Dancing with Me

The first of October, I found myself at IHOP for the Thursday night Forerunner service. I was feeling in need of some encouragement so I went into the prophecy room. 

For those who aren't familiar with IHOP's prophecy rooms, the intention of the prophecy ministry is simply to encourage and uplift, not to foretell of the future. To be honest, the idea sounded pretty creepy to me though the first time that my friends wanted to try it out, but it wasn't at all as I had thought. 

Among other words of encouragement, one of the women there praying shared with me a vision she glimpsed. 

"I keep seeing you dance. I just- I just see you dance and twirl and spin," she said. "And I mean... It's just beautiful before the Lord. I don't know if that's something that you do or... I just hear over you 'Dance with Me. Dance with Me, My beloved. Dance with Me.'"

Here's the thing. 

I don't dance. 

That vision struck me as strange and I didn't relate to it at all. Sometimes in my mind I imagine myself dancing, and when I was younger, sometimes I would dance before the Lord in my bedroom. I took ballet lessons as a cute five-year-old, and with my slender physique and long limbs, for most of my teenhood, I was asked if I was a ballerina. But that vision still didn't resonate in my spirit in that moment. I don't dance in worship. 

But it stuck with me. Something about that word stood out to me. 

This past Thursday, I was at the Forerunner service again. (I spend quite a bit of time at IHOP.) I was dressed fashionably in black satin high heels and skinny jeans, deep red lipstick, gold jewelry, a black top, my thick mass of curls clipped up. There was an altar call at the front for receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and as I sat there in my seat, I suddenly felt a prompting to go outside. 

To go outside, to go down the porch steps to the grassy overflow parking where I picnic, and to dance. I felt my spirit stirred. I felt the Lord leading me to sneak out of the service and to steal away to dance with Him. Like a lover coaxing his beloved away from the crowd of a party and out into the night on the portico alone. 

I decided to follow. It was strange, and it felt so counter-intuitive, but I decided to follow. 

I left my things on my chair and I quietly slipped out from the prayer room where the ministry at the altar was still underway. Outside, the back deck was wet from rain and for me in a short-sleeved shirt, the night was a little cool. 

I crossed the wooden deck and I stopped at the railing, drawing a deep breath as I looked out across the overflow parking. Dark and vacant of anyone else. No one else was in sight.

I followed the steps down and gingerly picked my footing in my high heels across the gravel and wet clay into the grass. 

Then I stopped. 

I looked up at the treetops silhouetted against the darkening night sky. 

This is silly, I thought to myself. 

"I don't dance," I told God. 

And I heard Him whisper gently to my heart in a way that assured me He knew something that I didn't, "Oh, but you will." 

I took a deep breath, looked over my shoulder to be sure that no one was around, and I started swaying. There was no rhythm, no music, but I began dancing. Just a slow, gentle sway at first. 

Then I slipped out of my heels, my feet sinking into the soggy grass scattered with wet fallen leaves. And I began twirling. Like a young girl again, I began running and spinning barefoot around that little field cloaked in the darkness and the lamplight from the deck. I laughed breathlessly, wet, cold, feet growing freezing and dirty, my curls coming loose. 

I opened my arms and sunk down to my knees in the grass, my eyes closed as I turned my head up to the heavens. And for a moment, I forgot about everyone and everything else. 

It was Him and Him alone. 

No one else mattered. 

Sometimes we create such high expectations for ourselves. We seek perfection in ourselves. For me, I struggle with perfectionism. I'm organized, I exhibit mild symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, I love planning and scheduling, I love routine, I love being in control of my life, and I've always loved the feeling of being put together, both in dressing well and in having my life in order. I hold expectations for myself that I can't always meet or always feel like meeting. 

And sometimes, that holds me captive as a slave to my own ideas of what I should look like, of how I should act, of the way my life should go. 

But this year since March, the Lord's been teaching me to let go. 

To let go, to let loose my fist-tight grip on my perceptions of reality and expectations for myself, and to embrace the joy of living. 

Truly living. 

Of living in the moment. Of spontaneity. Of following the prompting of His Spirit though they may seem like whims to discover intimate moments spent with Him in His presence. Of living more simply, more unhindered and carefree. 

More free. 

Living in freedom. 

Free from worries and overthinking. Free from expectations and barriers I create for myself. Free from concern of people's opinion of me. Free from my pride, telling me that I need to be a certain way. And free from the confines of what has always been "normal" for me, the old me. 

I've been embracing a new freedom in Him. 

And it's brought a lot of changes in me and my life. 

I've never felt like a more real authentic version of the person that I was created to be. 

I walked back into the prayer room Thursday night during the meet-and-greet and immediately a young woman greeted me. She asked me my name and introduced herself. And then she told me genuinely, "You are so pretty." My feet cold and dirty in my high heels, my curls falling out of place, blades of grass clinging to the wet knees of my jeans, breathless and wet and disarrayed, I felt like a mess. 

But I knew there was a spark of passion and life and love in my eyes, lit and let loose by laying down my pride before my Bridegroom and King. 

And the Lord reminded me that beauty isn't always found in perfection. Sometimes the most real beauty of all is found in the chaos, in the confusion, in the carefree, crazy moments of life spent with Him. Trusting and walking step-by-step by faith every day. 

Today is a new day. A day to begin again and to start afresh. To break off whatever is holding us back from stepping into the freedom in Him that the Lord wants to offer us and into the fullness of all that He has for us. He desires so much for us. 

Let go. Breath. Don't be afraid of falling into Him. He'll catch you. Step beyond the circumference drawn in the sand of that small circle called the Comfort Zone that you're content to live in. 

Let go. Be free. And believe. 

And watch all that He will do. 

He makes wondrous things from the pieces we place in His beautiful hands.