You Taught my Feet.

Disappointment.A word I've tried to avoid like the plague. A word that has riddled me with confusion and grief and prayers without answer, a word that kept me up at night and held me down far longer than I thought it would. It knocks us on the sidelines and knocks the breath out of our lungs. When the sting of rejection hits. When your best dreams are slain on the altar of repentance. When your expectations crumble down and the closed door simply doesn't make sense. When the high hopes fall and all your best intentions fall short.And He asks us to join back in the dance anyway.How often we try to will our lives to tie up in a neat little bow, yet our God is so predictably unpredictable. He doesn't always come through in the way that makes sense, often because the things that make the most sense from our limited vantage point don't leave room for a miracle-working God. If my days always added up, I wouldn't have need for a faithful Father who knows the end of the story already written. A Father who carved mountains and call us by name, who numbered our days and the hairs on our head. A Father who asks our hearts to rest while He sets the stage.I think He sees us as kids that sometimes get it right, but usually step all over His feet, clumsily learning to follow His lead. And somewhere in the midst of the proving and pleasing and striving and trying, we learn to let go and just enjoy the fact that we're still spinning, not wanting to miss what the next turn holds. We’re all a little blurry. We trip over our own feet, we stumble and make messes and need grace upon grace. We forget we’re all just learning as we go. And there we find Him - catching our fall, cleaning up our mess, picking us up and brushing us off, bandaging the scraped knees and mending the broken hearts.We find a Father who breathes life into dry bones and hope into weary souls. We find a Father who sits in the sacred space of wait.And we see it’s not about how pretty our performance is, but the fact that we’re still out on the floor, stepping on the toes of a Lover who refuses to let go. Teaching our feet how to get back up and dance when all they've known is how to lay down and mourn. Giving us grace to try again, to fail again, to get back up and waltz for the sake of the dance.words and photo by Emma Tally