A Story of Dance (part II)

Back to the Sunday morning church service. . .

    I knew God was calling me to dance with Him but I rebelled. "God, what if I am a distraction to the church? What if I draw their eyes away from you? You are a God of order, right? How can dance here be right? WHY am I so confused about this?!" As I knelt there sobbing I realized that I believed a terrible lie, somehow over the course of time I had let the enemy deceive me into believing that dance had no place in the church, in corporate worship.

If you had asked me about this before that morning, I would have denied it, "Of course dance does! I have lived it!". But the lie had gone far deeper than I knew. And even recognizing it as a lie, I struggled to let it go.

 

    The music came to a close and the pastor read from a passage from on the New Testament letters, stopping to repeat one phrase in particular. I don't remember what the passage was or even the phrase but God spoke to me through it of His promise to me, of the great things He would bring forth. And I cried even harder that He would speak so to me when I was fighting against Him. Again, He asked me to dance when they did music with the offering. Again, I said no.

 

-Interlude-

    At this point, I was a terrible mess of tears and snot, not to mention emotional turmoil: "Abba, I am such a mess!" But, in tender love, God gave me the impression that if He were to be standing there in flesh in front of me, I could wipe the snot off on Him. Gross, maybe, but again I was overwhelmed but how much and how steadfastly He loved me.

-end Interlude-

 

    I stopped bawling long enough to listen to the pastor's message. She spoke about the firstfruits sacrifice and celebration in the Old Testament. In particular, she emphasized God's call for us to thank Him and rejoice before we have seen a full harvest, to praise Him while the seed is still in the ground and anything might happen to it. I listened and was reminded that I am to rejoice and thank God for the ministry of dance even though I can't see it. The harvest is His.

    The morning service ended and I had an eagerly attentive audience in my friend's family who wanted to know what I had thought of the service (her dad pretty much interrogated me, lol). I summarized what I had happened and they encouraged me that I could most definitely dance in their services, that normally there were people dancing. I received their words with mixed feelings: joy, relief, guilt, hope.

 

    That evening, most of my friend's family tromped back into the van to go to the evening church service. Honestly, I did not want to go. I hadn't slept enough in the last few days, I was spiritually/emotionally drained, I was grouchy. But I went and walking through the front doors, I told God that He would have all of me. I was here to worship Him.

(..more coming…)