“Let them praise His name with dancing and make music to Him with timbrel and harp. For the LORD takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with victory.” Psalm 149: 3-4
A new song played in Heaven when I was birthed from my mother’s womb into the hands of my Father. And we began to move into a glorious dance together. As a child, He held me close to His heart that I might hear, feel, and know the beat of His great love for me. And for many years, my feet never touched the ground. Our dance was gentle and protective as God upheld me and whisked me away from the darkness that seems to threaten every dance floor. Hand in hand, we swayed through many places and around many people, until I let myself down from His embrace and felt the ground beneath my feet for the very first time.
Without a holy rhythm and my broken eye contact from my Father, I started to dance on my own. Away from the comfort of His hand and His breath upon my face, I was unsteady and stumbled through many trials and tribulations apart from His heart. The final ungraceful footstep that marked a decade of despair brought me face down to the ground. In a puddle of tears and with a weeping soul, I began to hear a familiar song swirl in the air around me. As I lifted my head, I found the hand of my Father underneath my chin and a light lit up the dance floor once more. It took a few melodies and turns and bumps into each other before we moved in the same ways we once knew. As I lifted my arms up to Him, He smiled, but did not reach out to carry me as He once did. Instead, He looked past me and spun me into the arms of my Savior.
This was a new dance for me, even though Jesus never lost His footing. He placed my hand upon His heart and watched as the memory of that forgotten heartbeat began to surface in me and revive every childhood deposit made in my spirit by God. He guided me to the cross and showed me that all my scars were placed upon Him, as He knew me even then, and anticipated this moment of joy to come. And in the twinkling of His eye and the softness of His voice, I suddenly realized they were gone from my body. I discovered a flexibility and was able to extend the capacity of who I am in every direction that He moves. With a limber grace, I got as close to Jesus as I could be and discovered that we were now mouth-to-mouth. Every time I went to speak to Him, my affections were caught up in the breath of His mercy and carried back to me as the prayer He’d been praying over me for eternity. For as near as I was, He was even nearer, and a great resuscitation overwhelmed my life on that sacred dance floor. It was there that I came to understand that the only ground He ever meant for me touch was His holy ground.
A beautiful breeze stirred our dance to higher elevations and with one complete head spin, I found myself holding on to a new partner. An electricity buzzed through my veins and awakened many hidden places deep within me. A hunger and thirst for adventure and discovery with my Father, my Savior, and my Holy Spirit propelled me into new territory. I was now dancing in Heavenly places surrounded by the greatest cloud of witnesses and beautiful music that my soul could hardly capture. Once again, my feet were lifted and moved by the winds of the Spirit of Truth and Wisdom. This free-flowing movement still has me swaying, and laughing, and delighting in a goodness that’s wrapped in unspeakable glory.
I’m just a daughter who danced in her Father’s arms, and then fell from grace as a bleeding woman desperate for a touch from her Savior, and then was redemptively set free to rise into realms of splendid wonder. I’m just a dancer with my gaze fixed on Jesus and my heart singing back to Him the song He loves to feel.
Oh, that all His sons and daughters would respond when we hear the music that surrounds Him and find Him reaching out for us.
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