Clinging to joy from a broken body

I didn't plan to take a week off from the blog. God has called my time and energy and thoughts elsewhere, though, between last Monday's post and yesterday's, and I've been still and resting in him.

Rest is something I struggle with. I don't do rest well. I like to be on the move. I like activity. I like talking. I like doing. I don't particularly like being still, but God has stilled me this week.

And it's been sweet.

This year has been full of great blessing, but it's also been a tough one. Every year our family writes a Christmas letter, and we haven't written ours this year. Maybe it will be a New Year's letter. Or Valentine's Day. Or maybe even Easter. 

I haven't written this year's letter because I didn't know what to write. Last year I didn't have the words either, but I forced them and wrote something that better resembled the reality I wanted than the reality I faced. I won't make that mistake again this year, so I'm not writing our letter until I'm ready to write an honest one.

God took my breath away figuratively a couple weekends ago, with the success of our respite night in which we opened wide our church doors to our community to provide free childcare to kids with special needs and their siblings. But a few weeks before that God had taken my breath away in a more literal way.

If you've read this blog long, you know that I'm in my late 20s but have joints that better resemble someone in their 80s due to rheumatoid arthritis. In RA, the immune system attacks the lining of joints, causing them to swell and rubs against the bones; as that friction erodes the surface of the bone, redness and pain and swelling occur. It can also cause inflammation in some organs. My RA went unchecked and undiagnosed for the first year I had it, and then it was mostly untreated for another year because I found out I was pregnant with my son a week after I was diagnosed and all the effective treatments are untested in pregnancy. Once I was diagnosed, my hands were already affected enough that opening any sort of jar, unlocking many doors, and unbuckling my kids' car seats is a challenge, if not impossible. 

Now we've found a sweet spot of drugs and supplements and lifestyle choices and diet that has my disease in check. But the bone damage in my hands and the limitations to those joints can't be undone. The complications of a previous treatment have left me with scars from MRSA infections and susceptibility to future infections. The knee surgery I had a couple months ago is the result of RA damage during the first two years of disease activity. 

And a couple weeks ago - just three days after our respite night - I learned that my difficulties breathing over the past year, more acute in the past month, are likely the result of RA-related lung disease, which has resulted in asthma. So we've added a few more words to my charts, a few more meds to my cabinet, and a few more doctor's appointments to the calendar.

And I've wrestled with joy. Christmas ads would have you believe that it can be bought. Each of Gap's sale emails to me this month, like the one below, bore the words, "Joy Alert!"  

You can't buy joy at Gap. About 2,000 years ago, it was found in a more unlikely place than that.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.
And the angel said to them,
“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

{Luke 2:8-12}

This year I am thankful that joy isn't a feeling. It's a reality. It's the truth that God loves me enough to allow the worst thing to happen - the death of his son - so that the best thing could happen - the saving of my life and soul. 

In light of that, I can live in a broken body, with difficulty running and grasping and breathing, knowing that God is enough and that he has allowed me to experience a little bit of what the families I serve each week experience daily. Often, we are advised to steer clear of Romans 8:28 when comforting people whose pain is fresh, but I don't think we should always heed that advice. We certainly shouldn't drop those words unkindly or dismissively as little bombs in Christian wrapping paper. But the words are true. And even when my pain is raw, I have clung to them: 

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good
 to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. 
For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined
 to become conformed to the image of his son,
so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren;
and these whom he predestined, he also called;
and these whom he called, he also justified;
and these whom he justified, he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, 
how will he not also with him freely give us all things?
{Romans 8:28-32}

Merry Christmas, my friends. May the amazing nature of his joy take your breath away this holiday season.