Free to Dance

[from the archives]

Today was so much fun!

A few days ago the kids watched a movie that had quite a bit of dancing in it. Whenever that happens they end up being inspired to dance and laugh, and dance and laugh some more. Most of the time they’re trying to do something they saw, and ending up doing something very funny looking, which they then try to perfect in its funniness.

This time the dancing progressed beyond just the day of the movie watching. My girls regularly choreograph dances and work them until they’re done, but my boys have NEVER done that. Today that changed! All my kids are choreographing a dance together. It’s so fun to watch them toss around ideas and delight in each other. The girls are trying to show the boys how to do certain types of steps and they’re all laughing so hard as the boys give their awkward attempts! It’s just so fun to see them enjoying each other.

I’m just amazed at how my children have changed over the last few years.  They have become so comfortable with who God made them to be, and so secure in our love and in the love of their brothers and sisters that they are free to step out and do something new like this current dance they’re working on.

Before I understood how my flesh (my self-centered ways of relating) worked in my parenting, I was unhappy with the subtle resistance I felt growing in the kids, especially the older ones, and tried to make them feel ashamed in order to make them behave better. I thought they would want to be better if I made them feel badly about what they were doing through disapproving looks and body language. I gave them the feeling that they could never do certain things quite right, and so they never did them the way I hoped for. This made them sad and closed up, and unwilling to try anything new or hard because they didn’t feel loved.  They felt more like they could only fail and they were afraid of that.

That’s why I’m so amazed at the kids doing this dance all together. They are just totally new kids—radically changed! I stopped being unloving, and now love has changed them from the inside. Here, four years later it’s showing up on the outside in their ability to be so free to have fun in this way with each other when they used to be closed up. They’re not just doing this dance for fun; they plan on performing it in front of people at our fall recital which will be at the Lifestyle of Learning™ project fair! They chose the music—”Wherever We Go, That’s Where the Party’s At”.

Today has been so fun!

You can learn more about restoring your family’s relationships by reading Marilyn Howshall’s ebook Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith.

Here’s the dance as they performed it at the Lifestyle of Learning™ Performing Arts Program September 2010.

[originally published 7/2010]