One Saturday afternoon my Mom came home from Walmart with a pair of pink clothe ballet slippers. I was 2 at the time and soooo excited about these shoes. This meant that as I watched Barbie And The Nutcracker for the billionth time I could dance along with her instead of just watching. Big stuff. My parents soon enrolled me in dance classes at the local recration center and I did my first recital there. The final dance being one I can still do to this day.
Soon following that recital I decided to quit. I don’t remember why but I remember crying a lot begging to go home.
A few years later at age 6 I was in the Kim Possible phase. I wanted to be her. She was the coolest. So when my mom found out there was a cheer team at the gym my sister went to I was signed up pretty quickly. I spent the next 5 years cheering my heart out and loving it. Mostly the choreography and dance portion as I picked that up naturally. I fell so in love with performing.
But I also decided to quit that with a lot of tears involved.
At 13 years old I decided that I wanted to start dance lessons. I also decided that 6 months from starting these lessons that I’d be auditioning for the dance program at a high school in my city. I mean I’d always been told I was a natural but looking back it was a little bit extreme.
My first actual ballet class was on audition day in a new pair of pink clothe ballet slippers. As life would have it I got in. I spent the next 4 years of my life pushing through classes I felt very illequipped to be in. I had far less experience than all the others in my class and having already struggled a lot with body shame and fear of judgement, I struggled a lot more.
I was always told by my teachers that dance was to be an expression of your soul. A reflection of who you are. But I just felt the weight of pressure to become good enough. I put all my focus on getting the moves right and getting strong enough to add another pirouette to my count. It was never about expression for me it was about proving myself. I was told I was never going to be good enough so I just kept pushing for it. I enjoyed the exercise and how it felt to be on stage and nail a routine, but that was about it. The joy of dance had dissappeared.
16 year old Liz got a new pair of pink ballet slippers that year. Expect these were silk and had wooden blocks in the toe. I tried my turn at pointe and was actually pretty good. Messed up my knees in the process but oh well. Honest confession, once I got the hang of it I rewatched Barbie And The Nutcracker and danced along in my pointe shoes very proud that I could actually do most of it.
After I graduated I had decided that dance was to be a thing of my past. Since I had decided I really wasn’t that good anyway and it just caused a lot of strdss it wasn’t worth the effort to pursue. Being on the World Race has made that anything but true. It has become my favourite form of worship and I dance quite often. It’s my release and my expression. I’ll never forget the night I danced with Jesus under the stars on a rooftop overlooking the ruins of strip clubs a little ways away in Siem Reap Cambodia. That was the night I discovered how much Jesus loves it when I dance.
I felt a connection with Him I hadn’t had before as I realized that He had made me a dancer. It wasn’t just a fluke. He wanted me to dance and not just for routine but for expression and for the love of movement. You’ll often find me now in open areas blasting worship music dancing my heart out. And I know it’s been too long between these dance sessions when I become very irritable. It’s my release. My soecial place with Jesus. He loves it when I dance for Him and I know because He’s told me so himself. He made every part of me especially for His enjoyment and glory.
He has given me visions of the little pink ballet slippers that I’ll teach one day. None of this had been part of my plan but then again what do I know. I only tried to quit 3 times before I figured out I was meant to stick with it. I’ll just have to keep dancing along and let Him take the lead.
