Celebrate

Celebrate: to observe with festivity or rejoicing; to extol or praise; to make widely known.

Our son, Salem, had his very first birthday a couple of weeks ago. We threw a party and just had family over, which still made for a packed out living room and kitchen. Jason and I talked, and agreed, that we wanted this to feel like a celebration of life, a time set aside to just enjoy our son and watch others enjoy him and then to invite others to speak with us, out-loud, what we love about him and why we’re thankful for him. So after lunch we sat around in the living room together and, beginning with me and Jason, we took a few really sweet minutes to just talk about Salem. To celebrate his little life. Jason talked about getting to have a son and what a gift that was and how surprised he was by his great love for him. I talked a lot about just that wild combination of boy, in the ways he kicked hard from birth and is so strong and brave, to that sweet gentle snuggly mommy’s boy he is. We talked about everything from him wearing cool hats to how he’s going to be close enough in age to the girls to be a protector for them one day. It was simple. I loved even the most simple of observations about him. It was sweet because we were celebrating life. Rejoicing together in a single being who has life and beauty and purpose and value and is loved in our eyes.

At the beginning of this week, my husband let my curious two year old hold his ring. I actually would have probably done the same thing, since she had a broken leg and doesn’t like to leave the family room without her boot on her cast. Well, as you might imagine, somehow that ring got lost. Jason must have asked her thirty kazillion times where she put it. She always simply replied that she had it on the couch. I was afraid a couple of times this week that Jason was about to take a knife to the pillows to cut every square inch of those cushions apart, like in the movies when they’re searching someone’s house for drugs. At one point this week our entire family room was IN our kitchen, with only a handful of pillow feathers left on the floor. Literally that was it. We turned the place inside and out. Jason would call multiple times a day and I knew about three seconds in that he wasn’t saying hi; he was being casual, hoping I would have some good news. Kanah got her cast off on Thursday and Jason got it in his head that she had put the ring down her cast. I was with her through her tears as they cut the cast off of her leg. The technician and I had a good laugh about the ring situation and we tore that cast apart…no ring. I texted him the bad news. Our girls are kind of OCD about wearing socks when they go to sleep. Around bedtime Jason was looking around upstairs for a pair of socks on his way to their room and saw a craft basket on the banister and there was a sock in it. So he grabbed the sock, noticing right away that it had some weight to it and immediately wondered the obvious and reached down and found his ring! He called my name and the girls and I came running into the hallway and he had his arms up over his head excitedly saying he had found the ring! The image of Jason’s joy is unforgettable. And looking down at the girls I witnessed a priceless celebration in their eyes. All week long they took on daddy’s concern. Where was the ring…where was the ring. And now they raised their arms with total excitement and jubilation crying out, “He found the ring!” and enormous smiles and laughter and shouts of celebration rang out from their little mouths, with all rejoicing over what had been found. It was actually one of the sweetest things I had ever seen! I could not separate the degree of excitement between the one who was grieving the loss and now celebrating the joy in finding it from the ones who were just witnesses of the loss and now witnesses of the finding. Their joy and excitement seemed interchangeably the same and equal. My girls literally took on their daddy’s joy and shared it with him, even though there was nothing in it for them.

Just today I began studying Romans 12. Verse 15 says simply, “Rejoice with those who rejoice.” It seems obvious, in fact almost confusing as to why it is worded as a command. But when I saw my girls yesterday show me what that looked like fleshed out, I realized that I do not do that. When I see it I am amazed and I understand why God would want us to take on joy for one another like that, but I see what it looks like to give oneself over to a reckless abandonment for another person in this way, and I must realize that I need to ask God to help me go there.

I think outside of what my girls were displaying last night I would have responded to Jason’s elation with a simple, “Cool, babe” and gone on with laundry. And yet what I saw in my girls was so loving, so gracious to Jason. When someone celebrates with you, you feel loved by them. They are rejoicing in what is such a gift to you. And it blesses you to share in that joy.

Tonight I was putting the girls to bed, which I never do, but Jason happened to be out. With the light off, I sang two songs with each of the girls and then prayed with them. Kanah has been singing with me for about two months and she now knows many song lyrics and it’s just the sweetest thing. I can still remember the first time she sang with me. I was putting her down for a nap and had her on my shoulder and in the dark we shared “Jesus Loves me” together and I just held her so tight and my heart exploded with the joy of living that moment with her. And Grace has been singing but for some reason she has liked me to sing a line and then she will say/sing it and on and on. But tonight she sang “Jesus Loves Me” with me and she was really remembering the lyrics and letting herself follow me and when we got to the end, I just lavished excitement on her and, actually remembering writing the rest of this blog last night, I just allowed myself to burst into celebration with her there in the dark. I just kissed her face all over and pressed my nose against hers saying, “Grace!!! You sang with mommy!!!” and kissed her and laughed with her and I could just see her very faintly but she was grinning so wildly and so proudly. It has to have been one of my favorite moments with her in her three years of life.

I so long to be this kind of a person. To look for ways to celebrate life, like we did at Salem’s birthday, like the girls did with their daddy, like I did last night, and to look for moments of celebration as they come and to see it as a way to demonstrate love.

Lord I am not good at this. I sense that immediately as I write. I have high expectations in life and even ones that I long for, once they come to pass, I create new hopes and goals in my mind. I am not good at stopping to rejoice, stopping to celebrate, stopping to be thankful, though lately you are teaching me to stop and try to do so. It is a discipline for me that hopefully eventually will be natural for me. In the snapshot in my mind, my daughters rejoice in complete freedom over what was not theirs, because that is not what mattered. What mattered was their love for their daddy. So, Lord, increase my love and let my freedom to rejoice look as glorious as those sweet, wildly rejoicing smiles on their faces last night. I cannot think of anything more beautiful than to “make widely known” my celebration over the people you have put in my life and I hope you will put that beauty on me.