Dancing in the Park

I had no sooner posted that last piece when Miki, leader of the dance team, came to me.  She said that as she was showering she was thanking God for sending an intercessor (me!) to pray for the team.  And God told her, “No, she’s a dancer.”

My jaw just fell open.  It seems that He’s calling me back to dance.  He’s got to do quite a bit of physical restoration to do that, but He is God of Restoration.  We walked to the ferry dock with my head swimming at the thought.

I generally don’t like boats very much, but the ferry crossing was really nice.  The water is the cleanest harbor water I have ever seen—or smelled!  It’s a pretty deep teal color, and there is no oily scum or floating trash that I’ve always associated with harbor water.  Here’s how clean the water is in Valletta harbor: I would actually swim in it!  I haven’t, but I would.

On the other side we took the elevator to the park high over the harbor.  Up there we found Herbie, the guitarist.  He grinned at us, “I had a good morning!  I did some busking, made some money.”  He had his guitar and a battery-powered amp with him.  He was clearly on a high from his successful morning.

I watched the team’s backpacks and prayed while they went to pray and Herbie went to look for a plug to recharge his amp.  Herbie came back at 2, the appointed start time.  He was grinning again.  He had found a plug in the Indian Embassy waiting room.  Inexplicably, they had not chased him off.  Well, not inexplicable, really because I had been praying for him to find a place to plug in.

Herbie warmed up the crowd with a Christian song, done in his own smooth jazz style.  People grabbed their phones, cameras, and tablets and started filming or taking pictures.  Then the dancers did a hip-hop number that looked like a lot of fun.  Herbie played a song or 2 in between each dance set.  Then a bunch of about 10 junior high school kids came along.  One boy started in mocking the dancers and tried to get the others to mock, too.  A couple of other boys did, but half-heartedly.  A couple of girls started dancing a little where they were, and after a while Miki invited them to join in the dance, and they did.  They were clearly having a lot of fun, and a friend filmed them with her tablet.  They stepped back into the group when the song was over, but stayed to listen to Herbie sing and play.  They joined into the next dance even more enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, people came by and put coins in Herbie’s open bag.  I saw one man come by and carefully put in about €5 worth of coins.  Later another man put a €10 bill in Herbie’s bag.  Herbie had a good day!

Then the dancers did a dance with streamers and the mocking boy made a grab for Miki’s streamer.  She gave it to him, and he danced with it, and with some degree of grace and style.  Then the kids announced that they had to go.  The 2 girls that had danced hugged each of the dancers and said good-bye, waving to the rest of us.  It was a really sweet moment.

Because of my duties in watching the backpacks and helping set up the music, I wasn’t able to get around to talk to very many people.  But I did get to talk briefly with one lady who was visiting from Australia.

It was a fun afternoon.  And I got another message from God about dancing, this time from Carrie, a Maltese believer who had come to support the dance team.  Carrie said to me: “You should get out there and dance with them.”  I said, “What on earth made you say that?”  She said, “I don’t know!”

Well, I do know: it was God!  I guess He’ll show me how He wants me to proceed.  God is good!

Lessons in Floating

Last Year – When I was here at the beautiful Adriatic Sea last year, the Holy Spirit told me to go for a swim.  I loved the beach when I was a kid—what kid doesn’t?  But as an adult, I had come to associate the sea with many discomforts: the itchy feeling of salt water dried on the skin, oily sunscreen crusted with sand, fair skin that burns despite the use of sunscreen SPF 45, the sand that gets into places it shouldn’t, and a body that’s white and lumpy and looks better clothed than in a swimsuit—intense body shame.  So it was with all that beach-hating baggage that the Holy Spirit told me to take a swim.

Despite my bags and baggage, I did take a swim.  Leaving my glasses on top of my towel, I walked toward the water.  I saw something washed up on the beach that looked like a dead jellyfish.  I’ve been stung by jellyfish.  It’s like being stung by an electric wasp—definitely an experience I don’t want to ever have again.  But instead of turning back, I just laughed.  If God wants me to swim, then He has a purpose.  “Besides,” I told myself, “it was probably just a plastic bag from somebody’s beach lunch.”

I had decided that my act of obedience meant that I should get completely wet.  So I got about waist-deep, then dove into the waves.  After paddling around for a few minutes, I thought that I was finished.  But the Holy Spirit told me: “Lay back.”  I did, and discovered something wonderful: I float like a cork!  I am so buoyant that I can even float with my head above the water, toes above the water, and bottom down.  But laying back with my ears under the water was incredibly peaceful, and little by little I felt my limbs release their muscular tension.

I took that first swim fully clothed because I didn’t have my swimsuit with me.  I understood that swimming would be something I should do every day while I was here, so I knew I needed to buy a swimsuit.  The only thing I’ve hated more than the beach is buying a swimsuit.  The last one I bought online, and it covered so much of me that it was almost a throwback to the old swimsuits they used in the early 1900’s.  I knew that if I thought too much about it, I would talk myself out of buying one, so I just plunged into a swim shop and bought one.  It’s not bad looking.

A few days after that first swim the wind kicked up, bringing bigger waves.  Thanks to a breakwater, the big waves are tamed into choppy little wavelets before they reach the swimming area by the beach.  During my floating session that day, God (who had never repeated Himself to me before) told me: “Relax!  Relax!  Relax!”  And the little wavelets shook each limb with a different rhythm and out of synch with one another.  It reminded me of a Lamaze exercise in which your coach takes an arm and your teacher takes the opposite leg and they shake them in differing rhythms.  You are supposed to practice releasing the tension in those muscles and all the others in between.  And that memory tickled me so much that I laughed out loud—and a more profound relaxation followed.  God has the greatest sense of humor!

The lesson in physically relaxing taught me to relax when I’m worried about things going wrong.  Without going into detail (which you can read about in my book “Look, Listen, Love,” available from http://www.lulu.com/), I learned that I can relax and let God work out the things that I have no control over.  And when I do really relax and release those worries, God not only works things out, but blesses me in unexpected ways.  And one of those things, you can read about in my blog post: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.

This Year – I have returned to the beach, bringing two very dear friends with me.  The three of us have gone to the beach each day, floating and swimming, talking and laughing, praying and praising our Heavenly Father.

A lesson that God has been teaching me recently is to let go of the past—particularly past offenses and betrayals, but also past mistakes or bad choices that I need to forgive myself.  I have been working on it, releasing those people and things to God, forgiving and letting them go.  But every once in a while, the memory of these things comes to mind, robbing me of my focus and trying to rob my peace.  Whenever this happens, I try to release the memory as quickly as possible.

While floating yesterday, the Holy Spirit told me that, just as I had learned to relax my worries into God’s hands, I also need to relax my memories into His hands.  And lying there on the bosom of the sea, I did exactly that.

This morning during my prayer time, once again I found my attention wandering to a painful event.  Immediately, I said, “Let it go!  Let it go!  Let it go!” and I released the memory and returned my focus to God, my Peace.

When it comes to relaxing my grip on those memories, would it be wrong to say that I’m working on it?  I’m grateful that God is a patient Teacher.  God is good!