Learning to Dance — Whatever the Weather

This is the season when I go to my trusty cellphone to check what the weather will look like today and even the days to come. We must do that if we’re planning a trip or just wondering whether we need to take a sweater or parka with us. I brought it all on this Leadership Summit that I’m at here in Hawkins, TX. The summit will be a blog for another day.

I’ve seen where within 12 hours how our temperature can drop 30 degrees. Just a couple of weeks ago, with the ice storm that hit Austin and other places, I went from a light jacket and when I exited my car a few minutes later, I shouted “Holy Tundra!” It felt like I walked into a freezer blowing icy winds and rain that became ice on trees that severely damaged trees all over Austin.

The weatherman called it a polar vortex! A polar vortex is when winter temperatures abruptly plunge to a brutally cold low and we’re shivering despite wearing thermal underwear and a down parka. The polar vortex is an atmospheric phenomenon of strong winds surrounding an extremely cold pocket of Arctic air that can travel far south, causing the temperature to plunge in places accustomed to having mild winters. That’s us, here in the South! Thousands went without electricity.

The weather – wherever we live, work and play – is subject to change daily. There will be extreme peaks of cold and heat and we can choose to sit out those times or we can celebrate and find the fun in those extremes. And in the same manner, when the winter and summer storms of life come, we can hunker down and just wait for them to pass. After all, who wants to go outside when it’s lightning and thundering and the winds are blowing 90 miles an hour? Or below freezing and risk getting frostbite?

In the winter – we groan about the cold, and in the summer we whine about the heat. Don’t you love it when you see kids, completely CARE-FREE, bundling up for winter fun, building snowmen, sledding, ice skating, or running out, dancing, and splashing in the rain? And don’t you love it when little kids play in the summer – not paying any attention to the heat – so much so, that we have to remind them to put on sunscreen?

I’ve figured it out. Life isn’t about being concerned and worried about the storms, waiting for the storms to pass, or the winter or summer to pass – or STUFF that comes our way to pass. It’s about embracing the journey and learning how to dance whatever season, or whatever the weather might be, and even while going through the storms of life.

I’ve been through some real snowstorms and downpours in my life, and I survived. In fact, this gal has become quite the accomplished “weather dancer”. I know how to bend, and not break; I know how to do the “quick step” and I know how to “slow dance”, and, best of all, I’ve learned to depend on my Dance Partner, and following His “lead”.

In case you’re wondering who my Dance Partner is —– He’s the ONE Who calms the storms and He’s the One, the Rock, Who created the dance and taught me to dance.

Matthew 7:25 “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on THE ROCK.”