ballet slippers and juicy juice

When I was in a little kid, I could count on a specific weekly outing: dance class.

Picture yourself as a four or five year old. Once a week, you’d pile into the big Honda minivan with your leotard and little pink skirt on, blonde little whisps of hair somehow pulled back into a scrunchie, ballet slippers in hand, and probably a Juicy Juice for the ride. At class, you simply follow the leader: what teacher does, you do. Occasionally you’ll have to recall a previous lesson and built upon that, but your teacher and fellow dancers are always there to help you figure it out. Then at the end, never fail, you always get a few minutes of free time to leap and twirl and spin and play with all of your friends at your heart’s content.

You have a vague idea that all of these weekly get-togethers are leading up to a main event (your teacher keeps saying the words “spring concert,” whatever that means), but at the moment, all you’re interested in is leaping and twirling and spinning and playing, occasionally complaining to teacher that you stubbed your toe or you don’t like your hair like this or your skirt got untied or the Juicy Juice you spilled on yourself in the car makes your leotard look less pretty than everyone else’s. Which is okay. Because you’re four.

After class, you pile into the minivan again, forgetting a few important items that mom faithfully scoops up and brings along, and you entertain yourself in the back seat by watching all the pretty trees and signs go by. Eventually, you see that the car’s in the garage. You press the little automatic door opener button, rush into the house, and say hello to the fam’s not-so-little chocolate lab, Tootsie.

Ah, how blissful life is when you’re four.

Now that I’m nearly 24, I can better appreciate all the effort that went into making those weekly outings to dance class actually possible. First, mom did a bunch of research to find the best dance class for four-year-olds in all of Kingwood, work around her and your schedules to find the perfect time, and buy specific types of leotard, skirt, and ballet flats in specific colors and in specific sizes to make certain that you matched the rest of your class. She needed to make sure Jenn, my sister, was taken care of during that hour that she was out, that gas was in the car, Juicy Juices were in the fridge, I was washed and decent, dinner wasn’t going to burn when we were away, and Tootsie had some plaything to keep her occupied while we were away so she wouldn’t chew up the entire house (again). She must remember her keys, license, vehicle registration, cell phone, book, purse, extra quarters in case I wanted something from the vending machine, glasses, shoes, makeup, that little volunteer form that my teacher needed filled out. Once in the car, she’d navigate around the hundreds of other people also trying to get somewhere at 5 o’clock with driving skills perfected after 10+ years behind the wheel. There were bills to be paid and broken appliances to fix, but she still loved bringing me to dance.

At the dance studio, a few someones woke up early that morning to pay the electric and water bill, sweep the floors, unlock the doors, clean the bathrooms, Windex the mirrors, and fix the broken sprinklers. My dance teacher had spent the week preparing an entire lesson for us, praying that we’d actually remember what she’d spent so much time choreographing for the dance studio’s annual spring concert. The costumes were back-ordered, she was low on parent volunteers for the big night, there was some problem with rental contract for the concert hall, and her daughter just brought home a C in biology, but she still loved to watch us dance.

Sometimes it’s just easier to be a four-year-old.

We’ve been talking a lot about the difference between faith and belief in church and Bible study this week, and here’s my very simplified, “working” conclusion: belief is the knowledge that something is true, and faith is holding onto something with so much assurance and conviction that you can act upon your belief that that something is true.

Jesus teaches us to have faith like a child. So in reality, that means that I even though God wants us to be mature Christians, not shy away from the world’s problems, go deep in relationships, and make sacrifices on the behalf of others, we can still dance in the trust that he is good. He wants us to trust that he’s got us in the palm of his hand, he reconciles all things, and he already won.

But here on my walk to work, I see 8-year-old children who should be in school pushing carts full of plastic bottles and aluminum cans that they dug out of the trash dumps to sell for next to nothing. I see and hear domestic and child abuse on my street. I see the debilitating effects of a whole generation who was not taught how to read or write. I see girls trying to get free of the sex trade but having to go back again and again because it’s the best form of support they can provide for their families. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like Jesus has already won.

Seeing the 24-year-old bigger picture is hard…and sometimes I don’t know if I can keep standing, much less dancing and twirling and playing in my tutu.

When I was four, running out of the grape flavor of Juicy Juice was a big deal. All I saw was that the fridge didn’t have any – we only had orange juice. Little did I know that there was a shortage of grapes that season or the truck that carries Juicy Juice to HEB got a flat tire somewhere near Dallas and didn’t make it to the grocery store in time to restock the previous day. I was just upset because I saw I wasn’t going to get my grape Juicy Juice that day.

I may be 20 years older, but I still get miffed when I don’t get my grape Juicy Juice. I’m discouraged when I don’t see instant results in my work or relationships don’t happen overnight. I’m frustrated when I can’t see how my impact here is so little compared with what God-sized tasks need to be done. I’m annoyed when the perfect apartment doesn’t land neatly in my lap after only a few weeks of searching. I feel helpless in the midst of all of the brokenness I see in Phnom Penh. I’m upset when I don’t get my grape Juicy Juice.

So here’s the thing: with mature belief and faith like a child, I can follow the leader at dance class despite all the mess that I see in Cambodia, delighting in what God delights in, twirling when Jesus twirls. When I forget what Jesus taught me last week, because I will (already have?), Jesus is patient – I’ll learn it again, in a new and different way this time. So even when we complain about our Juicy Juice, ask silly questions, don’t keep with the beat, get frustrated with our own blunderings, and don’t know how we’ll ever be ready for that spring concert, it’s okay. Just like mom and my dance teacher, God just wants us to dance.