"Joyful Defiance invites readers to reflect on experiences of anxiety, anget, exhaustion, and grief, emotions not always welcomed in the Christian tradition. Author Anna M. Madsen draws on her personal experience of grief and deep theological reflection to show how lament is an act of faith in God that acknowledges pain and protests death. Joy is a counterstory and a truer tale, less a feeling than a way of being for the self and for the world."