The Bass Player’s Birthday

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . a time to be silent and a time to speak.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7

We love to do birthday toasts. Each person comes ready to say something about what that person has brought to their life in the last year or a prayer for the year to come, and after dinner, we toast with those thoughts.

Our friend Nathan, the bass player in Aaron’s band, has a warm, easygoing presence, and people love to be around him. But he’s more comfortable encouraging others than being the center of attention. I felt his nervousness, like he wanted us to stop. But we stayed with it. We talked about what he teaches us, what he adds to the band, to our church, to each of our lives.

The heart of hospitality is creating space for these moments, protecting that fragile bubble of vulnerability, truth, and love. It’s all too rare that we tell the people we love exactly why our lives are richer because they’re in it. That night we risked the awkwardness of saying tender, meaningful things out loud in front of our friends, trusting that those words would travel down to a deep part of someone we cared about. I watched Nathan’s face move from slightly nervous and uncomfortable to overwhelmed in the best possible way.