the joy across the table

I’m quick to blame my lack of joy on my personality: as both a realist and a perfectionist, I don’t have much capacity for something that seems at odds with reality and imperfection. Sometimes, I blame the lack on my circumstances.  Like now, when a new bevy of rashes has erupted right before we leave for vacation, and my faltering gut health has nosedived. I’m waiting for joy, and it will come when all my troubles, even the minor ones, have subsided.

I think I will be waiting a long time.

A year and a half ago, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. That’s not a sickness that will heal. It’s chronic. And yet I react to each flare as though this is the last one: if only I can scour Google for the right answers, I’ll find what I need to heal my body once and for all. The internet has become my source for wisdom, hope, and instruction. But it has let me down.

Part of my problem, I know, is that I have not yet accepted that I have a chronic illness. Despite my pride in my practical nature, I have put my hope in something deeply unrealistic: that my disease will somehow, through hard work and an accumulation of knowledge, be eradicated. I haven’t wanted to accept this disease as a part of who I am, or that the way I handle it is an example for my children of how believers treat trials. I just want it to go away. And in the meantime, I’ve contented myself waiting for joy.

The other day, I sat at our dining room table across from my children. They were giggling, pretending, telling stories, asking good questions (my three-year-old: “Mama, if Jesus is God and God is everywhere, why is Jesus only in heaven?”). And I was looking down at my phone, my link to my savior Google, where I was certain to find the answers to my health questions quickly and then make myself available to the littles sitting across from me. I was panicking; I’ve been doing everything right, in terms of diet and supplements, and yet here I am, scratching and flaking and unable to shave my armpits because a rash has bloomed there. My children got half my attention, and the other half was focused on solving the real problem: my imperfect, unreliable health.

My children know about my health struggles, and they’re sweet to ask about them. But I don’t want them to see me distracted with my flares. I don’t want them to think that when I take a turn for the worse, so does my attentiveness. I don’t want them to think that the answer to our problems is to frantically and joylessly hunt down a solution.

I want them to know that our hearts don’t have to be troubled, because Christ has already overcome the world. I want them to know that God will keep in perfect peace the mind that is stayed on him. I want them to know that the joy of the Lord is our strength. And I don’t expect they’ll believe these things are true if what they see in front of them is a mom who turns to the internet for her source of peace and strength.

But God is good even when I’m not, and in that moment, when I was ignoring my calling, I looked up. And I saw what joy looks like. It looks like children laughing at the table, their conversation a mix of deep theological questions and silly pretend games. It looks like the purple crepe myrtle blossoming outside our windows and the neighbors walking dogs down our street and the distant sounds of other kids playing and squealing in their backyard. I have health problems and I don’t have the remedies for them. But I have a table where children giggle and the sun streams in and lights up their faces.

I’m not looking to my children as my source of joy. But I have found that leaving my phone in another room and sprawling on the floor to color with my kids has lightened my heart more than planning my recovery ever has. Because motherhood is my calling, and there is joy in embracing what I’ve been given. Whether it’s an autoimmune disease or a pair of littles. Neither have come to me by accident.

I am not instantly transformed. I am not suddenly overflowing with joy. But I’m grateful for the moment when the Lord lifted my head from the false god in my hand, from the little idol that offers endless data but no true wisdom, joy, or hope. My salvation is never going to come from a device. In fact, it has already come. And I pray that that reality will lead me into a place of true joy, no matter the state of my health.