Living En Pointe - Sara Kerr

Dance is like riding a bike; once you learn how to turn, you never forget. It has been nearly a decade since I last stepped foot on the dance floor, but I remember this feeling like it was yesterday. I remember the pointe shoes, the satin wrapped around my feet, the ribbon lacing up my leg, the perfect bow I had to tie, then tuck in...the way it felt to have all my weight on my toes... yes, similar to how it feels to have all the weight on your shoulders.

Now my pointe shoes are in a box as I train to become a life coach. A helpful analogy occurred to me with a client yesterday. We were discussing the hardship of finding balance between work and home life. The lead counselor, Bradley, said, “If you think about it, ballerinas are always en pointe, doing turns and having to maintain their balance. When they lose their balance, they just keep making corrections to maintain it.” In that moment it brought back memories of being that ballerina and what all ballerinas know: it isn’t just about balance and making corrections when you’re doing turns on the dance floor, it’s about choosing a stationary point and holding your focus there.

As dancers, we are taught many things from balance, to corrections, to maintaining focus. When you see a ballerina doing turns or pirouettes on stage, do you ever notice how her head whips around then her body follows? That is because ballerinas use a focal point in the direction we are needing to go; and as we turn, we whip our heads around to maintain that focus. Our bodies just follow where our head is leading. 

I wonder if this can be applied to the balancing act of life. Maybe God not only wants us to make the corrections when we are feeling unbalanced in life, but he also wants us to maintain our focus on him so we can hold ourselves upright and steady. I think that God was trying to speak to me yesterday when I had this realization during the session. I mean that is not anything new, he speaks to me often, and especially during sessions that I am observing. But this really resonated with everything I am experiencing lately, from being a full-time wife, mom, employee, and friend, to going to school part-time, all while interning to be a life coach! It can be difficult to balance it all, especially in a way that I am the best version of myself for everyone around me at any given time. So maybe it isn’t just about balancing everything, maybe it is also about making sure my focus is always on my creator, the one that gave me all these blessings and opportunities. If I can set my focus on him and what he wants for me, then the rest will just fall into place. If my head is focused on him, my heart and soul will follow. If I am doing my dance across the stage of life and I start to lose balance, it is probably because I have lost focus and forgotten that God carries the weight for me. If he carries the weight, then why would we take our focus off of him? 

All this said, I challenge you to look at all the circumstances that could be weighing you down and causing you to be fearful and lose balance. Look at them as an opportunity to refocus on the one that carries it all for you and live by Psalm 123:2 which says,  “... our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.” I think that we could all agree that it usually isn’t just putting faith over fear, it is choosing to no longer require proof to have faith, and seeing God for who he is his in our lives. 

Refocus, prep, balance, make corrections, do this dance of life. God made you to dance through life; not to fall.