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When He Dances, It Teaches Me To Dance
My baby boy has learned The Mommy Dance.
There’s some bouncing and kicking, throwing his body forward and trying to propel himself into my arms. He throws his hands up and half-hyperventilates/half squeaks to get my attention.
He’s all eyes on Momma, two beautiful big and sparkly blue eyes speaking so loud, no words needed.
I know his heart. He’s been playing on his own for a while or maybe he’s been cradled and rocked by someone else in the church nursery, and he’s been fine. They’ve met his needs, changed his diapers, helped him sleep.
But now he sees me and me is what he wants.
Mommy! That’s what his dance says.
Mommy, come hold me! Come love on me! Come feed me and care for me!
He knows I will. He knows in his baby soul a deep-down truth that Mommy will reach her arms right out for him and hold him close.
More than that, I’ll probably kiss him 100 times in a minute and smooth the fuzz of his hair down and I’ll coo at him and whisper how I love him so.
He is wanted. He is loved. He is welcome here in my life, in my arms, in my heart.
But me, how uncertain I feel at times. How shy, how vulnerable—when I feel needy, broken, empty, weary, and worn.
It’s God that I need. It’s being in His presence, and only in that precious presence, that will restore my soul.
Yet I pause.
What if God is weary of my weariness?
What if He wants me to preach to myself for a bit, talk myself right out of my own need before I drop it all down at His feet once again?
What if He wishes I’d just pull it all together already and stop holding out my empty vessel for more?
But Hebrews tells me right there:
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16 NIV).
Come to Him with confidence…because Jesus is the High Priest who knows what it’s like to suffer and what it’s like to skip meals and to serve others and to lose sleep and to have to fight for rest and quiet—yes, even more than this momma of four does.
My baby boy doesn’t lift his hands to me with insecurity or self-accusation; he seeks my presence with confidence.
So, I can come knowing that God will welcome me because this throne of His is a throne of GRACE.
And at the Grace-throne, I’m confident that I am forgiven and that I am beloved.
Confident that He isn’t rolling His eyes at my needy heart or sighing with frustration at the mess I’ve made of things.
Confident that right then when I need Him the most, He’s offering the grace and mercy I’m so desperate for.
Confident that my emptiness isn’t disappointing to Him and isn’t too much for Him to fill.
No more hiding in the shadows of the throne room doorway or pressing up against the wall and hoping that God doesn’t notice how I’ve stumbled on in.
That’s what I cling to today when I’ve slipped into that place again and I’m so timid in His presence at first because I just want to hold that empty cup right up and it feels so bold, so brazen, so demanding to ask Him for more….
But I think of Jesus’ first miracle. Such a trivial thing it seems, saving a wedding party from the social faux pas of the season by turning empty vats into vessels filled with the best wine at Cana.
In Whispers of Hope, though, Beth Moore says,
“Christ fills empty vessels.”
This is the miracle I need. It’s no sideline magic show or performance, no preface to the great miracles still to come.
Filling empty vessels is what Christ did. It’s what He does.
It’s what I still need Him to do.
And the beautiful promise in Hebrews is that when I raise my arms up, when I ask for His help, when I reach out and beg for His presence and hold out that empty cup, I don’t need to ask ashamed.
For at the throne of grace, I am:
Welcomed.
Loved.
Forgiven.
Filled.
And it’s here I will find the mercy and the grace in my time of need.
To read more devotional thoughts from Heather King, check out her blog here: heathercking.org
Picture taken by: Kylie Leighann
Copyright © 2008-2015 Heather King
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