Let's dance

"Daddy, let's dance." Ethan calls from the living room to me as I stand kicking my shoes off into the closet. In background Madonna's "Holiday" plays in the background. While I'm not a Madonna guy, some of early stuff is still pretty good. Anyway, I see Ethan dancing by himself on the carpet moving his body in circles, one hand in the air, not quite to the beat of the music. But, he's feeling the music. He recognized that music pulls movement out of us if we let it.

"Daddy, let's dance." he says again.

I oblige. We take hands and dance in the middle of the living room floor to the music. We move our arms. We go in circles. Daddy gets dizzy. Ethan laughs. There is a beauty to simply moving randomly in a space. We weren't on the beat. Our dancing wasn't anything to look at. We definately wouldn't win a dance contest, and believe me, I'd never enter one. But, what I learned tonight was the freedom and the lack of self-conciousness a 3 year old possess (I'm rounding his age up). He is simply him and invites me to have fun with him. Ah, the lessons children teach.

This week I've been praying a simple prayer all week from my devotional book. Part of the prayer reads, "Help us that we may serve you with the cheerfulness and gladness of children, delighting ourselves in you and rejoicing in all that is to the honor of your name..." I think God answered my prayer tonight teaching me that there are times in life to simply dance, to move freely with little regard to the opinions of others; to move freely to the rhythms of life all around us. Can I be awake and listen enough to hear the beats of life? Or am I asleep, bored, or taking life WAY too seriously. After all, life's too serious to take seriously.

And yes, I prayed "us." I included all the people on my prayer list in the "us." People like my family, my close friends, former friends and classmates from HL, people at ASLC, etc...

I hope God answers the prayer in your life as he did in mine.

"May I have this dance?" God