Here in Dave and Sharon’s beautiful villa the roof is open and flat, so in the morning while it is still cool, the dancers practice on the roof.  Tonight I will do another overnight shift, so this morning I decided to spend some time with the dancer team.

Most people don’t know this about me, but most of my childhood was spent in ballet class.  I also took modern dance, tap, and jazz.  Dance is something I dearly loved, but gave up to become a housewife and mother.  There was a time when I believed that Heaven would be an endless dance of love.  I have recently come around to believe again that Heaven will be an endless dance of love.  But I had felt shy among the dancers because all that was almost 40 years, 2 pregnancies, and 75 pounds ago.  That means that my center of gravity has dramatically changed and my muscle memory cannot be trusted.  What had been easy for me all those years ago has become quite difficult indeed, and I don’t balance as easily as I once did.

My shyness with the dancers also had to do with a bad experience a few years ago.  I had taken a class called Dance as Prayer.  It turned out that it was misnamed.  The teacher had actually wanted Dance as Show dancers.  I had gone, hoping to learn to pray in a new way.  The teacher criticized my dancing so harshly that I simply quit going.  I figured that I don’t need to spend €20 a week to be told what a bad dancer I am.  I do forgive her, and understand that I didn’t fit into her profile of dancers because of being too old, too fat, and too awkward.  Still, it stung very badly.

So I have made my interactions with the dance team very tentative and cautious.  I admit, I don’t want to be rejected again.  But instead of rejection, they have been very welcoming.  They seem genuinely glad to have me here on the roof to watch them practice and to pray for and with them.  I haven’t shared any of my history with them, and I’m sure that they would never guess at it.  But those fears of rejection turned out to be unwarranted.  Perhaps I’ll tell them when the moment is right.

I know that God has set all this up to bring healing to my heart through dance.  God is good!