Encouragement for My Dance

This was not the blog I had started writing earlier today but it is the RIGHT blog. This e-mail came from Michèle---my friend from Germany, who is a year ahead of me in her microcystic adnexal carcinoma journey. She calls it her McJourney and she is the one who understands so well all that I go through because she has been where I am. She continues to encourage me and to be accepting of my humanity while she reminds me of the One who loves me---and as I had written earlier today, "in my weakness, He is strong." My journal jotting read, " a juxtaposition of my frailty and God's strength." As you read, may you be encouraged by her as I was.

Dotsy, I just read your blog. And about two hours ago, I finished writing a blog of my own that somewhat parallels yours. Mine is about the year-end emotional roller coaster of BFA, not necessarily about the emotional turmoil following the trauma of your last months, but the conclusions I write about work for both situations. Correction: the conclusions work for all situations, because they allow for human weakness and post-roller coaster emotional exhaustion and they point us toward the one immovable point in the constantly swirling "dance" of life.

It's a bit like ballet dancers who have to "spot" as they turn pirouettes. They keep their eye on one spot on the edges of the room and, while their body turns, keep their eyes anchored there, whipping their heads around only to reclaim that spot as their immovable point. The same is true for what we've been through. In a sense, we're locked in an emotional pirouette we can't control and we mostly manage to keep our eyes on that fixed point. But sometimes, during that fraction of time when we have to whip our heads around to keep up with our bodies, we lose sight of it. We flounder a little. We doubt a little. We wish a little that it were not so hard, not so long, not so wearying. We tap into the very real human side that God loves so much in us. And He says, "Look over here--turn your eyes back to the spot that has stabilized your world before. I can do it again. Turn your eyes back to me." And we do--as you will soon, I know. But I also know that there will come more spins, more losses of eye-contact, and even in those circumstances all we'll need to do is trust and wait for our revolving journeys to turn us around to that heart-position where we can claim His peace and confidence again. Please don't be too hard on yourself during these more fragile times. They're what remind us of our frailty so we can cling more firmly to His strength!

I'm praying for you right now, on the gorgeous evening in the foothills of the Black Forest. The valley outside my windows is cast in the day's final golden rays. It's my favorite time of day--my students and I call it "The Goldening." I'm praying for serenity and endurance.

Michèle