Father-Daughter Dance

Last night Ab and I attended the Father-Daughter dance sponsored by the "American Girls" group at school.

I was more or less shamed into attending the dance last year because I had neglected it the year before. But Ab and I had such a great time, the it now bears the possibility of become something of a tradition.

However, I noticed a marked difference in my date last year and my date this year.

Last year I was surprised by the fact that my little girl was completely uninhibited when it came to dancing. I-on the other hand-have always been embarrassed by the fact that I do not know how to dance. This was due -in great part- to my strict upbringing and to some degree due to my own awkwardness.

But, at last year's dance I soon realized that it was just a bunch of guys who mostly couldn't dance and a bunch of daughters who mostly didn't care that they couldn't dance.

So Ab and I danced with reckless abandon to almost every tune. It was great!

This year, as Ab and I stepped onto the dance floor shortly after arriving and having our pictures made, I noticed a stark difference: the first thing Ab said to me was something about the fact that she couldn't dance. And I noticed her looking around stiffly to see if anyone was watching.

Where did that come from?

Oh, I'm familiar with the concept having felt similarly most of my life, but why this sudden display of self-consciousness in my daughter?

Who told her she couldn't dance?

My thoughts went back to an SCL post I read this week about "shame" and how that the fallenness of our nature lurks ready to pounce on our thoughts at any moment.

God asked Adam and Eve: "who told you you were naked?" as they stood before Him in shame, having disobeyed their one rule. The first sensation they experienced as a result of sin was shame.

No one has to tell us that we come up short - that we are not meet for the task at hand - the fact that we live in a fallen world and that the accuser has access to whisper his reminders to us results in a constant awareness of our own inadequacies.

I am very familiar with my own sense of "not measuring up" and in recent years I have begun to see that my best defense is to acknowledge before God that this fear is present in me. And then to cast it upon Him, asking Him to take and deal with those fears that I am powerless to defeat on my own.

But it bothers me more to see those same fears lurking in my daughter.

Did she inherit that from me?

The sad truth is that the answer to that question is "yes".

Just like I inherited that fear from my own father - Adam.

It is part of the nature with which we all must grapple. The complexity of the situation is compounded by the fact that we all feel isolated in the battle - as if no one else has ever had to deal with sense of falling short.

However, I truly believe that one of the clear messages that extends from the Easter story and Christ's resurrection is that He is now able to change our nature and He made a way for us to walk in LIBERTY!

Oh the accuser will still whisper, but I don't have to listen - or better yet I can take the whispers to Christ, one by one and He will deal with them.

The Father - Daughter dance was a great joy once again. Ab did indeed shed some of her inhibitions and we cut a rug .... no matter who was watching.

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever! Psalm 30:11 & 12 NLT

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.