We’re Choosing Celebration

We’re choosing celebration!
Breaking into freedom.
You’re the song.
You’re the song
of our hearts!

You’re the joy joy joy lighting my soul!
The joy joy joy making me whole.
Though I’m broken, I am running
into Your arms of love!

~Joy by Rend Collective Experiment

I registered for the sign when I got married and it hung in my house for several years. It read, “Celebrate! Life has got to be lived. That’s all there is to it!” It was an Eleanor Roosevelt quote, written in light blue on a thin piece of wood. I eventually stopped displaying that sign because I decided that I didn’t necessarily share the sentiment. I’m all about a good celebration…but that’s all there is to it? I’m sure Mrs. Roosevelt didn’t mean for me to over-analyze her quote but after a few years, I decided that the sign wasn’t exactly saying much about my real take on life. It bothered me a bit. Where was the focus on the eternal? Because, in fact, my life will have only begun when this one ends. It’s just a sign. I know, I know. Forgive me for over-thinking, but that’s just how the brain of Courtney Stanford works, my friends. Innocent as it really was, I took the sign down. I just wasn’t digging it, you know?

Domestic signage aside, I’m actually all for celebration. I love a good hoorah. To some, it may seem trivial, but I think there is a real purpose in making the special days…well…special.

I’m a sentimental person and I truly value people and relationships. When I look back on my life, I am quite positive that I will be glad that I celebrated my husband’s thirtieth birthday with a weekend trip even if we had to take the baby along with us in his stroller. God gave me this husband and we have to enjoy the time we have together while we are on this earth. I’m one for fixing my eyes on the eternal things and living for God’s glory, so I don’t mean to sound all YOLO here…but even Jesus celebrated the wedding of a friend, right? God created us for His purpose and He puts joy in our hearts.

The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy!
~Psalm 126:3

This weekend, we celebrated my brother’s engagement to his beautiful bride-to-be. For years, my parents have prayed that we would both find spouses that would love us and love Jesus. It is with great thankfulness in my heart that I can finally say that God fulfilled that prayer for both my brother and I. My brother is engaged to a girl who loves Jesus and desires to serve Him alongside her husband-to-be. Already, they have found opportunities to worship together and to serve together. This past summer, they went on a mission trip with a team to Peru. I’ve heard numerous stories about the way they used their gifts to God’s glory with Caleb singing and Jenny signing the words beside him. {There is something really beautiful about sign language in worship, isn’t there?!} I’m certain the Peruvian teenagers were blessed by their testimony on the topic of purity, as well as the relationships they formed with them. God used their youthfulness and relationship to His glory on the trip. Now, they have begun planning their lives together and have promised one another that they will keep serving one another and serving Jesus–side by side. This. This is worthy of celebration!

Joy can feel flippant and extravagant in the grand scheme of the life circumstances around us. On the surface, it can feel foolish and wasteful to celebrate the good times when we are so aware of the hurting in this world. Yet, we are to rejoice with those who rejoice.

Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
~Romans 12:15

It is an honor to have people in our lives who are happy for our happiness and sad for our sadness. Life is full of seasons. Happy times and sad times are inevitable. You can be sure that your life will have an abundance of both. This past weekend, I was blessed by those who bought plane tickets, gathered in kitchens to make party foods, decorated with me for hours, contributed floral arrangements “just because,” and weathered the snow storm just to be in the company of our celebration. Our lives have been blessed by those who are happy in our happy times and who share in our joy despite the (very likely) more-important things happening in their own lives.

As I mingled with friends that I hadn’t seen in a while as well as friends that I see almost daily, my heart was full of joy because those friends??? Yep. Those friends cared about the happiness of someone else and came together to share in their joy. There is purpose in this sharing of good times and bad.

A friend loves at all times.
~Proverbs 17:17

What about you, dear friend? When your friends are happy, does it fill your heart with joy? Do you rejoice with them as you see God working miraculous plans in their lives? May we never be a people of jealousy for someone else’s happiness. May we always, always be sharers of happiness! Do you laugh together in the funny moments? Do you cry together when life hurts? May we always be the friend who carries the burden of another. How about your life? Is it busy, rushed, focused on only meeting goals, and checking the boxes off the list? Does your heart take time to make the special days special? Will you look back one day and see the memories and happiness from the moments that you chose the celebration of lives? Does your heart celebrate God’s goodness at work in another? May we always? May we always be a people that stop the rush of the ordinary and the seemingly more-important tasks. Let us choose celebration.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of Your wonderful deeds!
~Psalm 9:1

In the end, it won’t be the boxes we have checked or the goals we have accomplished that will serve as our greatest memories. It will be the joy that we shared with another heart, the act of thanksgiving to God that we shared with another soul. Those will be the moments that matter most as we look forward to an eternity with the Giver of joy and all good things.

Sharing in joy with you always,
~Courtney