What does Dancing in my Storm look Like?

Posted on October 18, 2015 by RoseAnn

In becoming aware of, that deep longing inside of me to dance in the storm, I had and still have a lot of questions. How do you dance in the storm? What does it look like to dance? What does it mean to dance when I don’t even feel like dancing? And isn’t dancing somehow wicked or at least worldly? Not something a really good Christian would do.

So I went to the dictionary and it says dancing is: to leap, skip, etc as from excitement or emotion: move nimbly or quickly. A picture that comes to my mind is: a sweet innocent young girl freely twirling and lifting her arms in openness and freedom.

But too often I don’t see myself as that. I see or feel instead heaviness, sadness even pain. I can’t lift my arms in openness. Instead I sit in the mud puddle huddled tight, closed in. Wishing, longing to be free, to be able to dance. But not being able to.

So when feeling like that, how do I dance in life’s storms? There are a couple things that I became aware of or maybe finally understood better and that has helped me to be able to dance in my storm. So will you see me skipping and leaping about? Hardly, my injuries in our accident have prevented that. For me, it is more about what my heart feels, what I believe about God, Jesus and myself. It is being willing to be honest, to ask questions and look for answers, yet not demand answers. It is about worship.

One of the most important pieces in this journey for me was the realization that Jesus died to heal my pain and to forgive my sins. I knew for years that Jesus died to forgive my sins and save me from hell. But I don’t ever remember hearing that He died for my healing. Isaiah 53:4 says Jesus bore our griefs, sickness, weakness and distress and carried our sorrows and pain. Verse 5 says He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our guilt and iniquities. The picture I was given was that Jesus spread His one arm out to heal my pain and the other arm to forgive my sins.

I find it interesting to notice that God put about healing our pain before forgiving our sins. Could it be that I can’t really grasp what it means to have my sins forgiven if my heart is full of pain? I think so- – I stood at revival meetings as a young teen hoping to get rid of the awful feeling I had inside of me. I prayed the usual sinner’s prayer, “I’m sorry I sinned, please forgive me and take away my sin.” And it helped for a couple of days but it didn’t take long for that churning, swirling feeling to come back, the wondering what is my life really about? Who am I? Why am I even here on this earth?

I hadn’t asked Jesus to heal my hurting heart. I don’t think I even knew my heart was hurting. I had no words for what I was feeling and even if I had, I think I would have denied it. By then I had been experienced some deep, painful wounds and had learned to deny my feelings. It was too scary to be open. I don’t think I even trusted Jesus or God. I didn’t have a true picture of who He really is. And that is something I’d like to explore in another post. But I remember the feeling that washed over me when I understood that Jesus died to heal me. I was shocked, stunned. Jesus really died to heal this broken, hurting heart. And yet because of what I thought about Jesus, I wasn’t too sure I wanted Him quite that close. It felt too risky, too intimate. I wasn’t sure it would be safe to invite Him in. But I am so grateful God kept pursuing me, kept trying to show me who He really is. That He kept drawing my heart to His, wanting me to learn to dance in the storm.

I invite you to allow Jesus to heal your pain and I realize that might feel like a scary, unsafe thing to do, especially if your picture of Jesus is similar to how I saw Him. So maybe, if you can just be willing, to think about inviting Jesus to heal your hurting heart.

Pondering

Posted on October 7, 2015 by RoseAnn

I found out something rather interesting the other day. Due to the severity of my brain injury, I should have been put into a medically induced coma for some time after our accident, but because of the other massive injuries my body suffered they couldn’t. The doctors said my body needed to feel the pain (of the other 20 injuries) to be able to heal. Think about that! My body needed to feel pain in order to heal. Totally amazing, I think.

I know- I know we resist pain. We don’t like pain. We don’t want to experience pain, but could it be- – pain is good? Beneficial? Could it be pain is trying to tell us something?

If God made our physical bodies that way, could it also be that for us to be emotionally and spiritually healthy, we need to allow ourselves to feel pain in order to heal? I’ve been reading and learning a lot. God has made us three part beings. And those three parts work together quite a bit. Meaning when one part of us is not well it affects the other two parts of us as well.

What does it look like to feel emotional pain? Spiritual pain? I have come to believe that our emotional and spiritual health run on the same track, similar to joy and pain. It has been said we will only experience joy to the same level we allow ourselves to feel pain. And in the same way we can only be as spiritually strong as we are emotionally healthy. So what does it look like to allow myself to feel pain emotionally? Spiritually? One thing I’ve learned is that I have to admit I suffer loss, lots of them. We live in a broken world. It was not the way God really wanted us to live. I have to be willing to honestly look at myself, my heart.

We were created with longings, to dream dreams but sometimes life shatters those dreams. What am I going to do when my dreams shatter? Grin and bear it? Or become a tough girl? Or am I going to pick up those pieces of shattered dreams and feel the sharp edges and allow it to penetrate my heart? Allow it to cut my soul? Am I going to allow myself to mourn, to grieve those shattered dreams? Am I going to admit that my dreams shattered? If I never allow myself to have dreams, they can’t shatter. And just as shattered glass can cut your skin as you clean it up, causing pain and bleeding so do shattered dreams.

And my experience has been that not grieving, not mourning is a lot more painful, a lot worse than being honest with God and yourself. Not allowing yourself to feel the pain, the anger, the disappointment, not grieving well the shattered dreams I experience leads to depression. I know; I’ve been there.

And spiritual pain? I have to come to the realization there is not one. single. thing. I can do to fix what’s wrong between God and me. No amount of rules I obey, no amount of good things I do, nothing I do can make me good enough. Jesus has done it for me on the cross; all I can do is accept His gift. And allow my heart to feel the awesomeness, the magnitude of that gift. A. W. Tozer says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” And I’ve been thinking a lot about that. And I’ve decide it’s the most important thing because I will act out of what I believe about God, who or what I think or perceive God to be.

The truth is I’m still healing physically. When I stop and think about where I was March 31, 2014, more dead than alive, (as my dear children say) and where I was a year ago. I was finishing up therapy and just started driving again, (on the back country roads), so truly, really I have come a long way. It’s just I wanted life to be back to “normal” sooner than it is, yeah, impatient, I know. As I told one friend I’m hanging onto the hope that I will some day feel better than I do now at times. I’m trying to obey my daughter who tells me to be kind to myself but I admit it feels so wrong- – it seems we’ve traded places; she does a majority of the work around the house now. It feels so unfair, she had surgery too and yet she feels so much better than I do a lot of the time. Granted she wasn’t beat up quite like I was. But it is one of my shattered dreams; I was not going to have my girls doing most of the housework, like I did, with my mother’s sickness and death. Yes, I was going to teach them how to do all the stuff she does, I just wanted her to be the helper. Not the one doing most of the work. So what do I do with this shattered dream? How do I see God through this shattered dream? I do grieve the loss of my ability to work like I used to, some days I cry, sometimes I journal, which are correct response, some days I’m a grump and think how much better I could have done it, had I still been me, which is a sinful response and sometimes I just have a deep, deep longing for heaven. And on my journey I have come to believe, to see God as my perfect Father that He loves me passionately and deeply cares for me. And He wants to be there holding me in this storm if I am willing to allow myself to just be held, to be quiet and rest in Him and not try to be strong and keep it together myself.

I invite you to be aware of your shattered dreams and to allow our Father to hold you as you grieve those shattered dreams.

In my next post, I would like to start exploring how I learned to dance in the storm.

18 Months……..

Posted on October 2, 2015 by RoseAnn

18 long months…..

Of missing Jennie’s cheerful smile
Of not hearing her girlish giggle
Of not watching her learning to cook
Of not listening to her singing
Of not getting to see her enjoy her school lessons
Of not giving her or receiving from her hugs and kisses
Of being in pain
Of wondering how far will Jana be able to progress physically
Of being realizing time and again of how catastrophically our lives were changed that icy night
Of seeing my children grieving and hurting
Of learning to know a new me
Of learning to know a different husband
Of learning to know who my children are becoming
Of understanding grief is not a neat and tidy thing, not a once and done thing either
Of crying, some days just teary eyes, other days gut wrenching sobs
Of learning how wonderful and awesome our bodies are made
Of learning to know God more intimately
Of realizing that its ok if I don’t understand everything, God has my best interest on His heart
Of realizing that a lot of people do care but just don’t know what to say or how to show they care
Of wondering how will I survive this
Of realizing the adventure we are on has lots of good pieces in it as well as some very sad and painful parts

The Story Behind the Name

Posted on October 1, 2015 by RoseAnn

Years ago I read this quote on a church sign, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain.” It struck a chord in my heart. I think, because I was longing to dance but didn’t have a clue as to what that looked like. And the storm seemed pretty awful then, the rain was pouring down and the wind whipping away my ability to think- – to even see God through the storm.

It has been quite a few years since I first read that quote and in some ways feels it feels like the storm has reached hurricane strength and yet in all honesty it doesn’t feel quite as awful as it did years ago. And I believe it is because not only have I learned to dance in the storm but my Father, My God is right there dancing with me.

So I invite you to journey through the storms in your life. And my heart’s desire is that you too will become aware of your Father God holding you as you learn to dance in your storm.

Choosing to Dance in the Storm

My thoughts on learning to dance in life's storms

Monthly Archives: October 2015

What does Dancing in my Storm look Like?

Pondering

18 Months……..

The Story Behind the Name