First Baptist Church of Herndon

Celebrate May

Linda Soller | May 19, 2014

It really didn’t cross my mind when I selected “Celebrate May” as the theme for the Drop-In Class for May that I would hit the 100^th blog milestone. If you get technical I guess the 104^th blog is a bigger deal because that would be two full years, but for some reason the 100^th seems important to me. You see, the thing about celebrations is sometimes they mean different things to different people, and sometimes we don’t even know the real reason we’re celebrating. When I decided we would talk about May celebrations including Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Armed Forces Day, and eventually Memorial Day, covering a bit of history on each only seemed right.  Once we have a better understanding of why we historically celebrate these days, then we can appreciate the lessons they teach. Lessons of connection, heritage, love, service, and sacrifice run throughout these very different celebrations.

So here is the thing; connections, heritage, love, service, and sacrifice are also critical to us as a family of believers. I’ll pause for a second and let you think about that. (Brief pause…) Do you see where I am going with this? When we go through life doing things like celebrating dates just because we have always done it that way, without making connections to why, we miss out on what we should be celebrating in the first place. If you come to a Bible Study or Sunday school class without connecting the dots between the verses and stories in the Bible to the everyday world you face, why attend? God wants you to live your faith.

Often people think of a holiday or celebration as an excuse to take a day off or goof off, shades of Ebenezer Scrooge. When you take the time to better understand the significance and meaning behind the date or celebration you may view it differently. Hopefully ghosts won’t have to visit to convince you of this point. Knowing the story behind the celebration doesn’t have to spoil it for you. The story can enrich the experience, or even give you something to celebrate that you never recognized before. Knowing the teachings of the Bible shouldn’t be seen as a means of spoiling your fun, but as a way of enhancing your joy.

It’s amazing to me that I have completed 100 entries to Drop-In Online. It’s even more amazing that you are still reading them, and that the readership has grown. When I started I simply hoped to inspire you to think and smile when you considered your faith, to share the joy. What I’ve found over these past 100 weeks is that in writing this blog I can see my faith in everyday experiences that I wouldn’t have appreciated or connected before. There are so many ways to tie our faith to our life journey, and that is worth celebrating!

Have a great week and thank you for sharing this journey!  :o)    Linda