Dancing for Jesus

I'm not much of a dancer... back in junior high and early high school I used to think I was pretty good, but over time I've realized I was also pretty deluded. Those semi-pogo wannabe footloose moves were mighty-white, and yes, the overbite was often there as well (you know the white-boy overbite dance).

Anyway, maybe that's why I've never really understood interpretive dance, ballet, or movement worship and flags... who knows. But watching Carissa, my almost 5 year old, has given me a new appreciation for dance. She loves to dance, no lessons or anything, just put on music (or sing to yourself) and dance in the living room. I love to watch her as well, especially as she invents new moves and incorporates stuff she'll glimpse on TV or see in videos.

Her dancing really took off after watching a worship team that visited our church over a year ago. I admit, even in my cynical eyes, their dancing was beatiful, moving, and worshipful. But to Carissa, it was a true revelation, she was enraptured. For weeks, every day she would ask me to put on the Chris Tomlin CD so that she could dance. One day when I walked into the room and saw her spinning and bending much more deliberately and slowly than most 3 1/2 year olds do when they dance, I asked her what she was doing.

"I'm dancing for Jesus," was her simple reply.