Lord of the Dance

Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he

This is a busy week. In some ways that makes it better, in some worse. Between today at 11 am and tomorrow at 11 am, Sophia will have been through 3 different tests, gotten plenty of contrast and been sedated once. She has her end of treatment evaluation scans. We get results next Tuesday when our Oncologist (I was say that - Dr. Jodi is really HER oncologist) is back in town and we can get all the details from this week and going forward.

I was fine, like I posted on Facebook, until last night. My mind started to play tricks on me, as I thought her eye looked swollen and droopy...a hint of what came upon her right before she was diagnosed. It wasn't, it was the light. Or maybe it is what drug users call a flashback - whatever it was, it was all in my head.

It doesn't look any different than it has since late October when the steroids took care of the swelling (well, minus those wicked looking radiation burns in February). I was being paranoid.

Thankfully, The Lord has given me a friend who knows exactly what I'm going through. She happened to send me Deuteronomy 31:8; which was the fourth time in a week that I'd seen/heard that verse. It occurred to me then The Lord had been preparing me all along to face my anxiety.

There is a lot about this Christian life that is difficult, confusing. Jesus has many lessons, many hard teachings. This is not a faith you take on blindly. He wants your heart, soul AND mind. There is nothing He doesn't want from us and He expects nothing less than our whole selves, given over to Him and His Purposes.

But in that hardness is His soft, cushion-ey goodness. That is where we see the Kingdom. It's in the children that play soccer in the streets of a ruined Port-au-Prince. It's in the songs of praise rising from the prison walls of Asia and the Middle East. It's in the simple poem of a 5 year old who is convinced she is done with cancer.

I believe He doesn't want us to just wait till Heaven to get a taste of it. In every single circumstance. He wants us to dance, all the time. Even on weeks when your daughter's life hangs in the balance. He dances, even on the Cross He danced. It just didn't look like it at the time.

How can I not have hope then? After all He has done for me and my family, how can I not skip and shimmy a little? He is my Lord, the Lord of the Dance. He is leading me, wherever we may be. He will never leave me or forsake me. Indeed, He goes before me and will be with me.

Dance with us this week. And whatever comes next Tuesday, whatever results we get; whatever the future holds....I know He will give us more than enough reason to dance.