God is a God of good gifts--even dancing. A special way God showed his love for me was through giving me a prophetic dance, or a dance inspired by the Holy Spirit. Before surrendering my life to God I had many insecurities. However, when I first began to know him in the winter of my freshman year, all of the shame and dissatisfaction I felt with myself was immediately taken away. Daily God would tell me “I love you” and call me terms of endearment such as “my darling” “my child” and “my sweet heart”. For the first time I felt loved and cherished. I felt beautiful. I never knew my earthly father, but I had gained a heavenly Father. I also realized who Jesus was, that I was saved because of the works he did and not my own. I found out the true character and heart of God. He was not disappointed with me, he was not distant. I gained freedom. This freedom manifested in a beautiful dance given to me by the Holy Spirit. As a young girl I always liked ballet. I used to watch in wonder as the famous Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru glided across the stage as if she were made of air. Entranced, I watched online as she danced the Rose Adage from the Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. I wished I could dance on the tips of my toes or move my limbs in such a graceful fashion, but I thought I never could. I had never learned, and because of my weight I didn’t have confidence that I ever would. But one day while I worshipped at a small church, the Holy Spirit began to move my arms and legs. I realized I was dancing just like those lovely ballerinas. It started out first as a gradual move of my arms but when I felt a tug to do more , to surrender more of my body to God, I became afraid. It wasn’t until a few months later at a small, Pentecostal church in New Jersey that I felt again the Spirit's desire to move my body.All of sudden I knew how to twirl, how to pivot, how to do an arabesque ( one leg extended outward while balancing on the other). I, who never had any training and never dared to try on my own, was dancing in the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 14:15 Paul said he both sings and prays through the Holy Spirit. If one can speak in tongues by the Spirit and even sing in tongues through the Spirit, why not “dance” by the power of his Spirit as well? As the Holy Spirit moved my limbs, I gained a deeper understanding of Romans 6:13. "Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.” As a Christian I am the holy temple of God's Spirit , the place where he dwells. I am not my own but belong to him. Therefore every part of my body is available for him to use any way he wants, even to make me dance. God has the power to move our bodies as we yield to him. My Father God knew how much I longed to dance like a ballerina, and he gave me the gift of dancing in the Spirit, without my even asking or knowing how to ask. Even to this day, four years after receiving the gift I still dance in and with the Holy Spirit. It has become an important part of my worship of him. Its also a perfect picture of his heart as a Father, of his seeing a desire of his child and deciding to bless her with it.
"If you , then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:11
