Loving The Dancer

Yesterday, I got off the tour bus and hurried to my four year-old’s ballet class. It was parent observation day. Incredibly cute.

I watched her stretch to the left and then to the right and then down the middle to smell her toes, pretending they were flowers.

Ballerina stretching

I watched in amazement as she contorted her body until her feet touched the little bun on the back of her head. Incredibly bendy.

Ballerina touching toes to head

I watched her take position after position without hesitation as her teacher gave the commands one after another. Incredibly smart.

Ballerina in first position

I watched her bow to us at the end of class like a real live grown up ballerina. Incredible.

Ballerina bowing

And I realized I’d been smiling for an hour. And I know dad’s aren’t supposed to have favorites but at that moment she was mine. I couldn’t imagine having a more incredible kid or loving her any more than I do.

I know it’s dangerous to make God out to be too human, but I have to wonder if that’s how God feels about me. He doesn’t need me to make the world go around today. He’s complete with or without me. But He sings over me anyway. He knows how many hairs and days He’s given me. He watches me stumble, and sometimes dance, through the day – He notices me – and it somehow brings Him delight. He somehow thinks I’m incredible. I don’t understand it. And I often feel like a heretic for even thinking it, but I know it’s true. I want to know it’s true.

And that’s the Christmas lesson most difficult for me to fully accept: God so loved the world – and that includes me – that He sent His one and only Son…