dancing with the father

 '...and the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music.' 
1 Samuel 18:6


i love to dance, and when i nail a movement i get excited and tend to get butterflies in my tummy. i want to keep doing it over and over again because i love moving my body in the correct way. why do i love dancing though? walking is moving as well, and i don't love that so much. doing sit-ups is moving, and i don't get tingling excitement after i finish them. i realised, mid lesson, why i love dancing. it's because there's something about moving your body, combined with music, may just be one of the things that we were created for. 
now, i know that not everyone can dance. i remember a friend telling me a few weeks ago that he knew that dancing was definitely not what he was good at. i had a giggle, but he's an amazing musician and his talent made me very jealous. but, whether you're good at it or not, everyone can dance before the lord. 
there's something exciting about having music turned up so loud until you are just so completely enveloped by it that you move unconsciously without even thinking about what you are doing, in front of nobody but god. there's those moments when you find yourself looking like a complete idiot while dancing in the middle of a deserted park with music booming so loudly in your ears that you couldn't even hear a bomb drop and having no-one see you but god. i have found myself in this situation numerous times, and its times like this that i feel so close to god. like i could almost touch him. it is so exciting.
but i am not the only one who has figured this out. david, a psalmist and possibly one of the most creative people that ever walked this earth, also discovered that meeting god through music and dancing is perhaps one of the most real ways to meet him. much to his wife's dismay, he spent hours of his time meeting god through movement without caring what anybody else thought of him. (although, i suspect, in his old age he began to care less what people think of him.) but get this, god said it 'pleased' him! it pleases god when we dance with him! i know we feel like fools, but god delights in it! 
i encourage you, if you feel like you can connect with god through dancing or movement, do it. spend some time dancing with your father in heaven.


love oliveanddaisy xx

girl time

hey there!
you know what i've been loving recently? being a girl. its fabulous. i've decided that spending quality time with your gal pals may just be one of the most important things in a girls life. i go to an all girls school, so i am always seeing my friends, but if you think about it, how much do you actually talk? often it's only the old, 'hello, talk to you soon' thing, but how often do we take a lot of time out to just be girls and relish in each other's presence?
i know that this is something that i don't do a lot. this past few weeks, especially having school holidays, i have really focused on trying to spend quality time with as many people as i could. i am an extrovert by nature, so i had some practice listening to people rather than just talk talk talking. my best friends and i have become so much closer to each other and i have reconnected with people that i don't see as often as i probably would like to. i'm sure this is the same for guys as well. we all need deep connections with each other. so, let's try it! this week, try talking to someone for a whole hour. set aside some time to go deep into each others lives. often it will come back to god, which is awesome. we all have things to encourage, share and inspire each other with, so let's give it a go!
the bible tells us about how important it is to do life with one another. one of the first things god ever mentions is, 'it's not good for man to be alone.' we are made as relational beings, in the image of our relational god. all through his life, jesus was surrounded by twelve people with whom he 'did life with'.  i think it's about time we turned off facebook and caught up for a coffee, so that we can delve deeper into our relationships with each other and release our relational side.
*prayer for this week* - that we would form deeper and stronger relationships with each other so that we are fulfilling our purpose as relational beings, and that we might be quick to listen and slow to speak when communicating with others.

i hope you find this a rewarding week!
love oliveanddaisy xx