BE BRAVE

God teaches me so many life lessons through my dancing…maybe that’s why I like to tap them out here…so they are etched in my soul…so I remember…and maybe so they might encourage you along in your journey…whether you are dancing or not…

In my dancing, I have always strived for perfection. It probably came from my gymnastics background…I love clear, clean, pure ballet technique. As I trained professionally as a dancer, I was always reaching for perfection…I wanted the shape of my foot to point just perfectly…I wanted the lines of my arabesque to be just right…I wanted my stage presence, my musicality, and my technique…to be on…all together….just right…all the time. In a lot of ways…this was a good thing…because it made me want to work hard, to push myself farther, and to carry out the best performance I could possibly give. But in a way, I realize, it also caused me to dance in a perfect little box sometimes….small, boxed in, fearful of making a mistake, and maybe some of my dancing was prone to lose some of its luster in my quest for perfection.

In rehearsal last week, as I was right in the middle of a somewhat tricky step…where I take my partner’s hand, step blindly backwards, throw my body forward into ponche, (basically arabesque with a nose dive) :) and let my partner swing my arm and body around…the goal to set me back upright on my pointe shoes in fourth position…my director lovingly rose his voice over the music from the front of the room…”BE BRAVE!”….

and in that moment…it was like something or Someone or he…gave me permission…to let go of perfect, and to start being brave. And I thought, how sweet that he invited me to be brave…to let go of perfect technique, to let go of my doubts about my dancing, to not be afraid to show my weaknesses, to dance freely without the quest for perfect hanging over my mind…I know I shouldn’t need permission to be brave…but oh how I forget sometimes because I am so focused on perfection. And as I’ve let that sink in over the week, I realize that letting go of perfect is the pathway to being brave. And it takes everything in me to let go of thinking about keeping my lines perfect, keeping my feet perfectly pointed, and keeping my legs perfectly straight…and to just dive fully into BRAVE…

but something happens in my dancing when I let go of perfect and dive into BRAVE…

big, beautiful, from the heart dancing. (and it’s more fun!)

When I let go of perfect and let my soul tune into the music and my heart tune into the pleasure of dancing…beauty happens.

And I think, okay, what if I let go of perfect in my parenting? What if I let go of perfect in my homemaking? What if I let go of perfect in my writing? What if I let go of perfect in my life…

and dove into brave, understanding that my confidence lies in my Maker. What if I let go of perfect, and believed that He sees me as beautiful and strong and lovely? And that maybe He invites me to let go of perfect, so that I can be free to be the gal He made me to be.

Where in your life are you striving for perfection? Could that strive for perfection be holding you back from dancing through life with joy, with abandon, and with God’s peace? What would it look like for you to step blindly forward into diving into BRAVE? What would it look like to live with a confidence so strong…a confidence that comes from your Maker?

Next time I go back to rehearsal…I will “be brave” instead of perfect. The freedom to dance bravely instead of perfectly makes my heart giddy. Thank You, God…for calling our hearts to faith, to brave, to joy…not perfection.