Dancing With God
NOTE: Janis Whatford is a valued member of the Biblical Living Center team. Her reflection offers a gentle and honest glimpse into the life of a biblical counselor who is also learning to receive the comfort of Christ. As 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 reminds us, the Lord meets us in our affliction so that we may comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from Him. Janis writes from that place of humble dependence—serving others not from a position of perfection, but from a life continually being shaped by God’s mercy and grace. Our payer is that you are bless by her reflections and that we can put forth more content from Janis in the future.
Today I realized that the paralysis of my mind is slowly giving way to something unexpected. I am learning to dance again with God after a long season of suffering loss that led to profound grief. This awareness came about innocently enough when a caring biblical overseer simply asked me, “how are you doing?”. This person knows I have been growing with God through these personal trials, and he is learning how my idiosyncrasies are expressed when my mind shuts down in what feels like mental paralysis. As I continue this journey, I am also learning how to accept and adapt to these lasting quirks that God is walking me through personally and in the counseling room with others.
Today, in a place of invulnerability, I stopped to reflect about where I am with God. Not yesterday and not tomorrow, but today. “I am feeling safe”, I said to my soul. “I am looking forward to seeing more of the goodness of God’s assurance of grace both in my family’s situation and in the peoples lives I meet in the counseling room. God is good. Looking back, I can see how His tender mercies and living strictly on daily manna has restored my faith in my Fathers faithfulness which has renewed my hope even though my family’s loss remains unchanged”.
And I responded to the question asked of me with, “the paralysis of my mind is losing its grip, and I am beginning to experience comfort dancing with God. What this means to me is that I am learning to trust He is leading my heart more than my mind both in my personal life and in the counseling room. As a kind of ‘surprised by joy” moment, I can see He is leading both of us in the counseling room in how to dance with Him, in and through life situations which He predestined His glory to shine through”.
As I practice being a graceful dance partner to my Lord’s arrangements, I am learning how to balance being a disciplined student who learns about these profound relational problems that attempt to separate the love of God from our hearts while being a daughter who rests and relies on His grace to provide the answers we seek from Him”.
So how am I today? My trust and my faith in God’s providential work within my own life trials is beginning to flow to enable me to follow His lead rather than resist where He chooses to take me. My hope is renewed in the counseling room after people share what is hard for them, and my heart leaps like John the Baptist did in his mother’s womb when Jesus was near. We are blessed, those of us who mourn because our one God who expresses Himself in three Persons comforts us well. Somehow, through the difficult work of grieving, lamenting and crying out in my heart to our Father, I have come out on the other side with a changed heart. Though my circumstances have not changed, I have learned to rest in His peace despite
The ‘dance partner’ analogy resonates in how I see the working of our Lord’s peace growing me in a way this world could never. When I now read Ephesian chapters 1-2, I readily believe this is who I am, God’s dance partner, and the same is true for you. He chose us before the foundation of the world. He sent His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to save us from the suffering and consequences of sin. Jesus restored our peace with His Father who has become our Father. He sent His Spirit to move within our body because He knows we cannot overcome evil through our own finite wisdom or strength – but He can because He is Lord over all creation. We are not our own, we are His. God has chosen to work in and through our suffering to restore and recreate who we truly are in Christs finished work on the cross through His gift of grace.
This is love. This is God’s love that took me through a frightening experience. Today I can see Him holding onto me, as I hold onto Him closer and a bit looser to sway and not stiffen where He leads me. My heart has changed because I have come to love His love more than I love protecting myself from it. It is hard work to be open and to allow our emotions to communicate what our soul is grieving. It is even harder to invite God or others into this raw space we would rather cognitively control with behaviour modifications. Yet it is our hearts that the Lord Jesus died for. And it is our hearts that He refuses to leave unfinished.
So now let me ask you the same thoughtful question that was genuinely asked of me. “How are you doing?”. “What dance has our Father graciously extended His hand to you to take hold of?”. “What hope is He calling you to embrace?”. I pray, “that the eyes of your heart be enlightened in order for you to know the hope to which He has called you” (Eph 1:8).