When You Don’t Feel Like Celebrating

 Last Friday marked 6 months of us living in Kenya. We planned for several days to do a big family celebration on Friday to mark the significance of being in Nairobi for half a year and rejoice together in everything that Lord has done to get us to this point. For our family, celebrating together means sharing our favorite meal together. We all decided on our favorite celebration foods and planned who would make what (Audrey got a chance to help make my grandmothers apple pie recipe for the first time without another sister helping!). 

Here’s the thing. By the time we all sat down for dinner, none of us felt like celebrating. Will and I had gotten into an argument right before dinner. Ellie was mad because she thought by “celebration” I meant a massive party with friends and streamers and the whole bit and it felt like a let down when she realized I didn’t blow up a single balloon. Audrey was tired from a friends birthday party and Tallie.. well, she’s two and was just frantically running circles around the rest of our grumpy selves. 

During dinner, we shared the ways we have seen the Lord answer our prayers during this transition. There were so many interruptions and arguments during the sharing time that I was tempted to yell “Let’s just stop! Let’s just not celebrate tonight!”. However, I felt this pull to keep pressing in. Keep sharing of what the Lord has done even though I didn’t feel like it. Keep rejoicing as a family as a way to break through the fog of a hard day. 

This ended up being a great picture of how our first six months have been here. It has been a really hard transition. Each day has been extremely challenging in its own way. We’ve dealt with more sicknesses than I can count (I just got better from a 5 week illness when Will came down with something that has lasted over two weeks and Audrey is dealing with a deep cough and wheezing for going on 3 weeks now). We’ve had a lot of challenges as we’re figuring out how to adjust to a new school, get our footing with team and ministry and simply remember how to live with spuratic water/ power/ etc. issues. There have been so many days when I’ve thought “Is this really worth it?? I feel like I’m hardly surviving, how can I even imagine being effective/ productive in this new setting?”. Just like with the celebration dinner, we keep pressing in. We keep finding and highlighting the things we’re grateful for and the many ways God has been showing up each and every day. We keep getting up each day ready for what the Lord has for us even if it literally means sitting in a government office for 6 hours until you get the right stamp in the passport that you have to have to continue life here. We keep celebrating even when we don’t feel like it. 

Philippians 4:4-7 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident too tall. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

I’ve always wondered why this verse is so repetitive, but I’m finding for myself that it’s likely because I have to push myself into rejoicing. It’s not going to come naturally. Grumbling will come naturally. Being mad that there aren’t balloons for a celebration will come naturally. Getting into arguments after a stressful day will come naturally. But rejoicing? That takes intentionality. That takes perseverance and discipline. I want to be a family who chooses to rejoice even when there seem to be so many more things to grumble about than rejoice about. I want to be a family who chooses to praise God for the one good thing we can recognize in a hard day rather than only complain about the hard (recognizing the hard is essential and healthy, but my heart has been stuck in a place of complaining what is difficult and dreading more difficulty). 

I’m also struck by the order of this verse. Rejoice…and then the peace of God will guard your heart. I should not expect peace to come before rejoicing. Man, this is a hard one for me! I would like for it to be: I feel peace and then I get to praise the Lord for that peace! But that’s not the case. I will experience hardship, choose to rejoice in the midst of that hardship, AND THEN peace comes. The order is essential because it makes me remember that rejoicing even when I don’t feel like it is part of the process. 

So how did our celebration night play out? We ate a delicious meal with broccoli that was too salty, grumbled through our praise and thanksgiving… but kept going. We didn’t give up. We did a family dance party in the living room (even though there was a protest about not getting to have it on the trampoline) and we celebrated. We celebrated because God has been faithful even when the season has been hard. We celebrated because we know that it won’t be this hard forever, and more than that, even if it is this hard forever, choosing to follow God is worth it anyway. We celebrated because God has done good things and been faithful in this season and we know and believe He will continue to be- despite our circumstances. Was there a huge blanket of peace that covered us all tangibly after our celebration? No. However, the action of choosing to rejoice despite circumstances is an act of faith and trust that says “You’re good through it all, Lord.”, and that is worth it every time. 

I’ll end with some pictures from my loooong blog hiatus. I was sick for the entire 3 weeks of our girls’ Christmas break from school, but it was still a great first Christmas here and we’re thankful for the memories made. 

                                          We managed to do a quick family safari. It was cut short by sickness, but the memories were sweet and we saw a lot of animals.

Face Paint fun with our neighbor, Abigail.

We had lots of roller skating fun over the break.

Tallie sharing the sandbox with two new friends

                                                Tallie has mastered getting a step stool on her own and helping herself to   goodies on the counter. #thirdchild

A joy from this season is getting an abundance of fresh vegetables from our own garden! 

                                                         Christmas love sent from the US!

Ellie and I sporting our Christmas crowns (and Ellies new bling earrings!) from Christmas Poppers at our friends’ house