We count it a blessing to see, in the church where God has planted our family, how many saints walk faithfully and joyfully through very hard things. Their faithfulness, endurance joy, and faith encourage us to press on looking up to Jesus, knowing that He is near us.

Kate has been such a faithful mom through a long trial, and her testimony of God’s faithfulness sustaining her family is a gift to the church. I trust that you will be encouraged to read this.

The Great Gift (of Small Joys)
By Kate Nieuwsma

“When my anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought me joy.” Psalm 94:19

“But how can they survive?” I asked myself. A few years ago, three faithful women in my community lost their babies within a few weeks of one another, all in truly tragic circumstances. What I saw unfolding for them was my deepest nightmare. The death of one of my children is something that – if I let it – will keep me up at night in a cold sweat. (Pretty sure it will do that to most parents!) Part of why it scared me so much is that I had seen this trial unfold before, and I thought I knew what came afterwards: despair, chaos, spiritual death. I cringed at the loss of faith I thought was fated to follow on the heels of such grief.

But instead? I was given one of the greatest spiritual gifts I have ever received. Every single one of those women showed bone-deep grief. But they also showed us joy. In the months that followed their loss, they told us the sharp-edged sorrow, but they wrapped it with the joy of God’s provision. They showed us laughter with their families. They showed us dignity in loss. They spared us the gritty, public play-by-play of grief lauded in our culture as being the only “authentic” reaction, knowing that we didn’t have the grace to bear that, and they pointed us to Christ instead. When they could have – without guilt – buried us in the heaviness of legitimate grief, they chose instead to hand us joy. Not pretendy joy. Not false laughter that doesn’t admit the difficulty. But that deep, sometimes weeping joy that says “This is a dark night, but Christ is the light.” We saw them cling to Christ, and then we saw them stand strong in joy.

I held onto this gift of joy in trials, but I had no idea how much I would need it. About 8 months ago, my then-2-year-old daughter was suddenly diagnosed with an acute kidney condition. We thought at first it was temporary, but it has become clear over the last few months that this is likely to be a constant throughout her childhood, and perhaps her entire life. Our last few months have been full of pain and pain management, hospital stays, numerous infections, pancreatitis, pneumonia, thousands of blood tests, IV sticks, PICC lines and bandaids and insomnia and hard hospital beds and difficult visions of the future. There was a very real danger of losing her several times in this journey so far, and the possibility for permanent disability or a shortened life is always present.

I remember standing by her hospital bed a few months into her journey after a difficult night and an even more difficult morning blood draw. Things were hard, and the temptation to be weary and weepy and ask for others to join with me in that tired, frustrated pain was very real.  But then I looked up and saw her sitting there with a case of simply legendary bedhead, double-fisting some juice and water, and giving me a classic look of hilarious, near-drunken morning bleariness. There was nothing to do but laugh out loud and take a picture (and show it to her – she laughed too!). That morning, I remembered the glory of those faithful women handing out a glimpse of the joy that comes in sorrow, and I decided to pass that along in a tiny way. I posted that picture of my little one with the very real and cleansing laughter that came with it rather than the bid for sympathy I desperately wanted to post. It was a simple act of finding joy in the midst of difficulty, a preschool level attempt at mimicking the great acts of faith that I had seen, but I can’t tell you how many people have thanked me for that funny little picture and others like it. There is something foundationally comforting about small joys in the midst of a trial. They tell those around us that we will be ok, and it also tells them that they will be too. It tells them that when their turn for trouble comes along (and we all know that it will), that they will make it through. That Christ will be with us all even when things are hard. That in the darkest cave of trials there is still the light of God, the relief of holy laughter. That when pain is real, heaven is more so.

Joy reminds us that Christ will make it right.

Joy is both submission and rebellion, a sword and trowel. It faithfully plants seeds in the midst of a snowstorm, and it guards the soul like a watchdog. It shakes the fist at the type of “rawness” that insists that glory is not possible in the midst of difficulty. That your truest feelings are only the ones that happen when self-control is lost.

And the best part about joy? When you go in search of it in order to pass it on, seeking the beautiful gems of laughter and provision and comfort in the dark cave you’ve been thrown into, you always find far more than you’ve been looking for. Joy is like the stable in C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Last Battle’: far larger on the inside than it is on the outside. When you crack open that door in order to battle the darkness, you find that you’ve actually stumbled on a place of feasting. You find that Christ has “set a table in the presence of your enemies” (especially those enemies of the soul – bitterness, ingratitude, fear, cowardice). Even small joy opens the door to great victory.

This race of faith that God has called my daughter and the rest of our family to may be a long one. We honestly don’t know how far this road will take us or what it will contain. But we have seen the faithful runners ahead of us in this race of faith, and we have seen their faithful obedience of joy. Because of them, we know that we will be ok. We know that Christ is here, because they have shown us His joy. Make us like them, Lord!

Light this darkness with the flame of Your joy.

Lauren and I have gotten to know each other through our involvement in the Bible Reading Challenge. And every time she writes or comments, I pay attention because I know she will have something good for us to hear.

It is a blessing to have women in your life whose words build up those who hear them!

Thank you, Lauren for your contribution to this series on Faithful a Obedience.

I became a Christian when I was 18, my freshman year of college. I didn’t meet my husband until I was 26. And as a part of a large church community, I had lots of opportunities to fellowship through giving my time. Serving my roommates, family, fellow church members, and my coworkers was a joy. When I got married it was hard for me to transition away from looking outward to looking inward as a helper for my husband. Learning how to serve him as a wife and as a friend, and how to be a part of his family with their different-from-mine expectations. My outside-the-home time was crunched keeping a large house without roommates help. I was so busy at home that I felt like I was giving nothing. The feeling compounded when I became a mother two and half years later—it became hard to even make meals for people. I really wanted to serve His people, and it felt somehow selfish to just serve my little family.

Facing my duty, releasing my desire.

Eventually I was blessed to realize—through faithful friends’ podcast—that God gives us desires in order that we might have something to give back to him.

Desires to sacrifice??

I looked at my past, present, future and saw that the very duties that had seemed selfish were the reason I had something more to sacrifice. I was able to faithfully give by “not doing”. I had learned “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” but I finally saw when I chose my duties by not doing, that was still pleasing to the Lord.

Practically I can pray for needs to be filled. I can buy Papa Murphy’s when I don’t have time deliver a home-made meal. I can love my little people by leaning in to my husband and children’s hobbies. Praying for friends, and church family is something I can do while overseeing my little realm. Praying, calling, emailing, or writing a card are all kind ways to serve, and offer up your desire to do more by doing what you can before the Great Comforter, the Great Physician.

Interests, desires, wants are all opportunities to have an open hand before the Lord and cheerfully assume our duties and hold desires with an open hand before the Lord.

Christine is a relatively new friend. A young mom with her hands and days full of good gifts, and her heart and mouth filled with good words. I knew I wanted to call her friend and learn from her when I saw her loving on her grandmother who had dementia and was ready to depart with the Lord. How Chritine loved on her grandma each week and how she helped her mom take her always gladly, always with a smile was a beautiful thing to witness. There she was, being faithful in her daily life. Obedient in her walk with the Lord. Doing the next thing without giving it too much thought, because this obedience, this faithfulness, was her joy.

I am grateful to have her on the blog today so that you can taste a bit of how lovely Christine is.

Romaine Conversion
by Christine Cohen

My third floor study is seafoam green, cluttered with stuffed animals and books, and smelling like the moss one of my children brought up for decoration. I hear my son coming to join me upstairs, bare feet slapping each step like a giant laying waste to hilltop villages, a scenario he’s likely enacting in his mind. When his ascent is complete, he rushes toward me, in a hurry to place a sticky hand on my arm.

“Can I have a snack?”

An additional snack. The chocolate traces of a granola bar are already smeared around his mouth.

“Fruit leather,” I say, and he races away.

A delighted shriek soars through the open window, launched by my middle child who is spinning circles on the tire swing, ringlets flying while my eldest pushes her close to the maple tree, the rubber skimming the bark.

The fruit leather should buy me another five minutes. I pause my word count and open Facebook. The red notification bubble is for a bible reading group. A new member asks a question I’ve seen several times over the last couple of years:

“I want to have a really real quiet time with the Lord. I want to feel like I’ve connected with Him, but it’s so hard with my kids running around. And I can’t wake up any earlier. What do I do?”

I understand what she’s craving; I’ve felt that pull too, as has almost any woman, especially if you have an Instagram account. Click the sherbet-colored camera icon and enter a world of curated aesthetic moments. Scroll the bible hashtags. Look at all those cozy knit fingerless gloves! Dancing flames in a cast iron stove! A cup of coffee and leaf-dappled sunlight! If I adorn my table with votive candles and eucalyptus leaves before I read, my emotions might rise to a gnostic height where I can better commune with God. Who wouldn’t want that?

When I was eight, maybe nine years old, I attended a weekly youth group night at my church. One night in particular has come back to me recently. We’d broken into small groups, sitting cross-legged on the taupe Berber carpet. One by one the kids around me gave their conversion stories, testimonies as inspiring as the music we’d just sung. As the minutes ticked by, I started to fidget, dreading the moment when all eyes would turn towards me.

I wasn’t unregenerate; I had what felt like an even bigger problem. I couldn’t remember my conversion. When the modern evangelical kid is asked for the reason for the hope that is in her, she’s supposed to sound like she was a young Wyatt Earp, and not a head of lettuce waiting to be picked off the produce shelf by the hand of Providence.

The small Romaine waits patiently beside its fellow leafy vegetables, having done no wrong save turning faintly brown at the edges. The mister hits its curling outer tips, the phosphorescent rays shine down on its glistening leaves. A cart squeaks to a stop.

“No, not that one, that one,” a mother’s voice declares, and tiny hands encircle it and carry it home to the heaven of a strawberry pecan salad.

There is no glory in a Romaine conversion. Not for the lettuce, at least, but it’s all I’ve got. Unless. Unless…

The kid beside me was wrapping up. Everyone sighed with appreciation, and it was my turn.

Adrenaline kicked in, and I started improvising.

“Well,” I began, “I don’t talk about this much.”

The circle leaned in. I had their attention.

Warmth rushed to my face as I carried them along on a narratival sea of emotions. I told the tale of a world-weary six- or seven-year-old lying in bed one night, wracked with the same questions that countless philosophers had struggled with before me. And then….(pause for dramatic effect)…and then…right out my window, I see a shooting star! A sign from God, just for me. A promise that He was real, that He was there for me.

“Wow,” our small group leader breathed. Awe filled the faces of my peers. I adopted my best mock-humble expression. I may have even offered a modest shrug as if to say, “Don’t we all have shooting stars herald the moment of our re-birth?” I was convincing. So convincing that the lie stuck and was forgotten, gaining me glory in the moment only to be buried deep in my memory basements for decades until it reemerged in early adulthood.

Another shriek sails through my study window, this one tinged with pain. Someone needs tending, my moment of solitude is up. I think of the woman online who’s frustrated that her kids are keeping her from authentically connecting with the Lord. Children in spiritual Instagram posts are never crying or sticky or hanging from their mother’s front pockets asking for food fifteen minutes after dinner.

But where is Christ in these moments? What are the tethers that connect us to Him? Whatever you do for the least of these.

On the floor of First Presbyterian Church, I sought to manufacture a moment as emotional and authentic as I believed an encounter with my Creator should be. And now, as a mom, I understand that same temptation: to seek for God in a time or a place He hasn’t given me. As if what He did give me isn’t enough. Dole out snacks to village-stomping future men, He instructs. Not now, Lord, I’m reading my Bible in this perfect ray of sunshine, can’t you see I want to obey you? Read your Bible here on this jam-smudged table instead. With all these kids running around and dishes in the sink? The decapitated doll head on the floor? That might actually break Instagram, Lord. I can’t seek you there.

I shut my computer and stand up, stretching tight muscles. Yes, there are instances of extreme conversion. There are stories that will make a small group circle gasp with awe. But I can’t remember my moment of conversion any more than I can remember my first taste of ice cream, and that doesn’t cheapen its value. I don’t often read my Bible under the aesthetic approval of a fiddle leaf fig tree but that doesn’t make it any less authentic. God is not bound by the square borders of an Instagram post. He’s in the duties set before me.

I start down the stairs, thankful for the clarity of what God requires of me in this small, everyday moment. A hug. A kiss. A strawberry shortcake bandage. All done in faith, sustained by a promise. I am with you, always.

Christine Cohen

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