Celebrations

Devotion for the Week...

This past Friday was Aiden's graduation day. It did not look anything like what we have always expected it to be. Schools are still closed and gatherings of more than 10 people are banned, so there was no in-person graduation ceremony. Family who were supposed to come to celebrate with us had to stay home.

It wasn't all bad, though. Local businesses stepped up to mark the day, with several offering gifts to the graduating students, and people decorated their homes with balloons and messages of congratulations. The parents of the grads arranged a time to meet up and drive in a parade of sorts around town and the grads worked together to create a video of them wearing their suits and dresses. There were no graduation caps for them to wear, but one of the other grad's moms arranged for someone to make them all masks.

We used our tripod and the timer on Paul's phone to get some family pictures. Mom was supposed to have been our photographer for the day and I'm sure her pictures would have been better, but we did okay 😊 (BTW, those little flecks of white are teeny little hailstones or snowflakes or something...it was cold, but not cold enough for it to be snow, but it felt more like snow than hail, so who knows?)

I made my dress! It's the Tessa sheath dress from Love Notions (affiliate link)😊

 The teachers who had been working with the students to plan the graduation ceremony switched gears and created a "virtual grad" with all the speeches recorded on video and put in Google Classroom so we could watch them. It was nicely done and as close to the real thing as we could get. Even though it wasn't 'right' it felt good to be able to celebrate Aiden's accomplishment as a high school graduate.

For some reason, thinking about celebrating the graduation kept bringing to mind Miriam's celebration after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. Here's a super condensed version of the story: The people had been slaves in Egypt, then the Lord had rescued them, but Pharaoh changed his mind and chased them to get them back. God parted the waters of the Red Sea so the Israelites could cross on dry land to get away from Pharaoh, and when Pharaoh and his chariots tried to cross God let the waters return to normal, drowning them.

"Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine and led all the women as they played their tambourines and danced. And Miriam sang this song:

'Sing to the Lord,
    for he has triumphed gloriously;
he has hurled both horse and rider
    into the sea'" (Exodus 15:20, 21).

The Israelites had thought they were goners, that they were caught between the uncrossable Red Sea and Pharaoh with his chariots, but God intervened and saved them. I love how the movie Prince of Egypt shows them crossing on a narrow strip of bare sand between two massive walls of water, with fish and whales swimming in the water next to them.

Background quilt is New Life

I feel like Miriam just couldn't hold back after she realized that God had saved them and they were really, truly free. The music and dancing burst out of her in celebration and she had to let it all out.

Sometimes you just have to celebrate! Things don't look quite like we thought they would, but there are still things worth celebrating. The celebrations probably won't look quite the same, either, but that doesn't mean we should hold back. What have you found to celebrate lately?