You’ve Gotta Learn to Fight Back With Joy
My friend, Margaret Feinberg, author, speaker, and ski buddy, was scheduled to speak at Catalyst last fall, but had to reschedule. She was in the fight of her life with cancer.
In her new book and Bible study, Fight Back With Joy, she shares that at the news of the diagnosis, she chose to fight back with a rather surprising weapon—joy.
Her new book and Bible study, Fight Back With Joy, will take leaders everywhere by surprise. Let’s be honest, we’ve all read shallow books on joy that try to teach the why’s and how’s of joyful living.
But Margaret explores the depths of joy rarely plundered. Listen to these bombshells:
“More than whimsy, joy is a weapon we use to fight life's battles.”
“Joy is your heritage, your identity, your destiny.”
“Practicing defiant joy is the declaration that the darkness does not and will not win.”
“Sometimes you have to poke holes in the darkness until it bleeds light.”
If you can’t tell, Margaret is a gifted writer. Rich with Scriptural insight this book will take you by surprise and challenge you to fight back with joy as lead and serve.
The Secret To Living A Defiant Joy: An interview with Margaret Feinberg
It’s been inspiring to learn how Margaret has been practicing a defiant joy, and I thought you might like to get an insider’s look and read an interview with Margaret.
Your newest book and Bible study, Fight Back With Joy, was born out of your fight with a life-threatening illness. What was your difficult diagnosis, and what has your journey to health entailed?
For the last 18 months, I’ve been battling breast cancer. Breast cancer isn’t just one disease represents thousands of different diseases with their varying components and factors. Being diagnosed under the age of 40 is significant. I’ve been through a brutal year of chemotherapy, radiation, and more surgeries than I can count or want to remember.
Why did you write Fight Back With Joy?
I studied joy for a year and was putting the finishing touches on book on joy—just two weeks from turning it into the publisher, when I received the diagnosis. I had been pursuing and activating joy in my life in the relatively good times, now I had to do it in the midst of darkness, depression, and torturous pain. Through the process, I’ve discovered the breadth, depth, and power of joy—that despite hundreds of sermons and many decades in the church—no one had told me of before.
In Fight Back With Joy book and Bible study, you really push the reader to reevaluate their definition of joy. Why do you think this is so important?
Much of the teaching I’ve heard on joy over the years is oversimplified. I remember those days in Sunday school learning that JOY is spelled Jesus, Others, Yourself. While that made perfect sense at 9 years old, I’ve seen how distorted that can become as an adult.
I see friends who love Jesus but spend so much time pouring into their kids, grandkids and others that their joy looks something like this: jOy.
Technically, it still spells joy, but more than anything, these men and women who are so exhausted, so empty, so running on fumes from pouring into others need to pause and take time to focus on themselves. Laying hold of joy right now will require them to reevaluate for a season and discover the joy that comes with JYo.
I also noticed how most of the definitions of joy define it more by what it isn’t than by what it is. I constantly heard that happiness is based on circumstance but joy is not dependent on circumstance.
Biblical expressions of joy turn out to be far different than what I had been taught. I am now convinced the writers of the Bible would say that, the reason we have joy is because we have great circumstances. If you are a child of God, you are drenched in the grace and mercy of God.
No matter what you’re facing: Your circumstances are better than you think. If you’re not experiencing joy, perhaps it’s because your definition of joy is too narrow.
On a scale of 1-10, how hard was it for you to write this book and Bible study?
An eleven! This journey has been the most painful experience of my life. And, to share about it requires some vulnerability. Okay, a lot of vulnerability. And, that’s really, really hard. But I feel like I’m finally ready to share what God has stirred in my heart along the way because although cancer has been the most painful journey—it has also been the most joyful. And no one is more surprised than I am.
Thanks Margaret! And she goes one step further by providing additional resources at the end of the book. She helps us, as leaders, know what to say and what not to say when those in our congregations, ministries, and businesses are going through crisis.
So often we want to pastor and lead people well, but just don’t know what to do. If you know someone facing a horrendous situation, Fight Back with Joy is a must-read.
Get this in the hands of your leadership team and Bible studies—it will equip your church to be the church.
Check out the video.
Pick up a copy of Fight Back With Joy at Amazon or Barnes and Noble today.