The Dance

 "I'm overwhelmed.

My biggest downfall is my brightest blessing,

I feel too much,

all the time.

Ya God,

if it's keep my heart soft,

break my heart every day."

--Author Unknown

Every once and awhile I enjoy the freedom of being me.  I want to be careful not to sound like life is

a constant struggle of being unable to appreciate who God created me to be.  But to enjoy the freedom of

who I am seems another level for me.  Especially when it comes to the crazy world of emotions.  

As the above quote says, "I feel too much, all the time...".  Oh yes!!!  This is me, and although there is a gift in being so fully aware emotionally,  there is also this crushing weight which overwhelms me.  Very little escapes my eyes.  I don't even need to talk with you to know if you are hurting.  If you wear your emotions on your sleeve I only need see you out of the corner of my eye and feel the pain spill all over me.  All of my conversations contain an energy of focus that tires me.  And it's not even a matter of consciously seeking to be attentive; it's just there.  It's like breathing; it's so much a part of who I am.  I can never just walk away and leave you and your pain.  I am left with the residue of heartache or difficulty you have shared with me.  

That God in His wisdom gifted me with gifts of mercy and encouragement and helps is doubtfully not an accident.  But really now...  I wonder if He somehow got distracted when He knit me together in my mother's womb and overdosed on the feeling part!!  

And so I live this cycle of strength and weakness it seems.  I spend too much time with the hurting

and I myself start hurting.  So I pull back and rest until I'm ready to reach out again. And round the cycle goes.  

But I've never like this word "cycle".  I hear a negative connotation when I refer to it as such.  

I'm wondering if it isn't more like a dance.

There's a beauty to this dance of mine.  I come to the dance floor with God and I move with His grace into the dance with you.  I ease into step with you whose feet are tired and aching and together we move through the moments.  Eventually, the dance slows and we part.  By now, I too walk with weary feet.  And I need to sit out the next dance or two til He strengthens me again.  And I'm starting to think that this is ok.  This is who I am.  Yes, there is a broken way of living in me, I know this all too well. " God knows my frame; He knows what I am made of." (Psalm 103:14)  This too is freeing.  

To dance with all of who I am is a joy for me. I love to give myself to you.  And yet to sit out a dance or two should not be failure, but rather a necessary and beautiful time of renewal.  No one can dance forever, and though I may need more rest than another, does not place me as "less than".  Instead it highlights my Creator who made each of us unique.

Today I'm sitting out the dance.