Dancing In The Aisle

Photo courteous of Julie Davis Photography

It was in the middle of a Target aisle.

I was trying clothes on my daughter, in the middle of the store. Yup, I am one of those moms.

It was cute and it fit. It was a dress. I took it off. I wasn't thinking.

When I put it on, I took off her shirt, put on the dress and then took off her jeans. You  know, trying to protect her modesty.

I wasn't thinking.

When I took that dress off, my daughter was left standing in the middle of the aisle with just her big-girl-panties on.

I immediately realized what I had just done and in that same exact moment, so had my daughter.

She loves to be naked!

It is normal to dress my daughter in the morning and a few hours later, to see her with just those big-girl-panties on and pretty shoes.  She always claims to be hot. And, in her defense, she usually is.

But lets call a spade a spade. She also loves not to be dressed. Even though she loves clothes, especially pretty clothes and dresses and dressy shoes. She loves to be naked more.

So that moment when we both realized that she was naked in the middle of Target, I rush to try to get her clothes back on and she takes a few steps away from me and starts . . . dancing.

She also loves to dance. She has some pretty nice rhythm too (especially with me being her mother). She will dance strapped in in her car seat. She dances any time she hears music (its like someone flipped a switch) and a lot of times she dances only to the music playing in her head.

It always brings a smile to my face . . .

. . . But that day in Target, I didn't get embarrassed but the first thought that crossed my mind was, "what do others think of me, letting my daughter dance almost naked in public?"

It didn't matter. It doesn't matter.

My little girl was dancing. She was living in the moment. She was enjoying what was, just like she likes it. Music, a little rhythm and just big-girl-panties.

It made me smile. Smiling to see her so unaware of where she was. So unaware of the others around her. So unaware of what others might think of her. Of the way she looks or doesn't look. Of the way she dances or doesn't dance.

Only aware of the moment and how it moved her. And she didn't resist because of what others might think of her.

When I realized this, it was a bigger moment for me.

There won't be many moments like this for her.

Those moments will soon give way to the moments where she wants to rejoice and enjoy and sing but doesn't because she's too worried of what others may think.

I love that innocence in her. I wish with all that is in me, that it will never leave, but I know that it will.

It will end all too soon.

In a blink.

I want her to enjoy, rejoice and dance the way she feels in her core now, before the world tells her that her way isn't good enough or pretty enough or stylish enough.

I want her to dance when the moment moves her.

And I don't want to be the first one to tell her that it isn't right or she should do it this way or that.

I want to stand far enough away to give her the room she needs but close enough where I can reach out and grab that moment and hold it close.

So, the other day, my daughter was dancing in the middle of a Target aisle with just her big-girl-panties on. Yes, I am one of those moms. And very proud of it.

178. Laughter as the three of us dance in public.

190. Tickles and laughter - those little-girl-giggles I wish I could bottle up.

201. Little girl dancing in the kitchen, while dishes sit in sudsy sink, singing her own song.

232. Little girl dancing . . . always dancing . . . even in the middle of a Target aisle.

Stephanie

NOW

I am an impatient person. It is one of the qualities about myself that I don't particularly care for.

I used to pray for patience. I stopped. I stopped because, well . . . there just became too many circumstances which required my patience. I didn't like it because it requires patience to tolerate the time and energy it takes to develop patience.

While I am doing one thing, my mind is on the next. I am always ten steps ahead of myself. I am not patient enough to just be in the moment.

I am either looking back or looking ahead. I am rarely ever looking at what is in front of me in the present moment.

I have been doing that a lot lately. I am either looking back to what was or I am looking forward to what will be. I don't want to open my eyes to the now. I don't want to be here! I don't want to be in the mist.

It is so very hot in the now. It is so very painful to be present in the now.

I want the healing to be over because the healing hurts. I want this grief process to be done quickly because I don't have the patience for it. I want it over. I want to be better. I don't like the rawness, the still weeping wounds.

I am trying to be grateful for all that I have and all that I have had.

The rawness of the pain has caused me to open the eye to see. I have noticed things that I never did before.

When I am in a moment with my daughter, I see how immersed in the present she is. I am delighted to see that joy in her. She is not thinking about what she was doing earlier, and how that was better or worse. She is not thinking about five minutes from now. She is just in the moment and she is enjoying it!

I try to meet her there. I try to be ever present in that moment with her and for her. I breathe in deep and give a thanks for just that moment because that is all I am able to give thanks for. Just that one singular moment . . . like she is doing. Even if she doesn't consciously give thanks with her mouth, she is giving thanks by being present in the moment and enjoying it. I think that is the best way to give thanks.

In giving thanks for a moment, I have become more in tune to everything. EVERY emotion that penetrates the heart and makes a demand to be noticed. Every emotion! The good, the hard, the ugly, the joy . . . all of it. So much more now then I did before.

By taking notice, I have realized how I cannot be impatient with the now. EVERYTHING is in the now. All of it!

God is the God of I AM! I don't think He dwells on what was, what should have been or what will come.

He is here, NOW! If I want to truly seek Him and find Him, then I need to be in the now.

If I search for His healing ways, for Him to wrap me in His arms of comfort, then I need to be patient enough to be in the now, to wait for Him. Because, that is the only place I will find Him and rest in His healing. His peace. His comfort.

I cannot expect the wounds to stop weeping if I am constantly looking beyond, but never giving them the care they need now. I cannot expect to fully experience the depths of joy, the grace of a moment, if I am constantly looking for what goodness I believe will come.

I need to learn from my daughter and just live in the moment I am living. To be grateful for it and enjoy it. And be thankful for it.

I have to be here. I am expected to be here. This moment, this now, is my now. It is where I am. It is where I breathe and where my blood circulates. I have to  notice it for what it is. The now is what I have, regardless of it being hard and ugly, it is what I have. It is all I have. It is where I have to live. It is where He is and where He offers grace. And where there is God and grace and mercy, there is beauty!




Stephanie

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Happiness is but a circumstance. Joy is something different. Completely.

The stars line-up just right and circumstance is good. Happiness is the emotion had.

The world as once known stops, heart breaks, tears fall and happiness leaves.

Smiles and eyes full of sparkle and delight are expected when happiness is dancing; joy a partner in the dance.

When the pattern of the stars and the planets rearrange themselves and happiness has left, does joy leave too? If happy is a state resulting from circumstance, what is joy? Does joy partner up with sorrow as well?

Can you have one without the other? What causes joy to remain when happy sits one out?

She must of questioned it too. In her book, One Thousands Gifts, she states ". . . As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible."

Always? Even when circumstance is anything but happy?

Always? 


How?

How and why do you give thanks when there is no happy to be found? When circumstance is black?

What do you give thanks for?

Is thanks given because a moment is good, joyous? Or are joyous moments the result of whispered thanks?

The giving of thanks of everything? Even the black? Even the ugly?

Is joy really always possible? Even when you are in a pit staring black all around, is it possible even then? Is it possible to give thanks when despair consumes?

If joy is possible as long as thanks is, then even in those awful moments, you give thanks in order to know joy?

Even then? Even when it's hard? Even when happiness has not only left the dance floor but the party as well?

When we consume pieces we give thanks for the Broken. Whole is what is desired but thanks for the Broken is given because the Broken became Beauty. Do we need to see the end product before thanks can be proclaimed from the heart, pushed past lips and released for all to hear?

Does it, a moment, need to first be spoken as beautiful before it is seen as such? Or is it already a magnificent moment because The Almighty is already in it? Is there meaning in a moment only when it's deemed important by self or are all moments full of meaning because they are God-breathed? God-willed?

To have a meaning, wonderful life, what is required, what is needed to see? To do?

Do the things, the actions that others want of you, for you, is that what is needed for life to have meaning? Are they the things that you want or need for self? Or is it how other's perceive you, your life? Is it their definition that make your days, your life, meaningful? Are these the things, the building blocks, for a meaningful life?

Or are they already Meaningful Moments because they are God-breathed? Because in those moments, in every moment, is God. And God is always good.

And if God is always good, then thanks can always be given. If thanks is given, then can't joy be expected?

Can joy be expected to dance still when the dance floor has given way to a black pit?

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:11-12

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 16:9-11

Stephanie

Consider it Gift

I read these words about two months ago in a book I cannot remember. **

Do you love the gift more than The Giver?

Those are words, food for thought. Words that caused me to stop. To think.

I did not like the question at first because when I really examined self, I did not like the answer.

Yes. Yes I love my girls! More than breath, more than life itself. More than The One who blessed me with them?

Ouch! My answer stings. My response hurts.

Do you love the gift more than The Giver?

After days and weeks spent thinking, mediating, examining . . . No.

It was not an easy No for me. But the hard does not cause me to change my response.

Emmerson and Vivienne are a gift. They are His gifts to me. They are gifts and there was never a guarantee on how long I would physically hold them. The time spent does not take away the fact that they were His gifts to me.

It is up to me now, how I treat, how I react to His gift . . . my girls . . . my God. I will honor Emmerson and Vivienne. I will carry them in my heart until the last bit of air is pushed from the lungs.

Even now, I would not return this ache, this sorrow.

I hear of new mommies who want a full nights sleep, of their hope for the laundry load to be less. I now realize, through loss, how I desire for sleep to be interrupted with the cries of hunger and for my laundry to be dotted with tiny onesies. 

If before, I could have overlooked those things, those moments and chores as blessings, as gifts, then what more am I not seeing? What else does my eye need to fall on and consider it gift? Blessings?

Could my sorrow, my ache, be gift?

This question has caused me to take pause and examine my life.

There is no doubt that my life has been extremely blessed. 

Emmerson and Vivienne were and still are blessings in my life. They have caused me to open my eyes, my heart and to see everything that rains down as good. Blessings rain down. They rain down abundantly.

Blessings that cause me to hit knee and bow low. 

He rains blessings down. How often do we return those blessings with thanks?

How often do we entrust the beauty of what was given to the majesty of The Giver?

...My soul glorifies the Lord...For The Mighty One has done great things for me.

Luke 1:46:49

Stephanie

*I have received a lot of literature and have read a lot of books over the past few months. I have searched everything I have read and cannot find the source for the above question. I love to give credit where credit is due. If you know the one who asked the above question, please leave the name in the comment section that follows this post. The question is not from me.*

Breaking of Whole

Communion is the consuming of that which has been broken and spilled.

I have been broken. But haven't we all?

Where a crack is present, it is more susceptible to break, shatter.

I break when I hear of heartache.

I break when I see one has become broken.

I can not do the mending. It was never intended for me to do.

I break and when I break, the pieces and holes are seen by the One Who Matters. The Mender. Let Him fill them. He can and will make it whole.

When Communion is received, it is drops and pieces that are consumed.

Makes me wonder. Makes me ponder.

Does He still choose to break that which He desires to be made whole?

During the Last Supper, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it. After he broke bread, He told His disciples to take it, that it is His body (Mark 14:22).

He gave thanks and broke the bread, in demonstration of what was to come.

He knew what He was about to endure and yet, He still gave thanks. He knew the reason and purpose for it all.

Later He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray (Mark 14:32) and while praying He asked His Father to take the cup that would soon press His lips (Mark 14:36).

He didn't like the breaking any more than I have. He asked His Father to take it from Him. Even though He gave thanks for it, the cup, He still asked for it to be removed. Could He have been more human in that moment?

He was able to foreknow that which was going to be broken. Him! He was still able to give thanks! He gave thanks for the breaking and the spilling, knowing greater glory would reap.

The glory causes me to think of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? (John 11:40)

If we believe, we will see glory. We were not promised that we would never see broken pieces, experience brokenness.

When Jesus told Mary and Martha that they would see, experience glory if they believed, did He know that He Himself would be the way of belief of True Glory?

Jesus had to endure breaking for that which was already broken. Crimson red spilled for the bitter tears that fall when something breaks.

God chose the breaking to be the vehicle for the fixing. Fixing, mending, filling in the holes of which was initially intended to always be whole.

Communion is a time to be spent reflecting on the blood that was spilled and the blood that covers. Do we realize that what is consumed is what was Broken for the broken? We consume fragments to mend whole?

Makes me wonder, makes me ponder.

Does God still choose to break that which He desires to be made whole?

Stephanie