One of the many things that I really like about my church is that we begin worship with the kids and the adults all gathered together. We sing a couple of songs and pray before the kids are dismissed to their class. During the worship songs, several of the girls usually dance in the corner. I love how they express their worship. I had a dream several weeks back that I was twirling in the corner with them. Now, if you know me very well at all, then you know that would be totally out of character for me. The closest I come to dancing is swaying during slow songs. I don’t have rhythm, and despite my middle name, there isn’t much grace in my movements. At first I dismissed this as just a random dream. But, that image of me dancing with the kids has kept coming back to my mind.
As I have thought and prayed about this over the past few weeks, I feel like the Lord is telling me that the dancing is representative of freedom. I have lived in fear for the majority of my life. Fear of condemnation. Fear of failure. Fear of letting others down. You name it and I was probably afraid of it. I feel like over the past year the Lord has been leading me on a journey of discovering what it means to walk in His love and grace. I have always been pretty good at showing those to others, but not myself. I had a different standard for myself. I expected myself to be better than everyone else. But, I am not better than anyone else. I sin just as much as the next person. I fail miserably and quite often. I struggle to put God’s will ahead of my own desires all the time. As I am learning to let go of my pride and discovering the true depths of His love and grace, I am finding freedom. In that freedom, I am able to show who I really am. An imperfect, broken girl that clumsily fails every day. But, I am able to dance knowing that I am made perfect and whole, and that I am forgiven because of His love and grace.
Romans 8:1-3 (NIV): “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.”