Monday, November 19, 2007

Learning to dance again...


Recently my best friend gave me a journal and wrote "...you have always embraced life and lived it to the fullest- keep embracing it! Keep dancing!". The past few weeks I have forgotten what is to embrace and what is to dance. I've never had to stop and figure out life...yes, a few rough bumps, but never rendered totally speechless. Never this depth of silence from God, never free falling into a pain so deep that I'm still not sure I've touched the bottom. More than anything I want to go back. Back to "before". Death marks. It causes people to "tip toe" away, allow "space", meet the practical, but run from the pain emanating from those left behind. It is a matter of respect...a chamber that only the grieving can enter. It consumes...it takes you to a place of darkness you never knew existed. It seduces those left behind. The conversations unspoken, the embraces now empty, the phone that no longer rings, the void in family gatherings and photos. Losing mom stopped my dance mid-step.

God and I were doing all right. He was leading and I was following. The trip that I returned from a little over 3 months ago changed my frame of reference. I could see and hear Him so clearly...I had experienced His love for our team and His love for the nations. Less than a month later my frame of reference changed...He was now my Shepherd as I walked through the valley of death. I arrived on the other side of the valley only to realize that I was standing at the foot of the mountain of loss. As I stare up at the mountain I feel like I am in the middle of the dance floor...so many songs swirling, dancers each with their own routine and the steps that were once second nature I have no confidence to take. Trusting God, serving, simple conversations, being real, finding the right words at the right time, cultivating relationships, celebrating and finding joy in the midst of pain. The silence of God is so scary...yet I realize in that silence He has spoken to the darkest corner of my heart. He understands the loss of separation...He understands a pain so deep there are no words. When my pain hurt the most He knew the response was to just sit in silence with me. Yesterday I woke up and could feel His presence...not because I've read the right verse or prayed the right prayer...He was just undeniably there. I needed that. I needed the weeks of silence so I could be overwhelmed by the sweetness of Him. Last night during worship He asked me to dance again..."Never Let Go" by Matthew Redman...a few steps of the sweet worship I experienced "before".

Learning to dance will take time. He is teaching me that is okay. I will still have seasons of silence. The healing process is just beginning. Yet in those times I know He is there...and I know that He is choreographing a depth and beauty only realized through pain.

Lamentations 3: 25-26 "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that He waits silently for the salvation of the Lord."