Every once in a while, I like to feature a guest post. It is good to look at joy from a different view than just mine.
This week Undaunted Joy features Traci Rhoades. I connected with Traci on Twitter. I was drawn to her ecumenical bent on life. I admire her clear-headedness when it comes to conflict and biblical teaching. Some day we will sit down with a cup of coffee together but for now, I share this tender reflection on her daughter, which I think many of us can relate to.
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My daughter’s friends jumped off a cliff, and she joined them. This made me so
happy. It turns the old adage on its head, but allow me to explain. The cliff was
high above the frigid waters of Lake Superior. She was with her church youth
group on a summer camping trip. It was supervised.
This act meant she’d regained some of her confidence. She felt comfortable
among these people. It was okay to take leaps, choosing risk occasionally. We
traveled a lot of emotional miles to get here.
Years before the cliff-jumping incident, we had a confident student, entering
middle school, land of individual lockers and switching classes throughout the
school day. She’d been ready.
Sometimes when the enemy sets out to rob us of our joy, it’s a slow heist.
The fall of her 6th grade year, she experienced friendship struggles. With new
students at the school from other elementary and parochial schools, friendships
shifted. She became less sure of herself. Covid-19 threw things further off-kilter.
Schools went virtual. In some ways, it felt good to bring our daughter home.
She’s happiest here, surrounded by her things, immersed in a TV show or a
book.
We lived a quarantined life. Moments of joy, sorrow, and mundaneness, lots of
reorienting. Our neighbors have a mule, and my daughter would go ride him. She
enjoys animals, so it was fun, although he could have bucked a little less. Our
family time was sweet, lots of board games, puzzles, cooking together, and
watching movies. Even among the uncertainty, I’m thankful for this time.
When our daughter returned to school full-time, her social struggles hadn’t gone
away. It overwhelmed her, with seemingly more ups and down then was typical
for a teenager. We began noticing quirky behaviors, indicating she carried more
anxiety and fear than was normal. Although never entirely, her joy for life went
missing. We brought her home again.
She started seeing a counselor, who diagnosed her, thus equipping us to
navigate the fight and flight mentality she found herself in, a natural coping
mechanism that developed during those middle school and pandemic years. We
discovered, sometimes the things that keep you from finding joy are, literally, in
your head.
Over time, mental battles were hard-won, and she learned a number of
grounding exercises to quiet the noises inside her head, how to placed herself
back in the moment—where joy is found.
Recently, she told me, “I’m happier now than I’ve been in a long time.” It went
deeper than happiness, though. I could see it in her eyes, the resonance of her
laugh, the improved posture, her hands had stilled, the self-talk grew kinder.
She’d recovered some of her joy.
On her youth group trip, that mild summer day in northern Michigan, she texted
us after jumping off that cliff, alongside her friends, saying that leap took her
breath away, for the water was freezing. It took my breath away too, with joy over
hard-won victories.
***
Traci Rhoades is an author and Bible teacher who cares deeply about church unity, church history, and everyone reading God's word. Connect with her online at tracesoffaith.com, or @tracesoffaith on the social media site formerly known as Twitter. She is the author of Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost and Shaky Ground: What to Do After the Bottom Drops Out.
If you would like to write a guest post, send me your submission. Perhaps we can find a home for it! With over 1100 subscribers, I’d love to use this Substack to share some new joyful voices.