Celebrating My 50th Birthday With a Worship Party

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I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of a worship party, I’m not sure this idea would have come to me all on it’s own, but in the end, it was the best birthday party I’d ever had.

My 50th birthday was coming up.

A milestone. The half-century mark.

I don’t usually do much to celebrate my birthday. I’m a home-body, so I usually celebrate with my most favorite people – my husband and children.

But, this was a big birthday, so I was tossing around the idea of doing more.

One day, while I was scrolling Facebook, I landed on the video below. In this video, the lady is also celebrating her 50th.

She walks in on a surprise party – and this is what happens:

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A post shared by Aurelia’s Basket (@aureliasbasket)

Not going to even lie, y’all.

I was in tears by the end of this short clip — and the thought hit me: “If I could celebrate my 50th, this is how I’d do it!”

That’s how 7 ladies in my tribe ended up coming out to my sister’s on a Saturday afternoon to a party none of us had ever heard of before, and none of us knew how to execute.

But a party that turned out to be the best party ever!!

I just want to say, my sister went the distance and beyond organizing this party and adding extra surprises all along the way (such as surprise video greetings from Courtney from Women Living Well and my bestie Misty from Year Round Homeschooling).

Picking out the songs

For a couple of weeks, I tossed songs around in my head. I mean, how do you pick only a small handful of songs out of the thousands of amazing, God-honoring songs out there?

Then, one Sunday it hit me:

Songs and stories

I need to choose the songs that are landmarks for me. The altars-in-the-desert kind of songs. The songs that point to what God has done in my life.

I think many of us are that way.

We have those songs that bear us up during those difficult times in life.

Songs that mark victories. Songs that become our anthems.

And I believe this is Biblical. I believe this is one reason why God included the book of Psalms in the Cannon.

I didn’t want to take them on a whole biography of my life, so I began with my move here to Croatia.

The big day

My kids and I pulled up to my sister’s house and made our way to the front door. I raised my arm to ring the bell, and I could hear the sound of a piano and singing….

As the door opened, I realized – as another surprise my sister had recreated the scene from the video – I walked in and hugged each woman, as we wiped tears and sang “All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good!”

Wow – what a way to start a party!

The stories and songs

1. Great Is Thy Faithfulness

I’ve been here in Croatia 18 1/2 years.

18 1/2 years of good times, hard times, devastating times, glorious times.

It wasn’t easy adapting to a new culture, learning a new language, trying to fit in and make friends. During this time, I got married and had two children.

I also released babies into Jesus’ arms.

In this time, we bought a new house, and I said goodbye to my bestie Mandy who tragically went home to be with Jesus with her husband and two of their four children.

In this time, I’ve made friends….I’ve lost friends….

There were ups and downs, fears, failures, and victories, but in all of the good and hard times, one thing has remained constant:

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

In all of this, I had to believe in God’s faithfulness, because without His faithfulness what do I have?

In all of the crazy, brokenness, messiness, and chaos of life, we can’t afford to lose sight of God’s faithfulness.

A video montage of that day – with subtitles

2. Cristo Yo Te Amo (Christ, I Love You), Thank You For Calvary, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

I came here to Croatia in 2004, and after a few years I began to face some really great struggles: Loneliness, disappointment, disillusionment, even some bitterness.

Worst of all, I felt that I’d lost the music.

I’ve always had a song to get me through the difficult times, but this time there didn’t seem to be a song. And that hurt worse than all the other hurts.

Then slowly, a song began to echo in my heart.

Quiet – like from a distance – but it was there.

It was a song that our church had translated from Spanish: Cristo, To Te Amo. There is a line that (translated) goes, “I really don’t know where I’d be if you weren’t there, Jesus”

And that line especially wrapped around me like a warm blanket of safety.

And in a beautiful medley Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus began to play in my heart, reminding me that no matter how let down and disillusioned I felt, I can’t forget that I, too, fail.

I’m not perfect.

I need to keep my eyes on Jesus and make Him my focus.

3. Enter Into Your Victory

In 2019, I faced a battle with fear bigger than I’d ever faced before.

A mother’s worst fear is for their child to face a health or developmental struggle over which they have no control.

And we were seemingly in such a situation.

There was a period of 3 days where I was locked in a tunnel of anxiety in which I could only see the looming fear of the unknown before.

I ate and drank nothing in those 3 days.

I don’t remember much of those 3 days, other than I felt robotic – going through the motions of the few things I absolutely had to take care of.

Everything else fell by the wayside.

Finally, on day four, I shook myself back to consciousness, knowing that I had a choice. I could stay locked in that tunnel, or I could choose to claim my victory in Christ!

It was on a Sunday morning that we began to sing the song Enter into Your Victory; and suddenly, I felt God lead me to go to the altar and kneel.

Only two things threatened to hold me back

1. No one in our church has ever done that
2. I don’t like to stand out

But I knew it was God, and if I even had one shred of doubt, the fact that I stood there shaking like a leaf told me that this must be God (also, I knew that I would not naturally think up on my own to do such a thing!)

I got out, I knelt at the altar. I wept from the very depths of my soul.

And I got up, went back to my seat, and knew I had won the victory that morning. And since that day, I have not faced anxiety like that again.

Oh – there have been opportunities, but I’ve been able to overcome them immediately!

4. Waymaker

Through all of the trials and struggles of the past 18 years, there is one thing I’ve always been certain about and that is that I can’t give up.

It hasn’t been easy.

In fact, there have been seasons when I felt my very heart was being ripped out of me, thrown in the dirt, trampled on, and shredded.

But I knew that giving in to temptation to hold on the pain of the struggle was a dangerous place to be.

The struggle was hard, but I knew that by God’s grace the victory would come. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when, but I knew it would!

And then, for the first time, I heard my victory song.

Every line of this song spoke to me in a deep, profound way. But there are two lines that spoke to me more than the rest:

“Even when I don’t see it You’re working
Even when I don’t feel it You’re working“

There were so many times when I couldn’t see the hand of God, and I certainly didn’t feel Him….but somehow there was a certainty He was here and He was working anyway!

And now – looking back – I know He was, because all of those battles, those struggles, those trials that threatened to overtake me….

They didn’t!

Instead, they made me stronger. They made my faith stronger.

And they confirmed God’s Word when He says that though we go through the flood and fire, it will not consume us, it will not overtake us.

He doesn’t take us around the flood and the fire, He takes us through them. But He’s with us through them, and on the other side we’re stronger and more confident in His mighty hand to save and deliver!

5. You Are Worthy of It All

Every year I choose a word that defines that year.

2021 came and I was feeling ambitious. Even more, I was feeling a bit proud and arrogant. I was going to get my life in order.

My health, my weight….I was going to take care of all of those weaknesses I see in me.

I was going to be superwoman by the end of the year!

I printed out my word, and all around it I had written all of the areas I was going to work on that year.

Months went by and little progress was made on any of those. Day after day I went go to bed feeling defeated and like a failure, because I just couldn’t seem to do all the things I felt I should be doing.

Then one day I realized how toxic I’d become to myself.

I spent so much time whipping myself over the smallest things, instead of realizing the greatness of God’s grace.

I ripped that word right off my wall and nearly decided not to choose a word any longer…..

Until I went to grab a mug one morning. As I pulled that mug to myself, the words written in beautiful script stood out at me: “Be Still”

My word for 2022 — and it became the most impactful word and the best way to wave goodbye to my 40s.

Together with that word I regularly meditated on the verse in Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

And then came this song, and it echoed in my heart all year last year “You are worthy of it all, you are worthy of it all. For from you are all things, and to you are all things. You deserve the glory!”

6. Goodness of God

Fast forward to a few weeks before my birthday and the video that inspired the worship party.

As I watched that video, I knew that song would become my anthem for this year.

“All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good!” And it’s so true. Every season, every hard time, and every victory – He has been there through it all.

And He’s been faithful.

And He’s been so, so good!

As I now enter into my 50s, I only pray that I will be more faithful to Him than I ever have before. That I will walk in that strength that He gives me each day.

That I will reach out and grab hold of that grace He gives me fresh each day.

That I will continue to go from glory to glory!

Dear sister, I know this has been a long post. But I felt the need to share it as a testimony of the great things God has done in me.

I pray it’s been an encouragement to you!