What if It’s Wonderful?Sample

You’re Invited to Celebrate

“Celebration is changing everything for me,” I say.

These are words you would not have heard from me even a few years ago. Frankly, the idea of celebrating terrified me. Like so many others I had known—clients I had seen in my therapy practice, friends, family members—who had experienced prolonged seasons of hurt and disappointment, I had become highly suspicious of joy, afraid to hold God’s good gifts for fear that they would be snatched away. I was sure that celebration always came with a catch.

But I was beginning to understand that this perspective was costly. I realized that much of the loss I had experienced in my life was not only the grief and disappointment itself, but also the joy I overlooked because I was too afraid to embrace it. I also wondered about the purpose of celebration in our lives. Without knowing it, I began to liken celebration to dessert: enjoyable yes, but indulgent and unnecessary to the Christian life. I had no imagination for how to actively pursue joy with reckless abandon. What did celebrating freely look like for someone who has put her trust in Jesus? How does joy transform our hearts?

Finding the courage to celebrate is a quest—an active pursuit in search of something valuable and worthy of our attention. Because few among us simply drift toward joy. We need to make deliberate choices and take active steps in our quest toward finding the courage to celebrate. It means that we are tenaciously searching for God’s glory in both our tears and our triumphs. Finding the courage to celebrate means understanding that our joy is merely an appetizer for the riches we have in Christ, and the story of our sorrow is never the last story that will be told.

This quest begins with releasing your fears. One of my fears was that hope would only lead to disappointment—again. Like the hundreds of tests I had taken, absolutely sure that I was pregnant, only to see a no. Or the handful of times we had celebrated a yes only to spend subsequent weeks at the doctor’s office watching heartbeats slow to an eventual stop.

The chronic loss had changed me and the way I interacted with the people and events in my life. I had become a person who was not easily delighted and entered quickly into a spirit of disaster. I knew that God’s power was not contained within the limits of my imagination, but I no longer felt brave enough to dream. I didn’t want pain to surprise me, so I refused hope, joy, and celebration in order to become invulnerable to life.

There is a difference between feelings being real and feelings being true. I have to tell myself the truth that God loves me where I am and is for my good, now and in the future. While I may feel confused about how to reconcile His promises with my pain, I know that God weeps with me and would love to celebrate with me. I believe that, for the Christ follower, hope is always a good idea and will never disappoint. The challenge is to trust faith over fear.

Ask yourself, “What if it’s actually going to be okay?” Hope is not a denial of the cost. It honors the painful reality but does not fall to fear because it knows that what we can see is not all there is. Hope celebrates God’s promises and delights in what is possible with Him.

Respond

What does it mean to celebrate? What holds you back from celebrating?

What is the cost of not embracing joy in your life?

How does your courage to celebrate mirror your faith in Christ?