One of my Favorite Stories!!

So I was super pumped because the Lord really wanted dance to be a big part of Blakely. It amazed me because the Lord provided so many times for us to lead dance with the older girls, younger girls, and even the boys! It brought me soooo much joy! We taught them dances to worship songs, line dances and dances from Restoration (our praise and worship dance performance in April). In my cabin alone, there were several girls who were dancers. I had such cool opportunities to teach these girls about God's heart for dance and His purposes for dancers! We also had the opportunity with all the girls to talk about God's desire to worship Him with our passions. It was absolutely wonderful and one of the girls, Maggy, sent me a text yesterday telling me that she danced all day to praise and worship music!!!! She told me she didn't want to leave the music, so she turned on the Christian music channel on all of the TVs in the house! It was so wonderful to hear that the Lord made a huge impact in her heart. My heart was to teach these dancers and all of the campers that God created them to expereince intimacy with Him through dance and through their passions They seemed to really soak it in!!

On the last full day, a little 8 year old girl came up to me and I asked her if she wanted to dance for Jesus with me. She shook her head. I then asked her: "Do you know why we dance for Jesus?" She didn't know and so I told her about some of the things I had just learned. In Zephaniah 3:17, it says "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." The hebrew word used for this rejoice, is the word giyl. Giyl means "to spin violently under the influence of a wild emotion." When I told Samantha that Jesus spins violently under the influence of a wild emotion over her, her eyes got HUGE! I then asked her if she wanted to go spin for Jesus, just like He spins over us and she got really, really excited!

Several of the younger girls! Samantha is on the top left!! :0)

We went and danced around the outside Chapel and I have never heard a more joyful laugh! I asked her if she could see Jesus dancing over her and she said yes with a big smile on her face!! We danced around for a long time, spinning and jumping and skipping. Later on, I got a picture of us walking down the aisle in wedding dresses. I asked her if she had ever imagined herself in a princess dress or a wedding dress and she said yes. I told her to picture herself in a dress like that now and that we were going to walk down the aisle and Jesus was at the end. When we got to the end, I was in my own world and lifted up my hands to Jesus and when I looked down, Samantha was doing the same thing. I told her, Jesus is reaching out his hand to you and is asking you to dance. We both took His hand and danced. My iPod was on random, and this whole time the song "Beloved" by Tenth Avenue North was playing. This song is essentially Christ's wedding vows to us! It was absolutely beautiful!

After we were done dancing, I asked Samantha what her dress looked like. She said "It was white with pink hearts! :0)" I then asked her what Jesus did when we got to the end of the aisle. She said "He put His soul in me and He put His heart in me!" Trying to hold back tears in my eyes, I asked her, did Jesus say anything to you? She said, "Yes! He said thank you for praying to me and loving me." My heart absolutely melted! I was absolutely amazed by the Lord and the intimacy that He just allowed this 8 year old to have with Him through dance!! WOW!!!!!!!!!