When a song hits you so deeply that you just melt to your knees in tears. I have this...thing with dancing you see. To me it’s the most romantic thing two people in love can do together. Back before I had met the boy I would eventually want to marry, I always thought so. All the princesses would twirl & dance with their princes & it was "happily ever after". There's just always been something so magical about it & I wanted to one day dance like that. I did.
Back in high school I got involved in theater. I loved that it gave me the opportunity to learn how to waltz. During my first production at a local theater -"Here's Love, The Miracle 34th Street Musical" to be exact-, I met a boy who I developed a crush on, but nothing serious haha. We would dance on the stage & sometimes backstage during breaks. It was definitely comical & not at all romantic, but I was 14 and thought it was just the fanciest thing ever haha. Fast forward a couple of years and a little into the early stages of my first & only relationship. It was awkward between the two of us awkward kids who were deep down hopeless romantics, but too shy or terrified to show we both liked each other (home schoolers haha). I had been in several musicals with him, always hoping somehow we'd end up paired together for a dance number. Our first show together we got paired together as a 'married couple' for the number NYC in the musical Annie. When we both got cast in Meet Me In St Louis at the same theater, my heart thumped like a heard of elephants in a stampede. I might get the opportunity to DANCE with him. However, after the first choreography rehearsals for the pair dances, my guy friend who was in the show, stepped in and became my partner. Haha. Fast forward to when we began to actually have conversations & established the fact that we had a mutual infatuation with one another. It was one romantic winter weathered evening after my friends and I had gone to see a Live Nativity & he had been working backstage of another theater production (Peter Pan, to be specific). We met at Starbucks -the hangout for our group, back then- and my friends and I doodled in my notebook while we waited for him & I think a few others, to arrive. When they did, we talked for a little while and then he said he had to be going because they would be leaving for a family trip to Colorado the next day. He asked me to walk with him to his car. When I did, he asked me to dance. Dance in the parking lot of Starbucks. And I didn't think twice. There, then, I finally touched the hem of the magical sensation of the dance. It is probably the strangest thing to imagine & probably looked even more ridiculous, but to me it was a scene from one of my fairytales. The wind twirled around us & all I saw was pixie dust and the boy from Neverland. It was as perfect as I had always imagined. It was the perfect dance. The perfect partner. Years later when love was love, we continued the dance. We would dance in the driveway before he would get in his car and leave. In random places we would go. No matter how tired we were, how cold or hot it was, if there were mosquitoes, or crazy wind or rain, we would always dance. And it was always enchanting.
It is all a ghost of a memory now. The dance ceased and the princess left with both shoes. She left him with nothing to hold onto. I don’t dance anymore. The slow waltz that makes fairies dance along & the moment look like a fairytale, is no more & I don’t think I'll ever dance that way ..with anyone again. It’s a sweet & painful memory I sometimes wish I could, but then hope I never will forget. All this to say that when I heard this song, I felt it was written for me. This song touches me SO. It has brought tears for the past, but tears of thankfulness as well. Even though my dancing partner, the 'perfect' one has..has moved on & will find another partner, I am reminded that my Jesus, the One who loves me unconditionally -& always will- wants to dance with me. He has always been there & waiting for me to let him take the lead. He's the one who steadies my feet & keeps me going when I feel I don't know the steps. He will keep holding on to me & this dance will never end. This is the dance that is far from perfect because I am constantly messing up, but perfect because it continues & He is the perfect partner. <3
Here are the lyrics:
"We Dance" - Bethel Music You steady me Slow and sweet, we sway Take the lead and I will follow Finally ready now To close my eyes and just believe That You won't lead me Where You don't go When my faith gets tired And my hope seems lost You spin me round and round And remind me of that song The one You wrote for me And we dance And I've been told To pick up my sword And fight for love Little did I know That Love had won for me Here in Your arms You still my heart again And I breathe You in Like I've never breathed 'till now When my faith gets tired And my hope seems lost You spin me round and round And remind me of that song The one You wrote for me And we dance And I will lock eyes With the One who's ransomed me The One who gave me joy for mourning And I will lock eyes With the One who's chosen me The One who set my feet to dancing? We dance Just You and me It's nice to know I'm not alone I found my home here in Your arms It's nice to know I'm not alone? I found my home here in Your arms It's nice to know I'm not alone I found my home here in Your arms
<3