Joy That Refuses to Look Away

I’m doing my best to hold good news and lament in the same hands—to believe that God is still present in this brokenness and complexity.

Recently, I shared on social media that when I was a little girl, I said I wanted to be an author and a mommy. Sometimes a doctor, sometimes a scientist or race driver, but always a mommy and an author.

I shared that little Sunita didn’t yet know she was autistic, ADHD, and PDA. She didn’t know how much of life would be spent trying to find a sense of home in places that didn’t always know what to do with difference. She didn’t know she’d become a Christian, or that God would weave such wild and winding threads through her story. And she definitely didn’t know that 2025 would be such a personally complex year—a year full of both endings and beginnings, grief and grace.

It was truly good news that I will be working with InterVarsity Press to publish my first book, Still a Place for Us: Autism, Motherhood, and Finding Home in the Church.

My hope and prayer is that it will be the book I wish I could’ve read years ago—that it will be a gentle, honest exploration of the way these things overlap, and an encouragement and relief for anyone who’s ever felt out of place in spaces meant to feel like home. It’s one of those rare joys that feels like fulfillment and miracle all at once.

And yet.

And yet, it also feels strange to announce something so hopeful while the world feels so heavy.

On Tuesday, I took my children with me to vote. In my district, there were only a couple of things on the ballot, but we saw countless upsets in key elections across the country—from the historic election of Zohran Mamdani as New York’s mayor (historic regardless of your political views) to races back home in Georgia.

Here, voter turnout for Public Service Commissioners was high, with the AJC reporting eporting that the two Democratic PSC candidates outperformed Vice President Harris in the 2024 presidential election in almost every Georgia county.

But I digress.

The thing is, people are hungry. Hateful speech still fills our feeds. Families are still waiting to learn if their SNAP benefits will continue during the federal government shutdown. Many of our neighbors are still wondering how to pay for rent, childcare, medication.

That dissonance is hard to hold.

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And yet.

I’ve seen such beauty in the midst of it—neighbors sharing meals, churches organizing food drives, friends quietly paying one another’s bills. It reminds me that goodness isn’t gone, but often hidden in ordinary acts of love.

I keep thinking about how to give, too. How to steward my book advance. How to live generously in a season where, post-divorce and with new realities about my health, there’s simply less margin. I just found out my health insurance next year is going to double in cost compared to what I’m paying now. I will figure it out. I know I will.

I wrote in my last post about what it means to be 38 this month—halfway through what could be an ordinary lifespan. Half a life lived, half still to unfold. This year has stripped life down to what’s essential: my children’s laughter at the dinner table, friends who show up, the mercy of still being here.

It’s made me more certain than ever that joy doesn’t have to mean ignoring the suffering of others.

I’m actually quite certain the truest joy might be the kind that refuses to look away.

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And for those of us who call ourselves Christian, this is what we’re called to live into—that refusal to look away. To bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), to ensure there are no needy persons among us (Acts 4:34). To simply be good to one another in whatever capacity we have.

We can choose belonging, community, care, compassion. We can choose to be the solution.

So here’s where I find myself: holding both celebration and lament.

My first book and a broken system. A heart full of gratitude and a world full of need. I don’t know how to do all this perfectly. But I do know that silence isn’t faithfulness.

So I’ll keep showing up—with words, with whatever I have to give, with eyes open to both joy and hunger.

And maybe that’s what faithfulness looks like in this season.

Maybe it’s not pretending things are simple, but believing that God is still present in all of it—and that we, as God’s image-bearers, have a responsibility to care well for one another.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
—Micah 6:8