Dancing the Pain Away

"What are you doing?" my husband asked me as he was busy getting ready for work today.

"I'm dancing. I'm dancing the pain away."

He just shook his head and smiled. I gave him a wave and I danced myself out of the bedroom and into the living room where my cd player was playing.

"Someone's coming, could this be him? No, I'm not the one, just Abraham. On Mt. Sinai, when you saw the ram, it was just a picture of the coming lamb . . ." were the words that I heard when I walked in the room.

I just kept dancing. Moving my arms back and forth, swaying my feet from side to side. As long as I kept myself focused on the words of the songs and moving to the rhythm that they were sung to, I was ok, the pain seemed a little further away.

It has been six weeks today since I had my shoulder surgery and as of today, I am still in a great deal of pain. Nights are the worst it seems for us shoulder surgery recoverees, and first thing in the morning is pretty bad too.

So, what do I do? I just put in my happy Christian music and I get busy moving. And as I keep busy moving, pretty soon my shoulder loosens up and I begin to feel a little bit better. Oh, the pain is still around, but it becomes more of a dull ache, rather than a raging storm.

And I notice that the longer I dance, the clearer my mind becomes and I am able to think about the day ahead. And as I start to think about something other than my pain, my body begins to loosen up and I am able to tend to my morning chores . . . like making beds, emptying the dishwasher, making coffee for my husband, getting in the shower myself.

You might be thinking that I am crazy to start my day out dancing the pain away . . . but I have come to the conclusion in the past six weeks that it is a whole lot better for me to begin my day trying to dance the pain away rather than gripe and complain about it which seems to invite it to stay.

Dancing my pain away is not a new thing in my life. It is something that I have been practicing for the past 25 years or so. Almost as soon as I became a Christian, it became my habit to play happy Christian music and dance whenever ANY kind of pain came my way.

In my early years as a Christian, I experienced a great amount of relationship pain in my marriage. When my children were older, I experienced the pain of worry as their mother. In the past 8 years that we have been in the ministry, there have been many painful times socially, emotionally and physically as well. And each time the pain comes around I'm reminded to bring my happy Christian music around too.

How does singing and dancing to happy Christian music help my body chase it's pain away? It helps because of WHO it brings into my life . . . and that WHO is the Holy Spirit . . . which is the comforting arm of God.

"And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;" Ephesians 5:18-20