Pick a word. Any word. Just one word. This word will be your New Year’s resolution. It encompasses your great hopes for the New Year.
What word will you pick?
“Focus”?
“Forgive”?
“Rest”?
“Love”?
Margaret Feinberg picked “joy.” She would devote an entire year to nurturing joy. She chose the word joy.
Weeks later, she got cancer.
Fight Back with Joy is the testimony of how she lived in that tension between a commitment to contentment and the despair of a deadly disease. It’s the story of how joy became her greatest weapon in battling not only cancer, but all those things which suck satisfaction from life.
She is transparent about her suffering and the discouragement which accompanied it. She does not gloss over pain and pretend that praising is easy. Those who struggle will, I believe, find in Feinberg a realistic portrait of just how difficult it is to be devout in the face of discomfort. Yet she defiantly and ruthlessly clings to joy in the midst of the agony.
This compelling narrative makes the book a worthwhile read for any who face certain suffering or love those who do. It follows a comfortable rhythm, each chapter raising the curtain on one more scene from Feinberg’s war on cancer and then illuminating one or two texts in Scripture which shed light on how joy may be experienced even in the dark. Feinberg takes the reader through texts in Genesis, Proverbs, Philemon, Philippians, James, Luke and elsewhere. Along the way she explores realities like the way certain people become sources of satisfaction when we are suffering; how joy does not need to depend upon circumstances; the way in which giving to others even when we are suffering can fuel our own joy; and methods for mourning while, at the same time, pursuing merriment. The book ends with “bonus tracks” like “5 Things To Say When You Don’t Know What to Say,” and “8 Things Those Facing Crisis Can’t Tell You (But Wish They Could).”
Feinberg’s project presents a helpful contrast to a New York Times bestseller centered on a similar theme. Jenny Lawson writes in Furiously Happy about the way in which the pursuit of joy sustained her in her own battle–a war waged against depression and anxiety. Lawson and Feinberg share a love for the silly. Both write with deep conviction about the importance of joy and the ability of people to discover joy in the worst of places. But they could not be farther apart regarding the source of joy.
For Lawson, happiness comes from within. We must rely upon our own limited resources to experience and express satisfaction while suffering. Frequently and passionately she dismisses faith as a resource in trials.
But for Feinberg, contentment comes from without. She writes that “joy emanates from the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us” and that “When we fight back with joy, we no longer size the character of God according to our circumstances, but we size our circumstances according to the character of God and his great affection for us.” (19) This makes the book immensely useful for those with a Christian faith. It also makes the book an appropriate gift for those who may not have faith but will encouraged by the testimony of this faithful woman who, though scared, still celebrates because of a Savior who was no stranger to scars himself.
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Worthy Publishing (January 6, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1617950890
ISBN-13: 978-1617950896
