CELEBRATION

PRACTICE: What’s your song of celebration?

Kool and the Gang – “There’s a party going on right here. A celebration to last throughout the years. So, bring your good times and your laughter too.” This dates me, but it is my celebration song.

Celebrating my birthday or my immediate family’s birthday is not my thing. If I remember to send a card and if it should arrive on the date of your birthday, it was an accident. Most of my inner circle is the exact opposite. Birthdays are major events.

Celebration -ing is about recognizing oneself, loved ones, coworkers etc. when a goal has been reached – a new year, new job, new baby, new house. In my opinion the celebration event sometimes overshadows the reason for the event. I know people who have been left totally deflated when their birthday was not celebrated “appropriately,” rather than being grateful for the gift of a year of life. Birthday celebrations have turned into birth week /birth month celebrations. I want to offer up a suggestion – just a suggestion – as to why celebrating to the extreme (my opinion only) has become so fashionable.

Celebrating can be a spirit lifter in the middle of the tediousness of life. For some, this is possibly the only time in a year when they are recognized, made to feel special and the center of attention. It feels good.

May I suggest that there are a million small things that occur daily deserving to be celebrated. Tomorrow is a gift that is given the instant we awaken each day. Tomorrow is not a promise. Celebrate what you did with the gift and be grateful for it.

Celebrate a parent and lift them out of their mundane existence by honoring them for being faithful to sitting in the basement working as their child attends virtual school. Or the daughter who works all day and tends to a mother. And if you have set your sight on exercising thirty minutes three times a week and you do so, celebrate and play your celebration song.

When we are intentional about celebrating seemingly small achievements, the need to be validated by extravagant celebration possibly diminishes as does the potential for disappointment when the event does not live up to your expectation. Celebrating the smaller accomplishments of the day or week breaks the chain called mundane and leans the heart toward gratitude…providing fuel to stretch beyond a set goal – 30 minutes of exercise might turn into 45.

Psalm 65:13

PONDER THIS THOUGHT – Celebrating is an outward manifestation of gratitude for what has been achieved.