Learning to Dance Again…

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to dance!

In a studio, on a stage, in a sanctuary, outside, my living room…it hasn’t ever really mattered.

Three weeks ago I decided to step back into a studio and start dancing with a class again after 10+ years away. It was incredibly familiar, even though I was learning new steps, culture, and form. The joy and the language of dance remained the same.

My body has started to wake up again and it’s like a breath of fresh air…in many ways.

For the past 7 years, pain has plagued my body and consumed my mind. There was still joy, but it has felt very different. It was a season in finding joy in sorrow, pain, and tears.

Now I feel like I’m waking up and that joy is feeling a little more familiar with each day. But this time it is a joy of living life fully in the blessings!

I love John 10:10, as it says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (NRSV)

For so long that thief has hit hard and he will continue to seek to steal, kill, and destroy my joy. Jesus spells that out for us. But I know He is greater than that theif and came so that all could have life in great abundance, no matter the season of life!

With each season, change comes; with each dance class, change comes.

I have most certainly changed in the past 10+ years. I’m not the same person I was before Lyme disease and that is good. I’m learning to embrace and celebrate this good thing. With dance, I’m learning Irish instead of ballet and it is also good and a reason to celebrate. (And if you know anything about Irish Dance, it’s always a celebration!)

The steps in class and in life are different these days, but the journey is a familiar one and the same Christ walks with me each day! Find joy in your journey this day!

Home…

Home. It’s a concept I’ve been trying to figure out and understand for the past few months.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Home is where the heart is.” So, where is home?

A friend defined home as somewhere you have a place and are met & known.

For me, I have lots of homes. The home we grew up in. The home I returned to on breaks from college. My home at college. My home at Camp.

All of these places have been home for me. But I’m having a harder time calling my new place of dwelling and work, home.

There’s been a disconnect since I moved and I haven’t been able to figure out why. The longer I’m here, I feel like I do have a place here, which is an important part of establishing a home. But I don’t feel known.

I think part of this emotional journey is very normal, especially moving to a place where I knew no one. Nobody already knew me here, so all of my daily life relationships are being built from the ground up. A clean slate, which has been a strange feeling after the journey the past 5 years have held. No one here walked through that time with me, nor I with them. I have felt very unknown in many ways and not quite sure how to connect.

Yet, even though I don’t feel known by people, I’m not sure I’ve been in a place where I felt more known by God. I am thankful my relationship with Him doesn’t have to start from scratch, but can continue to go deeper.

I think Psalm 139 sums it up best…

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain…Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” (vs. 1-6, 23)

He knows me full well, in a way that no one else can and it is beautiful. It is a gift, especially when so many questions surround my physical home. I always have a home in Him.

So, home. Maybe one day, this place will feel like another home I can add to the list of places I have had a place and felt known…and maybe it won’t. Either way, my home with God is present and will go with me. And I look forward to the day where I will be HOME with Him in heaven, where I will always have a place and be known. What a joyous day that will be!

Something has changed within me…

Lately I’ve been on a Broadway musicals kick while working and the song, “Defying Gravity” from Wicked has played a lot. I’ve caught myself singing, “Something has changed within me. Something is not the same.”

I’ve connected with it. Something has changed within me. Within my heart.

God is at work, in ways I never fathomed or imagined.

This move and transition has been tough. Lots of grief, many tears…but none of it bad. I’ve needed it and God has used it to regain my full attention.

Two weeks ago, I woke up on Saturday morning and did not want to get out of bed. I didn’t have anything planned or anyone to see or talk to and all I could do was cry…cry out to God and ask Him again why He brought me here when I was so alone.

His response was a conviction of my heart.

I have idolized the relationships in my life, forgetting that HE is the reason I live. HE is the reason I get up each day. And my relationship with HIM is the most important.

By turning my eyes back to Him, waking up to greet Him each day and say goodnight before sleep each evening, I am breathing again…deep, calming breaths.

There has been stress and anxiety about friendships with this move. Will we remain close? Will I still be a part of their lives? Will they remain a part of mine? Is there room in my heart for new friendships that go deep? What does the future hold? But those concerns have disappeared and a breathing room has come here too. I am able to love, value, and take joy in knowing the people I’ve been blessed with in my life, but they are not my reason for living. Christ is.

God knows the inmost desires of my heart and wants to answer them. I can trust Him with my heart and life.

God has answered my prayers for relationship and connection, though it’s most recently been through conversations at work, phone calls, email, neighbors, texts, and visits from/to friends and family. (My sister comes next weekend!!) It has been what I’ve needed. And I look forward to the new relationships that are building in my life here, in Missouri.

My prayer for years has been, “Mold my heart to reflect Yours more each day.” I’ve said it for years, but it has taken on a new meaning this past month. He is molding my heart in new ways, ways I never asked but at the same time deeply desire even more.

When I’m able to put them into words, I look forward to sharing those too.

I still cry, but not quite as much. It’s still challenging to be in a place where I have no family or people who know me well close by. But Christ is here and present with me. It is in Him I live and move and have my being. My joy is made complete in Him.