Dancing

You dance over me while I am unaware

You sing all around but I never hear the sound

Lord I'm amazed by You
how You love me

You paint the morning sky with miracles in mind
My hope will always stand, for You hold me in Your hand

How deep, how wide, how great is Your love for me
~ Amazed, Jared Anderson/Desperation

When Pharaoh's horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them:
"Sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea."
~ Exodus 15:19-21

The day before I left to receive my scan dose of radioactive I-131, I read the girls the story of David defeating Goliath. At the end of the story, all the maidens of Israel ran out into the streets, with tambourines, to dance and praise God for David's victory, and danced through the troops of young men returning from battle. Being very like my eldest, Katrina, I found this image rather disturbing and decidedly "un-Christian" to imagine. But as I watched the raptured awe develop in Rosalie and Amelia's eyes, I prayed that God would light a spirit of dancing in all of us. That we would be a family of women who dance for His victories. And what an immediate and unequivocal answer He gave to that prayer! Never before has His love swayed me so in an almost physical sense. I feel as though I have been loosed from a lifetime of boundaries and fear, all in one fell swoop. I pray the dancing spirit that has taken hold of me in the past 48 hours will be mine forever, that I will be a dancing Mama to these dancing girls He gave me.

*Thank you, Grandma Debra, for the beautiful photos of my little Degas dancers!