The Dance

I am a reader. I read all kinds of books....it is an unusual day for me if I don't spend time immersed in a story. In case you are wondering how this is possible, I will just tell you that reading is usually the culprit behind the circles under my eyes. Stories feed me. They feed my mind and they relax me. My love of stories carries over into a love of movies, too...but the movie watching time (unlike the book reading time) has suffered greatly as my life has changed into that of a wife and a mother.
Anyway....why do I mention this?? Because my love of stories often lends itself to my thinking of life a bit like it is a movie or a book. In the quiet moments, I wonder about these things...what the soundtrack of the moment would be...what the stories of the mountains around me are...what the soil would murmur to me if it could...what tales the wind would tell if it spoke my language. I want to hear the stories of the world around me. I take stories to heart. Whenever I cry in movies or books, Nathan says "It's not real, you know." And without fail, I respond with "These things happen in real life...people experience them...even if these people are fictional...these hard things are real."
These things...the good and the bad...the stories of our lives and the things that we experience...they make up a dance of sorts. That is how I look at it. Like trees moved by the wind, we move and bend with the things that we experience. Sometimes we are moved by a gentle breeze and other moments bring a wind that blows so violently we duck our heads and hope that we are still standing when the storm passes. Garth Brooks says "we learn as we go...sometimes we lead and sometimes we follow"....but this dance of life is so much more than that. Not only are we moved by the wind around us, but by our own feet. We step forward and we step back. Sometimes we stumble and we are embarassed. Sometimes the person we dance with holds us up and sometimes we provide the support. We have glorious moves that make us want to shout in triumph and we fall sometimes when we least expect it. The music that surrounds us is fast and it is slow. We have moments where we move with ease and without thinking and moments where exhaustion is written on our faces and bodies so clearly that those watching cringe. Sometimes when we dance we are at peace and at other times we struggle to even hear the music. We are distracted by pain and heartache or busyness....and we stumble because we can't hear the notes. But they will come again. We are creatures who move. Given life by the breath of God into dirt. The soundtrack changes constantly....moment by moment....day by day....but always we move...always we are moved....and always we know that the dance will continue. In the hard moments when we stumble we know that "this too, shall pass." In the carefree moments when we seem to soar above the clouds we know that we will land again. The things that are constant never change....that we will always be moving, ebbing and flowing...that we need other people to dance with so that there is someone to catch us when we stumble....that the music that moves us is full of the notes of the past and the hope of the future....that as much as we are trying to enjoy the moment (and do occassionally accomplish getting lost in it), we are also creatures who anticipate the next step we will take because the unknown unsettles us. Our life is a dance, you see. We move thru the days both intentionally and without control of the wind that moves around us. Our life and our dance are filled with moments of regret and guilt that we have to learn to release so that they don't continue to affect our steps. We have to remember the moments of pain and of beauty while knowing that steps we take now are important in their own right. Look to the next step...but know that it will flow if you concentrate on where you are now. We were created in God's image...created for beauty and life....and that matters.
These are the things I think as I try not to be consumed by the wait of this adoption journey. There are moments where I feel suffocated and moments where I feel like I have fallen. It helps to remind myself that this a dance and that the next step will look different. There are moments when I try to let go and let the wind move me....or moments when I need to be held up....moments when I focus on the present and manage to enjoy a glorious step in the beauty that surrounds me....and moments when the missing piece feels like too much. But this life is a dance and a future surrounded by all of my children will come...and I know that there will be triumphant steps and crushing ones in that season of my dance, too.
It is my prayer for you, my friends, that the seasons of your life are filled with more beautiful moments than you can count...and that in the hard ones, you are able to let the wind move you and remember that a new step is only a moment away.