I'm so sorry that it's taken me so long to update. I've known this was the next story I wanted to tell for awhile, but I couldn't figure out how to put it on the page. Then as I was about to post it, I had another sudden twist, which is going to make this story even longer than it already was going to be. There's no way that it could all go into one post, so I'm going to have to split it up. I'll do my best to have the story finished by the end of the summer. But anyway, here's the first part:
When I was younger, my all consuming passion was horses. It was the only thing I wanted to do with my life. I was going to own at least two, and I was going to compete in the Olympics with them. I wasn’t sure if I would race my horses, or jump with them, but that was for future me to figure out.
As I got older, I realized that I wasn’t progressing as quickly as I would like. I wasn’t getting to jumping or anything else. I just kept riding around in circles. I began to feel like maybe I should be doing something else.
I was fond of dancing around the house, making up random dances. Mom mentioned to me once that I looked more put-together dancing than I had ever looked on horseback, even without any training, and I started to wonder.
I fought the idea for a long time. Horses were my dream. I was supposed to win the Olympics with my horses. That was obviously the dream that God had given me, I couldn’t back out just because I was getting frustrated.
But I decided I should test things. You know, just to be safe. And obviously, the way that I should seek God’s will for what I should do would be to see what movie my the five-year-old sister would choose to watch.
We owned one movie, possibly two, that could be termed “dance related.” Obviously, the logical thing to do would be to tell God that if he wanted me to take dance, he would tell me so by having my sister choose one of those movies the next time that it was her turn to choose.
She didn’t. Not that time, or the next, or the next. I told myself that I would know if she chose a dance movie even once out of the next five times. Or maybe ten. Or, you know, however long it took for her to choose a dance movie. See, I was becoming more and more sure that I was supposed to start dance, but I had to be absolutely certain. I had to have the closest thing to a direct word from God. And since I was seeking his guidance in faith, and waiting for his direction, he would give me the answer. I just had to be patient.
Finally, on what I had decided was the last day for her to choose, I settled for a little manipulation of events. I gently (or perhaps not quite so gently) suggested that maybe she’d like to watch *that* movie, instead of whatever was her current favorite. After some persuading, she agreed.
I finally had my answer, but it didn’t feel right. The more I thought about it, the more I was pretty sure that manipulating God’s answers was not what I should have been doing. So I gave up trying to tell God how to answer me. I started doing what I should have been doing the whole time: praying and letting him guide me in his own way. And so that Fall, I reluctantly agreed to start taking ballet lessons.
When I was younger, my all consuming passion was horses. It was the only thing I wanted to do with my life. I was going to own at least two, and I was going to compete in the Olympics with them. I wasn’t sure if I would race my horses, or jump with them, but that was for future me to figure out.
As I got older, I realized that I wasn’t progressing as quickly as I would like. I wasn’t getting to jumping or anything else. I just kept riding around in circles. I began to feel like maybe I should be doing something else.
I was fond of dancing around the house, making up random dances. Mom mentioned to me once that I looked more put-together dancing than I had ever looked on horseback, even without any training, and I started to wonder.
I fought the idea for a long time. Horses were my dream. I was supposed to win the Olympics with my horses. That was obviously the dream that God had given me, I couldn’t back out just because I was getting frustrated.
But I decided I should test things. You know, just to be safe. And obviously, the way that I should seek God’s will for what I should do would be to see what movie my the five-year-old sister would choose to watch.
We owned one movie, possibly two, that could be termed “dance related.” Obviously, the logical thing to do would be to tell God that if he wanted me to take dance, he would tell me so by having my sister choose one of those movies the next time that it was her turn to choose.
She didn’t. Not that time, or the next, or the next. I told myself that I would know if she chose a dance movie even once out of the next five times. Or maybe ten. Or, you know, however long it took for her to choose a dance movie. See, I was becoming more and more sure that I was supposed to start dance, but I had to be absolutely certain. I had to have the closest thing to a direct word from God. And since I was seeking his guidance in faith, and waiting for his direction, he would give me the answer. I just had to be patient.
Finally, on what I had decided was the last day for her to choose, I settled for a little manipulation of events. I gently (or perhaps not quite so gently) suggested that maybe she’d like to watch *that* movie, instead of whatever was her current favorite. After some persuading, she agreed.
I finally had my answer, but it didn’t feel right. The more I thought about it, the more I was pretty sure that manipulating God’s answers was not what I should have been doing. So I gave up trying to tell God how to answer me. I started doing what I should have been doing the whole time: praying and letting him guide me in his own way. And so that Fall, I reluctantly agreed to start taking ballet lessons.