Faithful Fridays ~ Servant.

Good afternoon, and happy Friday!  :)



Faithful Fridays is a weekly linky party hosted on my blog. I made it so that Christians could have one special day out of the week (Friday) to share something from their walk with Jesus on their blog. If you'd like to participate, write your post, grab the button from the Faithful Fridays page on my blog (so that it will link back here), and come link up at the bottom of this post! :)

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"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." -Mark 10:45


Have you ever stopped and thought about that?  Really thought about it?  It's dawned on me afresh lately just how humble Jesus was, just how much of a servant He made Himself in love.  Can you imagine?  God, coming down to the lowness of earth--the very lowest--and living out a very average human life--up until the last three years--in preparation for a horrible death.  And for what?  A world full of people who had turned from Him and would ignore, insult, deny, betray, bash, doubt, ridicule, scorn, beat, and eventually kill Him.  
And yet somehow, He loved them.  Marvelously.  Ferociously.  Sacrificially.  Genuinely.  His love is the kind of love you can take to the bank.  

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Jesus Christ:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death--even death on a cross!  
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." -Philippians 2:5-11



The Bible says that Jesus is basically the glue of everything in the world.  He is sustaining all things by his powerful word (Heberews 1:3).  He is the image of the inviible God, the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15).  In Him and for Him, all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible.  He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17).  Not to mention that He's the head of the church, the glorious groom that's coming for His bride, the church, with a major celebration to follow (Colossians 1:18).  To put it plainly, in everything, He has supremacy (Colossians 1:18).  

So Jesus is a pretty big deal, right?  

And yet at the supper table he takes on the position and the appearance of a servant, a common slave.  He kneels at the feet of every disciple and washes their dirty, dusty [man] feet.  

And here's the clincher: Jesus washed Judas' feet.  

Wham.  

I'm not sure why that never dawned on me before.  Perhaps I've heard the story so much that I've become numb to it.  But He knew.  He knew Judas.  The Bible tells us that God knows the heart, or "always knows a person's thoughts" (Acts 15:8).  Jesus knew full well that Judas had been sneaking money out of the money bag (John 12:6).  And He knew full well that Judas would be the one of His close group of followers that would betray Him with a kiss--a kiss that would lead to His death.

And yet He got down on His knees and washed Judas' feet, the perfect picture of humility, kneeling at the feet of, and loving, the man who was technically His enemy.  

"'A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another." -John 13:34

We all have enemies.  Not in the sense of them betraying us to death, of course.  But they're the ones that are always bringing us down.  Dragging us into the dirt.  Always making us feel insecure.  Always one-upping us.  Always getting under our skin.  Always ruining our days.  Always bringing out our worst sides.  
Thing is, Jesus loved those people.  He bled and died for them.  The lips that gave His kiss of betrayal were created by Jesus Himself.  The hands that arrested Him, dragged Him into interrogation, flogged Him, and nailed Him onto a cross were created and sustained and powered by Him.  He could have stopped it all at any time; called down armies of angels to slay all His attackers (Matthew 26:53).  But instead, He allowed it all to happen for a greater cause, because He. Loved. Them.  And He calls us to come follow Him and love the same kind of people in the same way--truly, genuinely, humbly, with the kind of love you can bank on.  
It's rough.  It's not the natural response to that kind of person, nor is it the easiest.  But that's what Jesus did, and if we're choosing to follow Him, we have no choice than to do otherwise.  
So today I dare you--no, to clarify, I dare myself--to try it, to have Jesus' mindset in our relationships with others.  You know the person (or people) I'm talking about, the one that makes you want to turn your head and walk away, or maybe on the flip side, walk over and smack them in the face; or maybe they just make you want to throw a fit and go hide in your bedroom.  We're humans; we do that.  But Jesus was a man, too, and He chose to love those kinds of people.  I want to have that same mindset in my relationships with others.  I want to follow His lead.  

{A Sweet Weekend)

Last weekend, my long-time, long-distance best friend came over and spent the weekend with us--she lives almost an hour away from us, so every time we get to be together, we squeal and hug each other at first sight and then make the most of our time!  :)

Now my Christina is getting all grown up, and she left for a summer college program right after she left our house.  *sniff sniff* They just grow up so fast.  ;)

So of course we had to have a photo shoot, and it was just too much fun.  We grabbed the camera, pointe shoes, and a shaky little chair and headed out to the fields.  Christina was able to use some of these for her senior photos, for which I was honored.  :)

The clouds were gorgeous that day.  (But not as gorgeous as Christina. :))

{I said something funny; she's adorable when she laughs.}

{Oh and her shoes are adorable.}

And then Christina took a turn behind the camera rather than in front of it....

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It was a super fun time with my long-distance bestie before she set out on her college adventure.  I can't wait to see how my favorite model continues to excel and pretty much just rock at life!  :)  

It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing.

Today marks a year and a month since I started taking regular swing dance lessons.  July fifth, 2013.  I had gone to a couple of dances before, but the classes were the official start for me.  I came out of my first class excited, happy, and a bit confused.  It was a challenge, for sure, going from completely independent, choreographed solo or group dances like tap, jazz, and ballet, to partner/social dances in which I essentially had no idea what a guy would throw at me next, and had to follow his lead and depend on his skills to show me what we were going to do next.  I sat at a table with my parents at Baskin Robbins after my first lesson and told them, "This is a completely different ballpark."

But oh, I was in love.


A year later, I'm even more in love with swing, and it's made an indelible mark on so many areas in my life--I'm listening to 40's music when I'm not in class because I've fallen in love with it.  I'm watching Lindy Hop professionals do their thing on YouTube every chance I get.   I'm trying out vintage hairstyles and looking for that perfect swingy, twirly dress (preferably with polka dots, of course).  I'm planning out when I can go swing dancing next.

I didn't know much about swing dancing when I came to that first class--I knew it was typically from the 40's.  I knew my grandma had done a little of it.  I knew a few names--Charleston, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug/East Coast swing.  I knew I'd be dancing with another person, and it could potentially be extremely awkward.  But I had stumbled across a video on YouTube of a swing dance flash mob at the Denver Airport, and I just knew, as a dancer does, that I had to do it.  So I delved into researching where I could learn to swing dance in my area--and living close to Memphis, it wasn't hard to find.


I'll tell you a secret: I'm not a "social" person.  50% introvert?  For sure.  Socially selective?  Yep.  Of course I don't dislike people, but sometimes I'm awkward and it's painful and being home recharges me.  And you know what?  Swing dancing is considered a social dance.  And whereas something like going to a party with a bunch of people I don't know just might be one of the most painfully awkward and unpleasant things I could imagine, I'm not sure I could love this "social dance" any more than I do now.  Maybe it's because dancing has always brought me out of my little shells.  I'm no socialite, but dancing makes me unwind, makes me have fun.  I can't hear music and not dance.  It brings spice to life.  I suppose it's similar to how I find it hard to share my heart and my stories verbally--but give me the pen and the paper and I'll show you my life story.


Swing dancing has always been a way to have fun and feed that love of dancing that's in my soul.  But it's slowly taught me other things, too.  I went through my first few months of swing dancing tense, a little knotted-up ball of nervousness half the time I was dancing.  I wanted to dance well and connect well with the people I was dancing with so badly, and I was hard on myself.  I did a lot of over-thinking.  In the few brief moments when I'd get into a really good dance, I'd open up and be my carefree self, but give me an awkward conversation or a messed-up dance move and I was a goner.  But I've slowly learned to relax; to be myself; to chill out and just be.  I'm learning to stop switching on my "I have to be socially acceptable" mode and to stop putting up my walls of robot politeness, to, instead, simply be the person I am when I walk into the room.  To enjoy it and enjoy the dance and enjoy the people.  Swing dancing has called me out of my comfort zone in many ways.  It continues to do so, and I love it.

Now I welcome the feeling of not knowing what's coming next in a dance.  It's exhilarating, exciting.  Listening and reacting to the music and my partner is a little adventure in its own.


I've fallen in love with a dance that I've realized could be danced by someone who could neither see nor hear; you don't have to see a person dance the steps and learn it from them or hear them give you instructions; they can take you by the hand and make you feel the dance, and I think that's beautiful.


I've fallen in love with a dance that I've realized reflects a relationship with God; as a follower, you can't really know exactly what's coming next.  You fly by the seat of your pants and you take it as it comes.  You trust your partner.  You let him lead.  You have to learn not to panic when something completely new and different and surprising happens, or when he leads you straight into it.  Much as in life, you have to make the decision to go along and make the best of it or else the dance--or life--will stink.  And so many times, just as I struggle with believing that God's still got me, I try to back-lead my partner or guess what he's going to do next. You know what that makes me?  A bad follower.  I'm learning to let him lead and to simply follow.


I was talking to a man the other day who told me, "I wish I had been swing dancing when I was fifteen."  He chuckled.  "I was doing stupid stuff...getting my head rammed into a pole.  I guess swing dancing just wasn't cool when I was a kid."  I laughed.  "Well, I've never really been cool, so...."


Maybe that's why.  Maybe it's that quirky, unique blast into the past that swing dancing provides.  It's not quite like any other dance, and for just a bit, you can almost set yourself in that time, almost like another world, where things were just a bit simpler and just a bit classier, even in the midst of a chaotic, upside-down time upset by war.  I love it.

Source

A little over a year after that first lesson, when I came out confused and exhilarated all at once, I'm still confused and exhilarated sometimes.  I've tried five different kinds of swing dancing, and Charleston & Lindy Hop are still my favorites.  I've fallen in love with another kind of dance.  I helped teach a swing class for the first time last week.  I've met new people and a bit of a new world has opened up for learning to express myself and be my own person, wherever I am and whoever I'm surrounded by.  I love it.  And I can't wait to see where the rest of this swingin' adventure's gonna take me.