"Hold My Crown - I MUST BOOGEY!"

I've been reading about King David in the Bible recently, and i'm constantly amazed. (I know you just read "Bible" and your interest just evaporated, but hear me out).When you say David, everyone thinks of this little kid with a sling-shot facing off a cartoon giant. The real David of the Bible was so much more, though. If you took James Bond, Indiana Jones, and the Prince of Persia and made them into one guy born into a Bible time family then saturated him in God's favor, you'd have King David. He was strong and skilled, slaying bears and lions and real-life giants when he was just a teenager. He was specially chosen by God to rise from a Shepard (a bit like being a fast-food employee or farm hand today) and was promised the throne of Israel, a powerful and influential kingdom of the Middle East. He was a dangerous warrior is battle, an anointed musician, and a man who would die in an instant to save his friend. Not to mention that the Bible takes the time to mention how attractive and desirable (aka, pulchritudinous out the back door) David was. Bond had nothing on King David's love life, either. David seemed to collect wives and concubines that he seduced, not to mention that he had one of the Bible's most scandalous affairs (not his best moment, for sure) that involved an indiscreet bath and murder. On top of all these achievements, however, David was a dancer.

Correction, David wasn't a dancer. He danced. He could have looked like a a spinning fool on crazy flakes when he danced, but he was so filled with the joy of the Lord that he couldn't contain it all. So he danced before God and all the people of Israel in celebration. One of his wives was watching from a window and later said to him:
"How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"


(Aka: "How kingly you looked dancing today, David. Can't you keep a shirt on while you are gettin' jiggy? You're acting like a civillian, not royalty! You looked like a fool dancing all around.")


He shot right back at her: 
"It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel--I will celebrate before the LORD.Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes! But those servant girls you mentioned will indeed think I am distinguished!"


(Aka: "Yo, wife! There was no shame because my dancing was for God. Anyway, God chose me, NOT your father the last king, to rule over Israel. I will celebrate and thank God for what he has done for me. I would embarrass myself so much even I thought I looked ridiculous if it was for God. Oh, and those servant girls in the crowd watching me? They will only think I am being kingly! True story."

(By the way, his wife ended up being cursed never to have children to the day of her death. Better think twice before despising God's people.)




"So great," you're thinking. "He was filled with great joy and danced with no shame before the Lord. Great guy, good for him, time to go check Facebook." But there is more. Anyone can worship God with a thankful heart when life is going well, blessing and favor being showered, a new iphone 4 in their pocket. But what about when your To Do list is longer than your day? What about when you are depressed, an emotional wreck? When you don't have the new car you want and you just wrecked the junker you do have?

David faced one of the hardest times of his life shortly after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, a military friend's wife. 9 months, to be exact. His newest wife was pregnant. However, in punishment for King David's sin, God told him that his son would die. David's confidant and cocky additude suddenly deflated. In utter misery and grovelling desperation, he tore his kingly robes and refused to eat, pleading with the Lord for his son's life. This is what happened:


"And they said, “He (David's son) is dead.” 

To someone who isn't a christian, stumbling on this story without looking at the rest of the Bible, they must think that God is a heartless, cosmic dictator. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God had to punish David, like a parent taking away a toy that their child had stolen, but it was perhaps harder for God than it was David. No father enjoys seeing their kid in pain, but sometimes the right thing to do isn't the easy thing to do. How easy would it have been for God to just allow David to live happily ever after, no side-affects after committing adultery and murder. But it wouldn't have been right, it wouldn't be the best thing for David. It can be so hard to understand from our point of view, but God was only doing what was best for David, like any good parent would. 

Never think that God didn't care about David, though. God did. The price of sin is death, and since no one is perfect we all are sentenced to death, no matter how many good things we do. God loved David, you, and me so much that he gave his own perfect son to die so that we could live. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice.


Right, back to King David.


"And they said, “He (David's son) is dead.” So David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the LORD and worshiped."

Wow. When I first read this I did a double-take. If you've ever lost a child, a sibling, or a family member you know what it feels like. Shock, disbelief, confusion; the feeling like someone has unceremoniously ripped your heart out of your chest and all that remains is a hollow place where all the memories and love of that person are supposed to be but never will. "How it feels when the sacred is torn from life, and you survive." The death of a loved one, especially a child, is an event that can destroy a family. It took months, more, for my family to return to a semblance of normal life after my baby brother died (another story for another time). So how, HOW, can David worship and dance before the Lord when his newborn son just died? Not to mention when David knows that it is all his fault?


Because David knew why God had taken his son, he knew God did it because he loved David more than the King could understand. He still knew, beyond the pain he felt, that God had saved his life and had made a way that despite David's sin he would see his son again one day. He knew that God is indescribable and worthy to be praised.


So he danced. I doubt that the same joy filled him, i'm sure he felt like a piece of dirt that had gone into the wash and became a shred of beaten lint. Not to mention he hadn't ate, washed, or slept for who knows how long. And yet he worshiped. David had enough wisdom to know that worship isn't just praising God when everything is thanksgiving and blessing, its about learning to dance in the rain.

So that is also why I dance. I'm no prima ballerina and i'll never be able to do a perfect grand je'te, but I will always strive to dance like King David. Unashamed, in love, with a heart of worship. Plus, have you heard me sing?

(Here is an incredibly subtle hint...)

There is always a story,
_Hannah


(P.S. Started writing this as my 20 minute blog post about why I dance, idea from Brianna's lovely blog. Here I am, two hours and some pretty heavy writing later...)

Angels, Tutus, and-Ouch!

Actually wrote this on Sunday and have been to preoccupied to do anything with it until now:

I have spent far too much time today trying to come up with something to post. Everything has either been too personal, too impersonal, too lackluster, too wild, too toodles to simply post. Something that has been difficult about writing about me for other people to see being honest but not brutally so. It can be, depending on what i'm wanting to talk about, like trying to drive a steam-roller through a Wall-Mart aisle and not run over any fingers and toes. As in I could very well end up banned from Wall-Mart, revoked of my imaginary steam-roller licence, and be sued by all my friends. The real question is, if I were as tactful as possible, what in the cupcake would there be left to write about? Nothing. Well, nothing and mathematics. (And that would be offensive to me.)

On to today, which is (was) a glorious Sunday. This means we get up at the crack of 9:00, pile into the van, and zoom off to church for a morning of worship, fellowship, and maybe even a real ship. I wonder if God ever gets a kick out of how we hold our hands up when we are praying or singing. I mean, really. From his point of view it looks like we're all holding our hands out for sweets or waiting for a heavenly high-five. Maybe, unawares, angels are high-fiving us during worship. I don't know how i'm going to keep a straight face next Sunday.

I really, really need to go do other things right now (Surprise! Schoolwork!) but I will leave you with this lingering question;

Question of the Day: Why do some guys think wearing their pants on the ground is attractive? For the love of all things covered in rainbow sprinkles, WHY?

Look'in Like A Fool,
-Hannah

So that was Sunday. And today is Wednesday. And every muscle in my body hurts like chewed bubblegum.

This would be due to me starting a lyrical dance class. Or, rather, re-starting since I took dance for the majority of my midget years. It was great to get back into a dance studio and join the ranks of fools in tights leaping, twirling, and twisting myself into pretzels. I just didn't anticipate waking up the next morning and falling out of bed and having to roll up the stairs I was so sore. (Does not help that my bed is 5 feet tall.)

Alas, math will mot finish itself so I must fly like the wind! Er, hobble like a wheezy breeze.

Cheshire Clocks,
-Hannah

Worship?

(I really like this picture. To me this says worship. Just look at their faces! They look so moved...)
The question on my mind today:

"What is Worship?"

The Dictionary says:

–noun

1.

reverent honor and homage paid to god or a sacredpersonage, or to any object regarded as sacred.

2.

formal or ceremonious rendering of such honor and homage:They attended worship this morning.

3.

adoring reverence or regard: excessive worship of businesssuccess.

4.

the object of adoring reverence or regard.

Or,

a feeling of profound love and admiration

Almost two years ago now I choreographed and performed a worship dance for my church to the song "My Redeemer Lives". My mom and I began preparing more songs with other women from my church, about one dance a month. On Sunday mornings I dance in the front and a little to the side of the congregation while my mom pushes a handicapped boy named Jesse in his wheelchair.

Dancing on during Sunday worship service was a struggle for me, still is. The idea of dancing from the heart, not thinking it out and choreographing it first, intimidated me. I've always been a people pleaser, so truly letting go and dancing while an entire congregation of people watched me? Terrifying. Still, I dance.

For several months now, I've felt so awkward and uncomfortable dancing. When I examine my heart attitude and reasons for dancing, they aren't what I'd hoped for. When I was forming my first dance, it wasn't because I expected to perform it for my church. It was because I felt moved to dance for God, I wanted to seek him and glorify him through song and movement. I wanted to worship him, alone in my basement. My heart was in the right place.

The reason why I dance for my church, I've come to see, wasn't as much to please God as it was to please my mom. I wanted to meet her expectations, make her proud by dancing during church. I said it was for God, yet now I question if that was(is) my truest motivation?

So what do I do? Do I stop dancing, take a break to meditate on God and try to return to the true heart of worship?

Am I truly worshiping?

Confused,

~Hannah Hoo