I wrote this blog on Established in Grace but wanted to share it here too.

Turning 30: Joy and Celebration

I was laying in bed thinking about this blog.  Thinking about turning thirty and how my heart thrills and races at the thought of my upcoming birthday.  And it struck me that Jesus started something huge when He was thirty too.  He began His public ministry.

We are adopting from China and the Chinese government won’t let you adopt until both adoptive parents are 30.  I turn 30 on Sabbath, February 20th.  Six months before you turn 30 you are allowed to begin working on your dossier because it takes about that long to get it ready and then when you are 30 all the documents get sent to China and you get logged into their system.  Last week we sent our dossier to our adoption agency!  Yesterday we just got the email that it passed the critical review and everything looks perfect for the Chinese government.  Now it has been sent to be translated and then it will be all bound together and sent to China!  Then we wait to be matched with our daughter.

I can’t wait until my birthday. I don’t remember ever feeling this way about a birthday.  Even now as I type this adrenaline pumps through my veins.  I. am. so. excited!  I will officially be allowed to claim our daughter and officially allowed to hold her in my arms and love her and call her my own, and bring her home.  I can officially work on bonding and attachment and nurturing her body and soul.

Is that how Jesus felt when He started His public ministry? It wasn’t that He did love us from heaven, or didn’t love people while He was on earth for all those years before He began His public ministry.  Did Jesus have adrenaline pumping through His veins as He walked toward John the Baptist?  So excited because He was about to began His official ministry.  He would officially be able to heal publicly, hold the sick and dying, bless the children as He held them.  He would officially be able to weep for Jerusalem as He longed to gather all under His protection of love.  He officially could teach the masses and nurture their bodies and souls.

I never thought about how Jesus could have been excited.  I view it as solemn thing, His beginning His ministry.  And it was!  It was more vast and huge than I can comprehend and the serious gravity that was on Jesus’ shoulders was solemn and holy.  Yet…His love for us propelled His actions.  And now, I feel that even in the heaviness of His mission that His joy and love for us was greater.

I know that bringing our daughter home won’t be easy.  I realize that there will be very hard times ahead.  Medically, emotionally, socially…and a host of other things.  But you know what?  As much as I am preparing and praying for those things–that doesn’t diminish the absolute joy and celebration I feel about turning 30 and officially being able to be her mama.

As much as Jesus prayed and fought the darkness of evil for us–that didn’t diminish the absolute joy and celebration I feel that He must have had as He turned 30 and began His public ministry.  He knew that as He did this journey He would officially be able to refute all of satan’s claims against God and forever open the pathway for us to be eternally with Him as sons and daughters of the living God.

Do you feel His joy over you?  I do.

May you too, see not just the sacrifices Jesus gave but that He gave them with so much joy and celebration because He loves you.