Once More, With Feeling

My co-worker Jennie is the most authentically enthusiastic person I've ever met.

For most of my life, I've been the girl that is on board for just about everything. I've been the kid that everyone is telling to calm down, quiet down, simmer down... and Jennie puts me to shame. Jennie makes me look mellow. Jennie makes me seem downright dull.

My other co-workers and I love to watch Jennie work. She is so relentlessly herself, and greets our brides in crazy voices with accompanying arm gestures in ways that often cause them to be momentarily stunned. When she first started, I think we all worried that people would be a little, well, concerned by her excitement. We're idiots, because our customers fall in love with this girl. And it isn't because she's goofy, or funny, or full of character voices and inappropriately loud sounds and dance routines (though she is all of those things). It's because she's genuine. That enthusiasm, that big ball of hoopla that she chucks without hesitation at everyone who comes through the door, that's the real thing. She is simply that happy, that happy in general and that happy for you, and brides and everyone else around her can't help but drink it up.

What I love about Jennie is a quality that I doubt she recognizes. I suspect that, when considering her own personality, Jennie would tell you she's a little much. What I doubt she realizes is that "little much" is one of the most fantastically Christ-like characteristics I've encountered. Jennie is a little ball of light because she sees reasons to rejoice all around her, and more importantly, in the people she interacts with. She looks at someone, anyone, and sees pieces that are beautiful and worth getting excited about. I wish I could snag a little of her magic. I can see great things in folks, but I don't know how often I let them move me to the level of committed enthusiasm in which this girl lives her every day. People fall in love with her because she makes them feel loved.

I can't help but think there's a little bit of Jennie in our Creator (or, more likely, a whole lot of our Creator in Jennie.) Because, when we come before our God, I don't think he phones it in or goes through the motions. I don't think He's bored, or annoyed, or tired from His big long day. I think He looks at us and sees the beautiful that is Him in us and us with Him, and I think He gets excited. I think He meets us with every ounce of His almighty enthusiasm, delights in us, and invites us to jump up and down along with Him.

I'm so grateful for Jennie, and for her constant reminder to celebrate who we are as individuals and the individuality of those we interact with every day. She challenges me to put more of myself into my conversations, and reminds me that there are things, so many things, worth getting excited about. Because the fact that we have a big God who gets bigtime amped up about hanging out with insignificant, lousy, lazy, smelly, barely average us is sort of a miracle. We are idiots with a magnificent, all powerful supernatural who knows our names, who delights in us. And that, my friends, is worthy of a little enthusiasm.

"The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love." Psalm 147:11

love.