Celebrate!

For the month of June, I've been filling in for the chaplain and running Spirituality groups for the adult and adolescent inpatients. I absolutely love it. I have met so many wondering people and we all talk about the spiritual values we share as humans--love, kindness, honesty, gratitude, acceptance, caring--no matter what our religious affiliations might be. It is a time of coming together in truth, gentleness, and sharing. Healing is happening right before our eyes. It's amazing what God can do when a few of us gather...

I found the following entry in a book called, "The Language of Letting Go," by Melody Beattie. Melody is a wonderful writer who writes about recovery issues (I think she is famous for a book called "Codependent No More," although I haven't read that one yet.) But I found this entry in her book yesterday and it washed over me like a cool drink of water on a hot day...I wanted to share it with you this morning in the hopes that it blesses you, too:

Take time to celebrate. Celebrate your successes, your growth, your accomplishments. Celebrate you and who you are.

For too long you have been hard on yourself. Others have spilled their negative energy--their attitudes, beliefs, pain--on you. It had nothing to do with you! All along, you have been a gift to yourself and to the Universe.

You are a child of God. Beautiful, a delight, a joy. You do not have to try harder, be better, be perfect, or be anything you are not. Your beauty is in you, just as you are in each moment.

Celebrate that.

When you have a success, when you accomplish anything, enjoy it. Pause, reflect, rejoice. Too long you have listened to admonitions not to feel good about what you have done, lest you travel the downward road to arrogance.

Celebration is a high form of praise, of gratitude to the Creator for the beauty of God's creation. To enjoy and celebrate the good does not mean that it will be taken from you. To celebrate is to delight in the gift, to show gratitude.

Celebrate your relationships! Celebrate the lessons from the past and the love and warmth that is there today. Enjoy the beauty of others and their connection to you.

Celebrate all that is in your life. Celebrate all that is good. Celebrate you!

May God help us to open our hearts fully to receive--and celebrate--all the many blessings we are given in this day! Amen. :) k