Dancing

As I am sure I’ve told you before I am a very vivid dreamer.  Sometimes it can be like watching a film – it’s all very organised, scene by scene, and it makes sense.  It’s a proper story.  If only I would sit down and turn them into books, I might have a few best sellers!

Other times they are just disconnected scenes of a very bizarre nature.  There’s no sense or reason and they don’t lend themselves to any kind of useful interpretation.  Most of last night’s offerings were like that – just nonsense.

There was one scene, however, that was fairly normal.  A group of us decided to walk down to the village chip shop.  “Us” comprised of no one I knew in real life.  It was a nice evening for a walk and the company was pleasant. 

I remember having problems with my shoes laces.  They were really, really, really long.  I had wrapped them around the shoe dozens of times, under the arch of the foot, before tying them up, but they kept coming loose and I was forever tripping over.

I told people to go ahead.  I would catch them up once I had sorted myself out.  Someone offered to stay and wait, but I waved them on.

That’s when I realised that the problem wasn’t the shoe lace – it was the shoe.  It wasn’t a trainer, or a walking boot or anything sensible at all.  I was wearing a pair of highland dancing pumps.  The laces threaded through the holes on either side of the pump and then criss-crossed around and up the calve.  The laces were supposed to be long.  They weren’t supposed to be wrapped around the shoe half a dozen times.

I woke up at that point. 

It was while I was having my morning wash that I felt the Spirit say, “You should be dancing!”

“Huh?”  I am not at my brightest before my first cup of tea.

I had been reading a story in the gospels – the story of the crippled woman who is healed on the Sabbath day.

“On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.  When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.”  Luke 13:10-13.

I don’t think I am crippled, but bits of me take a little bit more time to move than they used to.  People may not look crippled on the outside, but if you could peel away the physical bits and look at their heart, or their soul or their mind, maybe they would be stooped over.  The infirmity is not visible, but unseen.  They are crippled just the same.

Jesus put her hands on her and set her free.  She straightened up and praised God.

I remember, yesterday, or whatever day it was that I read the story, acknowledging that on the outside I may appear to be standing upright, but on the inside in my heart, my soul, and my mind, I am sometimes a little crushed.  An anxiety or worry is plaguing me, and inside I am stooping under the weight of it all.  I prayed for Jesus to touch me and set me free that I could straighten up and praise him.

I guess I didn’t linger long enough to know inside that a change had happened.  I just tossed the prayer heavenward and headed for work.

I didn’t feel particularly plagued with worries or anxieties.  It had been a good day. 

I suppose this morning, before the first cup of tea, or the morning’s quiet time, my internal posture of heart, soul and mind had taken on the customary stooping.  Although there were no worries and anxieties, I had been so used to carrying them around that the inner Mel had adapted to accommodate them.

“You should be dancing!”

That quiet whisper of the Holy Spirit broke through.  The shoes and the very long laces of the dream made perfect sense.

Throughout the day it has been the constant whisper to my spirit.

My heart, soul and mind have been dancing all day.