Later, or right now
Eden loves to pretend. She enjoys playing Library, Shopkeeper, and Grocery Store, but her all-time favorite seems to be Restaurant. I’ve noticed a funny phenomenon: she spends more time talking about what we are going to pretend than doing the actual pretending. Typically, it plays out like this:
Eden: Mom, let's play restaurant. You pretend to be the customer, and I will be the waitress. You will order ketchup and I will bring it to your table.
I’ve got this. I settle on the couch to order my pretend meal.
Me: Okay. I am parched. May I have a glass of water?
Eden: No, mom. You’re supposed to order ketchup, remember?
Me: Do you think I can order something to drink first? Usually, servers take a drink order before they take a food order.
Eden thinks. Yes, but we are all out of water. We only have Sprite and apple juice right now.
Me: I guess apple juice it is! Also, do you think that I can order a hamburger to go with my ketchup? And maybe some fries on the side?
Eden considers this. She seems to be getting annoyed. Okay. That's fine. But after you order your ketchup, let’s pretend that you're ordering apple pie.
Me: That sounds great. I would love to order a dessert after I eat my hamburger and fries.
Eden: Okay. But are you ready to order your ketchup now?
Good grief. What’s the deal with the dang ketchup? By hyper-focusing on a condiment, she’s missed out on all the fun of playing pretend.
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Last week, Ty and I flew out to MD Anderson for scans. I go every 12 weeks and it always brings a pit to my stomach. I can feel my anxiety increase in the weeks approaching our trip. Will I get the worst news of my life again? Is everything going to change? Or can I put this to rest for another twelve weeks?
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I've been re-reading an old classic by Mike Mason called Champagne for the Soul. The byline is Rediscovering God’s Gift of Joy, and he makes the case that you have everything you need for joy right now. Even in the sad things, the dark places, the unknowns… Joy is available in full. He suggests that we over-spiritualize the difference between joy and happiness. We’ve heard it said that happiness is a feeling and based on circumstances, while joy is deeper and rooted in our hearts. But Mason puts forward that true joy naturally spills over into happiness, even in the middle of hard circumstances.
I have been chewing on this idea of joy and happiness. You cannot feel happy all the time. Truly, joy is only complete when it is paired with all of the facets of human emotion. Joy walks hand-in-hand with sorrow, suffering, sadness, grief.
Mason writes, Joy may seem an upbeat sort of feeling, but the direction of joy isn’t always up. Often to be joyful, we must go down—down through the noise of racing thoughts, down through the swirling chaos of circumstances, down through the deceptive appearances of life, down into the still waters and green pastures at the heart’s core.
Mike Mason has struggled greatly with depression over many years. So perhaps he seems like an odd candidate to write a book on joy. And yet, maybe that’s why it’s so perfect. He has been a student of happiness: watching it from afar, learning it, grasping at it like a slippery fish that won’t stay put.
And then practicing it. Perhaps joy is like a muscle: without use, it will get weak and atrophy. With purposeful intentionality, though, joy gets stronger and more able over time.
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Like Eden playing pretend, sometimes we have such a small and narrow view of what happiness looks like. We are quick to throw our hands in the air and bemoan our terrible circumstances. This isn't going how I want it to go. Now what? We are hyper-focused on the ketchup, and we miss what’s right in front of us: the people, the time, the season of life. We miss out on the play—the joy of our whole life— by waiting for the happiness that we expect to come.
James 4:13-14
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Mason writes, Don't we approach happiness this way? We tell ourselves, tomorrow I'll do such-and-such and it will make me happy, or, after I finish work today, then I can relax and be happy. Nonsense. Be happy now! If you can't find happiness in the present moment you never will. Joy isn't around some corner – it's here.
When the house renovation finishes…
When I can get a new job that pays more…
When I find someone to share my life with…
When the interest rates go down…
When my husband starts listening to me…
When we’re out of this diaper stage…
When volleyball or basketball season is finally over…
When we hear from the colleges…
When I have my retirement account built up…
When I get the clear scan.
If happiness is always out there in the future, it’s never present.
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I sit writing this with both arms like giant marshmallows, wrapped up in bandages, then stuffed into tight sleeves that go from my fingers to my armpits. I am in a treatment stage for Lymphedema that requires wrapping both arms for what will likely be a few months. This means that it is hard to do anything normal with my hands—eating is a struggle, because grasping silverware is difficult, and bringing my hand all the way to my mouth while my arms are both wrapped is almost impossible. Doing my hair or putting makeup on is a challenge. Typing is a no-go, so today I have been trying a new voice-to-type software, which has been rough-going. Everything is slow. I get frustrated by how difficult things are that used to be easy.
In October, I will go back to MD Anderson and have surgery on both arms that will potentially help my Lymphedema. I am hopeful. Yet, I find that I’m also holding it loosely, because I know that—exactly as I am right now—as my arms are, with the sleeves and the wrapping and with the frustration, I have everything I need for joy and happiness. Not post-surgery. Right now.
What if I need to learn to slow down? What if I need to learn that what I do is not who I am? What if I need to learn to ask people for help? What if I need to grow in compassion and understanding for people who live with chronic illness and disabilities? What if I need to learn that joy is available to me right now? In the midst of this wild cancer journey I’ve walked, and now a double arm disadvantage, what is being nurtured? What is happening in the— as Mike Mason puts it—still waters and green pastures of my heart’s core?
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This time about a year ago, I was headed to Houston to live for 3 months while I did surgery and radiation. My birthday is in November, and I wasn't home for it. Ty sent me lovely gifts, but he also sent me an orchid from a local florist in Houston. It was beautiful... Absolutely the most beautiful Orchid I've ever seen, with big, luscious tropical blooms. I kept it out on the counter in my Houston apartment, and it made me think of Ty and the girls and the people who love me. It became a precious to me.
So, when we had to cram our car full of all the things for the return trip back to Knoxville, I made Ty find room for that orchid. He was so annoyed... The car literally could not take one more item. It was packed to the absolute brim. And yet: I needed that Orchid to come home with me. In it stuffed, crammed between suitcases, kitchen pots, and let’s be frank—a whole bunch of new clothing I had purchased as part of my retail therapy over the course of the last months.
By the time it got home, most of the blooms had fallen off, rubbing this way and that in an overstuffed car from Texas to Tennessee. It was bedraggled and fragile. When the last bloom finally dropped last winter, I still couldn’t bring myself to toss the plant. So, I’ve had this bare, naked orchid on my dining room table since February, and I kept watering it when I would think of it, tending to it when I could see it out of the corner of my eye.
A few weeks ago, I spied a change. There is a beautiful green new shoot with five floral buds coming out of that orchid plant. I kid you not—It's taken about a year, but there is a new branch growing as plain as the nose on my face. It is downright magical.
You know, sometimes we just don't wait on it. We throw a good thing away, assuming that because it’s uncomfortable, or it doesn’t look the way it used to, or it’s lost its luster, or it’s proving hard, that nothing good can come of it.
And yet, there is secret growth and development and goodness happening below the surface. Just because we don’t see it yet doesn’t mean it’s not real.
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If joy is a muscle that can be strengthened, then I’d propose that Gratitude is the boots on the ground way to build it up. Instead of looking at the bald orchid, see the shoot. Instead of focusing on the condiment, enjoy the play and people right in front of you. Celebrate what you have. The more you do, the more you see, and the more you see, the more you celebrate.
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The scans were clear, friends. And not just clear, but my oncologist called these scans Clear and Beautiful. All the spots from radiation are gone. All the lung inflammation that we’ve been watching so carefully is completely gone. Those concerning areas that may or may not be a cause for concern: wiped clean.
Clear and beautiful.
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We all live in the tension of hard things, and we will continue to this side of heaven. But we watch the orchid bloom. We count our blessings, naming them one by one. And we rejoice with grateful hearts in the midst of it all.
