Dancing with my eyes closed...

My life since the last time that I wrote:

- Doctor’s appointment.

                - She said nothing was wrong with me and that I should just be patient with the pain, it’ll get better

- Anger and frustration about news from doctor (will go into this in another post)

- Loving husband assuring me that we will find answers

- Trip back to see family

- 21^st birthday

- Seeing my husband only 5 days out of a whole month

- Coming back to my beautiful home to find it all cleaned, my bed made, laundry done, sink empty, and two beautiful dresses laid out for me that my darling husband had bought for me

- Expectation for sorrow and chaos upon getting home and being without my family again.

That is obviously the short version of my life at the moment but you get the gist! I was expecting to wake up so depressed this morning, just like when I first moved here. And yet I woke up this morning to beautiful sounds coming in my window that reminded me of my time in Haiti. A peace that I cannot describe to you overwhelmed and covered my soul. “And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7)

I got up and made myself breakfast and coffee and took it out onto our lanai and sat and read through Philippians again. I was soaking in everything that I was reading and truly feeling like God was speaking to me again. I felt Him for the first time in months and I can’t tell you how much I had missed His voice and His peace. I picked up a book that I had started reading a while ago called Do You Think I’m Beautiful? It speaks to women about the questions deep inside their souls, do you find me desirable, is my beauty worth finding out, do you want to know me deeply? Yet one thing stood out to me very deeply this morning.

Does God look on me in my messy, lonely, struggling, doubting, scared, angry, hateful state and find me desirable? Can the God of the universe want to know me deeply even in the state that I am in? A quote from the book stood out to me…

“’The King is enthralled by your beauty.’ (Ps. 45:11)

The God who slung the stars across the heavens…the same God who shaped the mountains and valets with the palm of His hand…the God whose very breath gives life…that God, the King has always been taken with you.

You have been noticed,

He thinks you’re beautiful,

the glass slipper fits,

The music is playing,

and He’s asking you to dance.”

God has made my life into a dance floor… He has set struggles before me, obstacles have been put in my way. He has played music that I don’t like, He has asked me to dance at a tempo I am not comfortable with. But He is not concerned with how well I can dance, how I can execute the moves, how good I am at keeping up to the beat…

All God cares about is whether or not I dance with Him. Will I take His hand and allow Him to dance with me? Will I forget about everyone watching and simply let Him lead?

Life is messy, and my life is even messier.

Marriage is hard, mine seems to be getting shot at all the time. Not only am I trying to adjust to being married, we are military and that makes marriage even more difficult. And to top it all off, having sexual struggles has made our lives that much more difficult… Our dance is a mess…

But God has asked me to dance with Him. Not to dance alone. He knows all the moves, He knows how to keep up with the tempo…

I am reminded of my senior prom… It was held at the Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver. We were taught all the dances from the era of the Titanic. I remember struggling through trying to keep up with the beat and remember all the moves and not trip on my dress that was way too long… It was difficult for me to keep up… At one point in the night the instructor who was teaching us told all the women to close their eyes and let their partner lead. I felt so sure that I was going to trip and look like a baboon! I am sure the fear was so evident on my face. My friend who had taken me to prom just assured me that he would catch me if I tripped and I apologized if I stepped on his toes in advance and shut my eyes.

That was the best dance of the night.

I didn’t trip once, we were right in line with the tempo, our waltz was perfect… I had let go and let someone else lead and it was better than when I was all focused in my head.

God reminded me of that dance this morning…

And asked me to dance with Him the same way…

Close my eyes and focus on just His leading. Focus on Him instead of the dance itself.

Dancing is better with your eyes closed.

So will I accept this dance that He has called me to? Will I let him lead as the dance gets hard and life starts to pull at me? Will I keep my eyes closed and my heart focused on His leading?

Yes. I probably will fail, there will be times that I open my eyes and trip, there will be moments of frustration about the music…

But I will keep dancing. Because God didn’t ask me to be good at dancing, He just asked me to dance.