Why Can’t I Celebrate?

Oct 21, 2005Find joy today

I think my friend Jeanne Damoff needs to live with me. She’s the jollification queen. I love her love of life and her ability to laugh even when life smacks her. But mostly, I love that she celebrates.

It’s something I lack, celebration.

Two days ago I learned a publisher was offering a contract. If all goes well, it will be the fifth contract I’ve signed in 24 months. Enough to make a normal person’s head spin! But I’m afraid to dance, to celebrate.

I’m afraid if I do celebrate, somehow everything will go to my head. Somehow I link partying with pride. So I stay reserved. Subdued. All the while I have this Jeanne-like fairy dancing inside wanting to jump and holler!

Patrick says to celebrate. He says he doesn’t see me in danger of pride, but if I inched close to that precipice, he’d kindly let me know. So, I have the freedom to jump and shout. Why don’t I?

Perhaps it’s what I’m working on with my friend Brandy, my personal coach. She’s helping me work through my glass-half-empty view of life. To be honest, I’m sick sick sick of my pessimism. Tired of the boring, mean voices in my head that berate me. I’m learning to distinguish what is true, what is false. And I’m seeing that I’m missing out on the stuff of life because of my hesitancy to wallow in joy and thankfulness.

I am slowly realizing that truth that Jesus loves me. Simple, I know. But for so often I’ve lived under the word “unworthy” that I’ve lived like I believed it. I have thought that I’m unworthy of happiness, of celebration. But Jesus died on the cross and welcomed me to the greatest party of all: the Body of Christ, His church. He died so that I could have life. Real life. Belly-laughing life. He came to set us all free.

Free people celebrate. I’m learning to. Even if it’s smiling at good news. It’s all a part of the journey Jesus has me on, a journey from slavery to freedom.

0 Comments