Dance Dance

I love Grey’s Anatomy. On the show there are two characters, Meredith (Mer) and Christina (Yang). They are called the dark and twisty sisters because of their mood swings and emotional issues. Anyways, they have this thing where when its difficult to talk or express how they feel or when they didn’t want to deal with reality, they would have a 30-second dance party, music or no music. I thought it was adorable and made for tv. I mean, who dances for 30 seconds…. without music??

My perspective changed this morning when I woke up not feeling totally with it. I was ruminating over unnecessary emotions that left me more icky than yippee. So, I decided to give this 30 second dance party a try. I YouTubed Making My Dreams by Hail and Oates from 500 Days of Summer and I rocked out.

It was liberating. Whatever I was feeling, the icky, tired, uninterested feeling totally left my body. I felt super cheesy and über corny. I probably looked offbeat and crazy, but I was more myself than when I first got up. And, maybe I’m just a super cheesy and über corny girl who dances offbeat with super crazy moves, regardless, my head was clear and I was able to reconnect with me.

You may chuckle at this, it is pretty funny, but there is something to a 30 second dance party. Maybe Mer and Yang did it as a defensive mechanism to avoid expressing how they really felt. I see it as a chance to pause and reconnect. Dancing around for 30 seconds (for me it was more like 5 minutes) allows not just your body, but your mind to become active and aware. Your attention is drawn away from the icky feeling that isn’t really you and totally invested in this short moment of freedom and bliss. It gives you a chance to reconnect with you.

Now it’s your turn. I challenge you to try it. For some, this is really random, weird, and seemingly risky and probably stupid. This may not be your element. Still, I encourage you, just once, to dance it out. Cant knock it, til you try it riiiiiiiighhht? So, when you feel yourself becoming super distracted, feeling icky, stressed, or just sad, throw on an upbeat song or think of an upbeat tune and rock out for at least 30 seconds. Put your mind on pause, tell your heart to rest, and just lose yourself in the music and in the moves. Allow yourself to be free even if it looks weird. You deserve to be free and you deserve to be you. So how bout it?

Til next time,

D

Let’s be Honest

When people ask me what’s something I value in another person, honesty is in the top three. There’s something about a person who is honest. This goes beyond them being open with me, it’s their ability to see me and call me out when I’m going left field. A person who loves me way too much to leave me where I am is a real blessing. As this is a huge value for me in another person, I’m learning I need to be this too and it starts at home…aka with myself.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve entered a new process. God decided it’s time to do some rerouting on the inner man. When He brought it to my attention, my mind was all like “oh yeah, let’s do this. I’m gonna be a better person because of this. It’s gonna be awesome”…my heart was all like “sad face. I don’t wanna. Really, again? Boooooo.” (<—Seriously my heart did all that).

Let me be honest, dealing with my own issues whether it be big or small, SUCKS, especially when I feel I’ve already crossed that river. I remember the day God showed me the issues I was still tripping over. My heart dropped when I realized and admitted these areas need work. One area God shined the light on was insecurity. What was shown to me was that I had been placing my security in ALL the wrong places. So when those areas fell through or didn’t go how I wanted, I felt lost or without. I became discouraged. I could see myself going to a not so great place. I felt insecure. The day this was shown to me my mind went, “well okay Jesus, let’s deal with this. NOW. I don’t wanna be insecure. Show me Your security.” Awesome. While I was having this beautiful encounter, my heart was totally off wandering along the coast of some faraway land wanting nothing to do with this process. You see, after I prayed, asking Him to show me His security, He stripped me of the things I put my security in.

Shocker. No really, when things started shifting, I was in shock. He was pulling me away, drawing me closer to Him and it was swift. At the time, I couldn’t see it or i didn’t want to see it that way and my heart hurt. The more He removed the things, my eyes slowly opened and I began to see how my source of security was not in Him.

How did I know my heart wasn’t in it? I was honest with myself. It took a lot, but I remember the night I was journaling and I was telling myself how dealing with this issue was great, necessary, it would be hard but I’ll overcome, and God asked me, “but how do you REALLY feel?” Boy did my heart start talking. I allowed myself to be totally vulnerable with Him. I let Him know it sucked and I felt more insecure now than ever before in life. I was sad. This wasn’t fair. My heart went IN. Within that same breath, as I allowed myself to be HONEST with God, peace flooded my being. The mask I was wearing in His presence melted away. He allowed me to see me for me and let Him see it. Even though He knew, He wanted me to tell Him, to show Him what my heart was feeling.

What’s my point? As I’ve become honest with myself, I’ve become honest with God. The more I’ve become honest with God, the more I’ve become honest with those around me. It all works together. Once I’ve allowed myself to be honest with God, I wait for Him to respond. He always responds and it is in the most tender, loving way possible. It’s like He picks me up and cradles me in His arms. He whispers in my ear the opposite of what I’ve expressed. If I’m sad, He release joy over me. He reminds me of His promises, of His word. He begins to fill that empty spot with Him. He LOVES on my weak spots.

Have I arrived? Goodness no. Am I where I was 3-4 weeks ago? Absolutely not. It’s a process. If I want an honest relationship of any kind, I first need to be honest with myself. I need to be honest in my relationship with God. For me, that’s where it all starts. Now, I challenge you to ask yourself, how honest have you been with yourself/heart lately? Listen good and allow yourself to be real with you, it’s the only way you can be genuinely real with others.

Til next time,

D

Dreaming With God

Dreams are amazing, because they are birthed from the deep passions and stirrings of our hearts. Dreams bring about change, revolution, and inspiration. Dreams are powerful. It is through dreams that cultural shifts can happen and societal concepts can be challenged. Look at history, it is OOZING with men and women who had dreams and never stopped pursuing them. They chased after their dreams until something happened. They died for their dreams.

This is on my heart because, one day, Chris Overstreet, one of the pastors at Bethel, spoke and he opened by encouraging us to dream with God. I paused for a moment because I realized I’d NEVER done that. I sensed God pricking my heart and He tells me, “tell me what you want to do, how you want to do it then watch me exceed that”.

Mind. Blown.

God is a God of dreams. He loves them and He puts them in our heart. He gives us dreams not to play games with us, but to bring it to pass beyond our expectations. God reminded me of that recently. Today, many students at BSSM discovered their missions trip for the Spring. Some did not get any of the trips they wanted. You’d think, “well, humph….They had the wrong dream” or “God doesn’t fulfill dreams” or something like that. He showed me that’s not the case. He revealed that He requires us to dream big, like really huge and sometimes He will deny us what we think is the big dream so we can dream bigger than that. He has our heart’s desires in His hand. He breathes over them and knows how much we want them. He also knows the best way to have them come true. When dreaming with God, it requires you to risk and to sacrifice. Honestly dreaming period requires risk and sacrifice.

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about dreams within a dream. God is ALL about dreams within a dream. You know how in Inception, they would enter through four or five people’s dreams to get a job done. God is saying He works like that too. Instead of thinking of one big dream, He wants us to dream in layers. He may present you with baby dreams that all work towards the dream bigger than you could ever imagine, the dream of your life, your call, your destiny, your legacy and impact.

Guys, I’m a LIVING witness that dreams come true. When I was about 14 or 15, attending a Christian private school in Maryland, I sat in a Chapel service watching various video clips and listening to various students and faculty share their experiences on missions trips the school supported. They showed a clip for South Africa and I FELL in love. I knew I HAD to make my way to South Africa. SEVEN years later, God calls me across the country, I move to California, and have the opportunity to fulfill a dream. I find out within my first weeks at BSSM that there was a missions trips to South Africa, an amazing opportunity to share the heart of the Father and to love on the people. Today at 12:03 am (3:03 am for the East Coast) I got accepted into the South Africa Missions trip. I’m in awe. I’m shocked and amazed. Today, a seven year old dream is coming true. This is ONLY proof to me that all I’ve dreamed and I’m dreaming will happen, because God is that faithful. He is that real and that in love with me. Timing is everything. I’m so excited and I’m stoked for you who is reading this. My heart burns to see dreams fulfilled. Be encouraged. Keep dreaming. Pick up an old dream you’ve set aside because it seemed impossible. Dream new dreams. Don’t stop dreaming because you aren’t seeing immediate results, there is beauty in the pursuit. Keep going and watch your mind be blown away. Know what you are dreaming and relentlessly pursue it. Be willing to die for it. If you have a dream, you should be willing to lay it ALL down to see it happen because you know that the dream you have goes BEYOND you.

Til next time,

D