set on Judah.

Habakkuk feels caught in the crosshairs. From the first day King Jehoiakim took the reins of Judah, his crooked, exploitative ways infect society. Corruption and injustice spread like gangrene. The spirits of God’s people are poisoned with idol worship. Their hearts inflamed with acts of rebellion. In their sickness, they forget God.

Though God is slow to anger, he is jealous for his people. God reveals to Habakkuk that the despicable Babylonians will bring judgment on Judah. The prophet begs God to intervene, but his petitions fall on deaf ears. Habakkuk’s bitter cry emerges as he questions God: Why would the Lord use evil to bring about good?

Unlike other Old Testament prophets, Habakkuk doesn’t speak God’s Word to us as much as he speaks our words to God. He voices our doubts and disappointments. He enunciates that which leaves us puzzled and perplexed. Like us, he caves in to the temptation to tell God how to do a better job.

Though he is exasperated, the prophet’s resolve does not waver. He prays, pursues God, and stomps to the city rampart to wait for the Lord’s answer. Habakkuk looks somewhat like a stubborn, cross-armed kid who declares, “I’m not leaving until you show up and answer me!”

Yet he addresses his doubts and frustration to God, not against God. Habakkuk never tells us how long God makes the seasoned prophet wait, only that God responds.

God says the plans are fixed. Judah will be judged. The tumor of sin must be cut out. What appears evil will bring about healing.

One can imagine somewhere on the wall, high above the city, overlooking the doomed Jerusalem, a cool breeze from the surrounding hills rustling his robes, Habakkuk accepts that God can transform the harshest tragedies into something good. That God can be trusted no matter what.

After God addresses Habakkuk, the prophet divulges a stunning confession: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Habakkuk raises the questions: What do we do when the pantry is bare and the refrigerator empty? How do we respond when the source of our sustenance is cut off? When life as we know it is stripped away? When circumstances flood us with fear instead of faith?

I could relate to the prophet’s sense of loss. Abundant life was not budding in me. The ability to rest withered on the vine. Energy decayed. Even my ovaries had gone dormant. Fear consumed.

Habakkuk challenges: we can choose to rejoice when it does not add up.

The prophet’s decision to praise God isn’t based on present conditions. He addresses God as “Lord” and “Savior.” These two designations signify both God’s sovereignty—his lordship—and his power to redeem an evil situation as Israel’s Savior.

Habakkuk’s rejoicing does not center on circumstances; it’s founded on God’s intent and ability to save. Rejoicing is not a prescription as much as a gateway to possibility. Hope springs when we realize God as the source of life when all seems lost. This doesn’t always happen in the way we expect or in the measure we anticipate. But we can choose to find those places where life has withered and determine to praise God.

Leif and I identified the areas where we felt most alone, most overcome, most discouraged, and made an effort to praise God there.

The afternoon I learned of my father’s diagnosis, I had a doctor’s appointment of my own. As Leif drove down the interstate, I stared out the window. Every blurry tree seemed to be moving in slow motion. My trance was broken by a faint melody, Leif singing an old hymn.

I joined him.

My voice strained, warbling off-key. We glanced at each other during the chorus. I wanted to smile but could not. Little had changed. I rejoiced anyway.

I trailed the nurse to a changing room to prepare for the MRI. My exhausted limbs hung heavy as I entered a cold room with an oversized machine reminiscent of a torpedo tube. My face remained expressionless. I had no artistic drawings on my body. As if on autopilot, I wriggled back on the sled and waited for a muffled voice that sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown telling me to lie still.

As my body slid through the tube, I understood why so many people have panic attacks in MRI machines. The constricting space, the rhythmic sounds, the inability to move—all felt suffocating.

Click. Clank. Click. Clank.

Listening to the clamor, I breathed deep. My mind drifted.

Has anyone offered God praise in this place before?

I thought of Habakkuk, that brazen codger. If he could rejoice when an entire nation crumbled around him, surely I could offer something to God in this space. After all, I had discovered a valuable insight through this process:

Fighting back with joy rarely makes sense.

Ever so softly, I sang a hymn based on Psalm 103. The lyrics seemed to soothe, but I wasn’t suddenly transformed. I didn’t suddenly feel rested. The melodious words didn’t make me revived or happier. Yet it mattered. I continued to sing another line, then a third, until a voice came over the intercom:

“Excuse me, Margaret, can you stop singing? We need you to lie absolutely still.”

Oops.

I didn’t know they were listening.

Climbing off the sled after the scan, I wasn’t sure whether I was different or the space I occupied had changed. But I was waking up to the side of joy no one talks about. Joy is irrational and takes hard work and does not always deliver a happily ever after.

Many of us practice a faith that contains the fine print:

I’LL TRUST GOD

if he does something for me in return.

Perhaps that’s one reason we slam into a giant speed bump whenever life doesn’t turn out like we expect.

What if you raise your kids exactly right, but they walk away and never talk to you again?

What if you wait patiently for a spouse, but “the one” never comes?

What if you give yourself away in service and end up impoverished and alone?

What if you wake up one day and it seems as if God has broken all his promises?

In these moments, Habakkuk’s declaration rings in our ears: “I’ll trust you …”

Even if the figs and olives fail.

Even if famine spreads throughout the land.

Even if the night terrors don’t end.

Even if the insomnia continues.

Even if the side effects worsen.

Even if I must fight back cancer alongside my dad.

Even if I die.

When I crawled out of that MRI machine, I felt closer to Habakkuk than when I crawled in. I wondered if the prophet sensed the same emptiness in his gut after he rejoiced.

Our efforts to fight back with joy are riddled with the temptation to turn our backs, throw up our hands, and abandon the battle. That’s precisely when we need to praise, when our decision to rejoice matters most. Even microscopic offerings cement our commitment to follow God in anything. This grace-given resolve to celebrate Christ in all things is fortified in the storms, not on the still seas.

I left the hospital recommitted to rejoice when it makes no sense.

Leif and I transformed our drives to the hospital into opportunities for worship. CT machines and PET scans converted into sanctuaries of praise. Even the chairs in the infusion center, the place where deadly chemicals entered my veins, became incubators of joy.

Most days rejoicing didn’t make us feel better. Some moments buoyed our spirits, and laced us with smiles that attracted new friends. More often it opened a floodgate of tears. Joy is an action, something we can do, regardless of what our emotions may reveal.

Something beautiful resides in a faith that is not results-based. Choosing to follow the apostle Paul’s instruction to “rejoice always” is not a cure-all elixir. It isn’t a silver bullet guaranteed to slay every monster. Often we choose to fight back with joy without immediate payoff. Those are the days we cultivate a defiant joy, the habit of worship, and the discipline of faithfulness.

Overwhelmed, overspent, and overtired, my shouts of praise trickled to mere whispers. Little did I know I would soon have reason for great cheer. As with any fight, I needed a win, and I was about to get one.