a message in the message

I remember sometime last year my mom saying to me... "Stace, I saw at church this Sunday a video for the Transitions retreat.  I really wish you could go.  It's for people in their twenties.  There is a zipline and water sports and it looks like so much fun."  I had to work the weekend of the retreat so it was out of the question for me.  The real truth is: it wasn't a priority at the time.  

Since that time last year, obviously, a lot has changed for me.  This year, my butt filling one of the seats on the bus to Lake Champion was one of my top priorities.  My reason for wanting to go, at least partially, was not what it should have been.  BTDance was going to be performing and I wanted to be on that stage.  I think I may have been holding off signing up for the retreat to make sure I would be able to dance first.  A little small voice inside of me was saying..."Wait and see if you're picked to dance and then pay.  If not, you won't HAVE to go."  WOW hi Satan.   When I reflect on that now it hurts me, literal pains in my gut.  

As the time drew closer and closer I began to think I wasn't going to be able to go.  I was in the middle of apartment hunting and after many failed attempts at finding the right place (even if I enumerated them here you wouldn't believe it) I was left with just enough money to eek out an existence.  Long story short, I had put down two deposits plus application fees and neither were going to work out because of problems with roommates, details details details.  In the midst of this, still thinking about the retreat, my focus shifted.  God spoke to me.  He told me the importance in this weekend was not about dancing.  It was about developing my relationship with Him.  He told me that even if I didn't get to dance, I needed to be there.  I needed this experience.  That my NUMBER ONE reason for going should be to commune with Him. 


It is so crazy how so many things only become clear in retrospect.  I didn't know at the time that dancing was my intention but it's only now that I acknowledge it that I also realize  that when I started listening to God's plan for the retreat things lined up, mountains moved, money flowed.   God made a way and WOW I was able to go.  


So I remember praying "God if it is your will that I go on this trip I need something to happen with my finances.  You know I just lost SO much money on this apartment nonsense and I literally can not afford it now."  The next day, I got a text from one of the brokers asking when I would like to come pick up my deposit.  For anyone that doesn't know....that does not happen, EVER.  If you pay a deposit on an apartment and then decide you don't want the apartment the broker does not have to give you the money back and they never do.  But by the grace of God Valentina was going to give me $500 back.  I took the money and paid for the retreat that very night.  


This is such a testament to the fact that when we let go of our selfish desires and begin to seek God's plan for our lives he will ALWAYS make a way.  He makes the impossible happen.  He will move heaven and earth for us, his children.  If we will just open our eyes, hearts, minds, souls to God's desires for our life, roadblocks will disappear, walls will fall down and chains will be broken. We can not seek what WE want for our life and expect God to make a way.  We must surrender to his plan and seek his glory in everything to receive his blessed assistance.  


I was planning to post about the retreat and my thoughts, reflections and highlights of the trip.  But I find myself in the same place I always end up when I begin writing and stay open to God's message pouring through the keyboard... He has just delivered a message through what I thought would be the "introduction".  I was going to, as briefly as possible, describe the background which got me to Lake Champion.  But God said "no little girl (that's what He calls me when I am being scolded) there is a message waiting for you in the part you are trying to rush through".  


Let's leave it where it is for now shall we? I was definitely return to write about the retreat and how God's presence was all up in that place.  But for now, I want to end on this verse that my mom always always always recites to me.  


Psalm 37:4  Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. 

God is working...

Once again, I find myself coming back to the adventures of a dancing fancypants blog absolutely blown away at how much has happened since I last visited this site.  It has been quite some time and the changes in my life since my lost posting are absolutely monumental.  First and foremost, I am in love, obsessed, overwhelmed with God and what he is doing in my life.  I have been a Christian most of my life but I can't say that I always acted like one or even put an ounce of thought in to what that meant.  Brooklyn Tabernacle slapped me in the face, gave me a huge wakeup call and caused me to examine my life.

It started simply enough.  A friend sent me a message about an audition for dancers at BT.  Of course, I was all about it.  I went to the audition and by the grace of God, I was chosen to be part of a brand-new ministry.  I guess when we started we weren't even technically a ministry group.  We were just a bunch of people getting together to dance.  We started with rehearsals without much, maybe nothing, on our performance calendar.  Ashley Brown, a beautiful, amazing, woman of God, started teaching us choreography to "Oh The Blood".  She said she wanted us to have a piece ready when God decided to call us. I can't think of a better place to start than with the blood.

I literally joined BTDance for dance.  It wasn't about a growing relationship with God, a strengthened faith or really even about fellowship and new friendships.  Well...that's what I thought at least.  I mean part of me thought that this MIGHT bring me closer to God, I might make a few new friends and maybe even change my views about dance.  I just wanted a chance to move my body through space and have something to put on my resume.  It makes me hurt now to write that but it is honest.

Well HALLELUJAH God's plan was different.  The first few weeks I went to rehearsal I left feeling absolutely unworthy.  For months, God had been convicting me about some things in my life that needed to change.  I needed to end some relationships.  God kept speaking to me about one relationship in particular but I always managed to ignore it.  I remember so vividly one night leaving rehearsal knowing that I had to change my life.  I couldn't afford to be in a relationship with a non-believer.  I had to stop listening to the enemy telling me I was supposed to be with this person...that I was the one who was supposed to bring him to God.  Unless a relationship is bringing me closer to God it is not in His plan for my life and I know that now.

More than changing my life for me though, I wanted to change my life for the women in BTDance I watched them pour their heart and soul out each week.  I felt guilty because I knew that they were fully committed and checked in to what God wanted to do with their lives.  They were all willing to surrender to His work and His will.  I was not.  I was placing all my love, energy, spirit in to a relationship that was not increasing my faith or bringing me closer to God.  In the end though it all came down to this for me.  I DID NOT WANT TO BE THE REASON GOD DIDNT ANOINT THAT MINISTRY.  I began feeling so accountable to them.  I left that Monday night with the strongest conviction I have ever felt before.  I picked up the phone walking out the door and made that awful call.  WOW...Wowza.  I took a huge leap of faith and God caught me.  He not only caught me he picked me up and I have been soaring with him ever sense.

I can say that I am the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.  I have a peace, a joy, a burning love and contentment that I have never experienced before and I know that it is all GOD.  The ladies of BTDance have no idea how they have forever changed my life for the better.

For a while, I didn't realize the impact of all of this.  I didn't take the time to put all the pieces together..to see how God had orchestrated all of this.  I didn't realize that they were the reason I had the courage and the faith to do what I so desperately needed to do.  At some point God told me that I needed to stop undermining the work he is doing in my life... and stop undervaluing the testimony he has given me.  You see, that is one way Satan will trip you up.  He wants to make us believe that what God is doing for us isn't a big deal..that no one wants to hear about it.  He totally had me convinced that this story was some weak, measly little uneventful moment in my life that no one would want to hear, care about or be empowered by.  But God wants us to open our mouths and speak our about his greatness.

God is so wonderful.  God is good yall.  He has blessed me so so so so greatly.  My daily prayer is a request for boldness and empowerment to speak out about what he is doing for me.  Not so that people will look at my life or me but so that they will look at God.  My hope is that they will see his glory, his power, his awesomeness.

So in closing I want to say Thank You to the beautiful, blessed, righteous, holy ladies of BTDance.  You will never know what your exemplary lives have done for me.

A sidebar- another lesson in all of this is that for a ministry to be effective externally, it must first and foremost be ministering internally.  As soon as the message your proclaiming stops witnessing to your own soul you lose your ability to spread the message to others.  I pray that God will continually bless us so that we can be a blessing to others.  In my next blog I plan to elaborate on what God did with us when He decided to call us to minister.

Thank you God for being so amazing.

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