The Ants Come Marching (And Joy Wins)

I am in a couple of wars.

One is with the ants in our kitchen.

Our first battle was over the counter top. After I started cleaning it each evening before bed, they moved down to the cupboards. Last week I decided I needed to take a more aggressive approach. I cleaned the kitchen top to bottom, taking everything out of the cupboards and scrubbing them inside and out. You wouldn’t believe the things I found -half empty macaroni and cheese powder packets, 5 bags of open chilis, a cardboard box of granola with holes eaten through -it was obvious the ants have secretly ruled the kitchen for quite some time.

After 4 episodes of Gilmore Girls, 3 cups of tea, and countless rags, the kitchen looked pretty good (if I do say so myself). I went to bed confident that I had reclaimed our territory.

The next morning I got up and went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, happily noting the ant-free counter top. I got out my granola from the cupboard, unscrewed the heavy duty plastic lid, and poured myself a bowl. Something caught my eye and I looked closer at the oat clusters -those were not raisins. Yes, the ants had made a very strategic move -from the cupboard walls to the inside of my supposedly air tight containers. I had oatmeal for breakfast instead.

That night I got out my glass jar of honey and saw the little guys swimming just before pouring them into my tea. Fine, I drank it black.

But this morning was the last straw. I made toast and got out the peanut butter jar from the plastic bag I cautiously keep it in. A spoonful was in my mouth before I noticed the squirming legs. Really ants? You had to go for my peanut butter? That was a low blow. Oatmeal again.

I rethought my war efforts for awhile (aka I went and ate some ant-free chocolate kept in the safety of my room). I was tired of fighting. I guess there are times you have to admit defeat.

The other war I’m in is a little more intense -this one is with anxiousness and dis-contentedness, hopelessness and depression. Basically the opposite of joy.

It’s a fight against the first thought that pops into my head in the morning -you can’t do it. It’s a fight against the feelings of ineptitude when I don’t do something right the first time. Against the worries that I have nothing to offer anyone today. Against my heart’s anxious pounding at the thought of being miles away from anyone who really knows me (deep down). It’s a fight against myself -a struggle to lose my own desires, worries, insecurities, stresses and rest in Jesus. A struggle to see others rather than myself, to give instead of want, to love rather than judge, to listen instead of rant, to create instead of obsess.

I get so tired. But this is one fight where I can’t admit defeat. The stakes are too high and everything has already been done to ensure the ultimate battle for joy (not happiness) is won.

Back in high school my best friend Rach and I were just beginning to recognize this daily fight for joy one night after youth group. We sat in the parking lot in my car and turned David Crowder Band on as loud as the speakers would go and yelled “YOU ARE MY JOY” over and over and over with the song. Not “please be my joy,” “give my joy,” “help me to have joy,” -YOU ARE MY JOY. Done.

Of course knowing this and remembering it when your family is falling apart or your spirit is just plain heavy and you don’t know why are very different things. It’s a minute by minute fight sometimes. It can mean driving in the country with the windows down screaming at the top of your lungs, running hard down the street so that the lies your mind keeps repeating are muffled by your pounding feet and heaving breaths, curling up on your bed and quoting a verse over and over with your eyes closed and heart fixed on what is coming out of your mouth, not mind. Whatever it takes.

Joy is all around. But it gets pushed back and hidden by my anxious doubts and distracted thoughts and wandering heart. Joy is here. It’s there. It’s in HIM and HE is everywhere.

The ants win. Fine. I can live without peanut butter and honey. But I can’t live without joy. I can’t ever give up the fight to see HIM everywhere (and lose myself). I have a feeling it’s going to be a long haul. So grateful I’m not alone.

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