Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Isaiah 64:8
My favorite part of being a ballet dancer was when the opportunity arose to work with a partner. There’s nothing like performing a pas de deux where you get to be lifted high into the air, be held just perfectly on balance on the tip of your pointe shoe during a pirouette, and have someone out onstage with you. The experience is indescribable, and it’s a beautiful team effort. When dancing with a partner, someone has to take the lead—and it’s always the male dancer. Occasionally I unintentionally tried to take the lead out of sheer panic or fear or because it felt easier. Doing so created tension because we were not dancing in sync. We were off the music or just not connecting. Our movement became restrictive and choppy. It just didn’t flow. As difficult as it is, the female dancer has to let go of leading and allow the male dancer to lead in order for their movement to flow beautifully. For her, a letting go has to happen.
As we give ourselves permission to dream and follow after the desires God places in our hearts, there is a letting go that has to happen in our hearts. We too must let go of leading. God is trying to lead us to His dreams for us, but we tend to fight His guidance because it’s our natural inclination to do so. But He longs for us to let go and surrender to His lead.
Taking Your Grip off Your Dreams
Instead of striving with an “I am determined to make this happen” attitude, God longs for us to dream with a surrendered heart, saying, “Whatever You want, God.” The first option—striving on our own—puts our dreams on our own two shoulders. The outcome rests on us. We go to extremes to conquer our dreams, causing wear and tear on our hearts as we strive, stress, and strategize to make them happen. We try to manipulate things, we take the reins of our own lives, and we leave God out. The problem with holding on too tightly to our dreams is that they can become a stronghold in our lives. Then when those dreams don’t come true, we are emotionally wrecked because that dream had become our very life.
The other option is realizing that dreaming requires a surrendered heart. It means taking our grip off our dreams so God has room to work. Surrendering protects our hearts when our dreams don’t go as planned because we have grounded our lives in the Dream-Giver rather than the dream. In surrendering, we put our dreams in God’s capable hands. Through the process, we learn there are no other hands we would rather lay our dreams in than His. Surrendering means we let God be in control and leave the outcome up to Him.
Once we’ve taken that step of surrendering our dreams, we begin a dance of trust. Some days we will truly feel at peace, trusting that God is at work behind the scenes. But other days we will lose our footing, seemingly unable to get our emotions in line with surrendering. Those days feel cloudy, as if our faith in God is fogged up by questions and doubt. We tend to be hard on ourselves on those days because we think we should be able to trust God and be at peace, but remember: it’s a dance. Swaying back and forth between trust and doubt is how our faith grows. Getting to that place of true peace can mean two steps of faith forward and one seed of doubt backward. But as we sway through this dance of growing in our faith, God brings us to a place where we deeply believe that His will and His ways are best. Then we can take our grip off our dreams and trust His lead. Surrendering our dreams means surrendering not only the outcome of our dreaming journeys but also the road map to getting there. It means trusting Him with every detour, delay, and U-turn along the way. When we don’t have a choke hold on our dreams, our lives are free to flow in the beautiful grace of God’s direction.
Remaining Flexible
Another aspect of surrendering to His lead is remaining flexible. A ballet dancer spends a lot of time stretching her body—splits and hamstring and calf stretches. She stretches to protect her muscles from injury and to enable her to move her body from one extreme angle and position to another. Surrendering to God’s lead means remaining flexible with regard to God’s ways and God’s timing as He stretches our hearts to trust His lead.
When I receive emails from my blog readers, particularly from young, aspiring ballet dancers (and often their caring parents), their questions usually revolve around the same topic: They really want their dreams of dancing professionally to come true, so they are doing everything in their power to make it happen—taking extra ballet classes and private lessons, losing weight in extreme ways to fit the ballerina body mold, growing competitive with their fellow dancers. Their hearts are set on their dreams, and they are fixated on pursuing them. But they email me in frustration because obstacles are popping up and their dreams are just not coming true. They ask me, “Why would God lay a dream on my heart that’s looking like it is not going to happen?” I’ve been right there in their pointe shoes, feeling those same feelings.
The decision to dance or not to dance after the birth of each of my babies was never a simple or easy decision. I often wished God would send me an email to make the answer ultra clear! Navigating this decision felt like this dance of tug-of-war within my heart, but God always faithfully guided me.
After my second son, Cooper, was born, I felt conflicted about whether to return to ballet. Navigating that decision was an emotional process for me as a young mom because while I loved dancing, I loved being a mom too. My heart felt torn in two different directions. I didn’t know if it was possible to juggle dancing well with two kiddos. After seeking the Lord about it over a period of nearly a year, I truly felt like He gave me the green light to dance! I was about thirty years old and dancing for a smaller company, so I thought it was time to really, really go for it—to work as hard as I could, dance big, be committed, and dance my heart out. A dancer’s career can be quite short compared to other occupations. As I entered my thirties, I knew my dancing clock was ticking, so I was relieved to finally make the decision and get back to dancing. I had a cross-training plan in place so I could be at my best physically for the strenuous rehearsals and performances ahead. All gung ho, I was ready to do whatever it took to reach my goal of becoming the best dancer I could possibly be. I was ready!
After finally feeling at peace about being a mom and a dancer, I entered the ballet studio for the first day of our new season. Everyone in the ballet company was excited to start rehearsals and there was no denying the energy in the room as we warmed up at the barre in class that day. A fresh season gave everyone a fresh start, and I could tell we were all ready to dance. My heart was beating with joy, and I enjoyed class a little more than usual because I was simply so excited. But after class something out of the ordinary happened. Typically after class we would take a short five-minute break and then return to the studio for rehearsal. But something was off that day, because instead of starting rehearsal, we were asked to gather together and sit down. A meeting like this was a rarity in our company. I can remember how quiet the room grew as we each slipped on our warm-ups and gathered around. We were gently given the news that the company was having serious financial problems. Our season would be cut down to only a few Nutcracker shows rather than our whole season, and the future of the company looked quite grim. The artistic team basically told us to go home for two months until Nutcracker rehearsals began and to not count on the company being around much longer after that. I was one of the veterans who had been dancing with the company for years, but a handful of others were beginning their very first day as professional dancers. For all of us, this news was devastating.
Like I mentioned earlier, Brian and I had no plans of moving to a new city to follow my dancing dream. My heart sank. Tears flowed. My dream was heading down the drain. Just a short time earlier I had been convinced that God had prepared my heart to really go for it in my dancing. In the moments after hearing that disappointing news, though, an unexpected peace washed over me. I felt this peaceful shift of the winds of my life changing. I felt a giving up, a letting go, an Okay, God, You lead; I can’t figure this out. In my angst, I felt carried. God’s presence seemed closer as I let go of leading my life, and my boys’ company over the next few weeks felt like a soothing balm to my dreaming heart.
I had to let that dream of dancing full-time go, and it was harder than I can describe. God softened the blow when, two months later, I found out I was expecting my third son, and I actually danced in The Nutcracker while pregnant. It was quite an adventure battling morning sickness while dancing the role of the Dew Drop Fairy, but it was a special time of learning to see that God’s plans are greater than my own. My heart was broken from one dream crashing, but God swept me up off my feet with a better plan. I learned to ride the waves of His grace. I learned that I don’t want to get off the ship of His lead, His plans, and His dreams for my life, because even though I cannot always see it, His dreams for me will bring more joy than my own plans ever could. So I often encourage young aspiring dancers to be flexible, to be willing to dance or not to dance. It’s in that place of flexibility in our dream chasing that God meets us with His divine plans for our lives.
Letting God Take the Lead
We have to be willing to let go of steering our lives and let God lead. He wants in on our dreams. I cannot tell you whether your dreams will come true, but I can tell you that if you invite Jesus into the process and look to Him first and foremost, leaning on Him, He will guide you to the dreams you were made for.
Sometimes I feel the itch to steer my own life. My fleshly desires tempt me to take the lead. I see a dream in front of me, and I just want that dream. But things aren’t that simple. I have to remind myself that, yes, nothing is impossible with God but also that His plans for me are for my good. I’m often confronted with the reality that sometimes the dreams I see in front of me—my ideas—aren’t for my good. Oh, they’re appealing in the world’s eyes, but something deep inside me is throwing out a red flag. I choose to believe that it’s the Spirit steering. Often, I want to ignore Him, but when I remember He has my very best interests in mind, I begin to loosen my grip.
At times I have really had my heart set on a specific dream. The angst of the wanting often left me empty-hearted. When our hearts get attached to a dream, we need to bring it to the One who wants to steer our lives. Otherwise, we dream and we chase and we manipulate our lives in ways that are harmful to our dreaming hearts. Sweet one, God knows what is best for you. He knows the path you need to be on and the one you should avoid. I know how disheartening it can feel when it seems that your dreams and God’s dreams for you don’t match up. It can feel like a death to self and to your own dreaming heart to lay down those dreams at His feet. But the most amazing transaction happens when we let our ideals and dreams go and trade them in for His plans for our lives. Peace. Know today that God’s dreams for you are for your very best and for His glory. When you finally lay down your dreams is when He picks you up with His beautiful plans for your life. Will you lay it all down today?
When I was dancing, I learned that although at times I couldn’t understand or see it, my ballet director really did have my best interests in mind, and he could see the whole picture of what the upcoming performance was supposed to look like. I would go about my dancing and rehearsing thinking I was doing pretty good, but he would stop me and gently point out things in my movement that were a little off. It was hard to take at times, but I noticed that when I embraced his vision, trusting he could see the dance as a whole, well, things went smoother. My movements looked cleaner and felt better. When I followed his lead, I was free to reach my potential in that particular role.
God sees things we don’t see. God sees the whole of your life with eyes of love, vision, and purpose. When we pull away from Him, we cannot step into His best for us. However, when we lean in to His vision, we move toward His plans for our lives. As we prioritize Him—His ways, His thoughts, His truth over our ways, our thoughts, and our opinions—we get to dance the adventure He designed for us.
Knowing When to Let Go of a Dream
Sometimes we keep chasing a dream that’s just not meant to be, which we figure out only as we seek Christ. But there is beauty in knowing when to let go of a dream. And when we do, we can find peace in knowing that although that dream’s not meant for us, the dreaming, the bringing it to God’s hands, the praying over it (which we’re going to talk about in the upcoming chapters) . . . all had a purpose. God used it to shape us, teach us, and bring us closer to the plans He had for us all along.
One dream I had to let go of was dancing in a big, prestigious ballet company like American Ballet Theater or Pacific Northwest Ballet. In the ballet world, there are big companies and smaller companies. The big ones have more dancers, more money, more extravagant productions, bigger audiences, and more performances. The smaller companies have fewer dancers, less money, fewer extravagant productions, smaller audiences, and fewer performances. Some dancers prefer bigger companies, while others like the size and feel of a smaller company. Finding a job as a professional ballerina is a difficult endeavor either way because companies can only have so many dancers. They are looking for a particular set of technical, physical, and professional standards. For a while, I had my heart set on those bigger companies. I auditioned for these companies but knew that being hired was a total long shot because I did not train in their schools. Most big ballet companies only hire dancers that have trained at their school for many years. In one rejection letter, I was told that while I exhibited beautiful legs, feet, and lines, the odds of making it into the company were not in my favor because I hadn’t trained in their school. They recommended that I search elsewhere for a dancing position. In another letter, I was told I was not a strong enough dancer. And another company simply told me there were no openings. The sting of rejection hurt.
I knew it was time to move on from my dream of dancing in a larger company. I could have chosen to keep prying my way in. I could have chosen to find a way, any way, in. I could have gone on a crash diet to better fit the ballerina mold or begged for a second chance. I could have gotten mad at everyone around me because I was frustrated about the entire situation. But none of those tactics would have worked. Instead, I had to come to terms with the truth dawning in my heart that even though I couldn’t see what God was doing, His plans for my life were better than the plans I had dreamed up for myself. As I surrendered to God’s lead, my dreaming heart seemed to settle into its home back in the sails of God’s lead.
It chokes me up to think about His plan, which I knew nothing about at the time, because it included becoming a wife to Brian and a mama to my three precious boys and dancing for a smaller company that would allow me the flexibility to be with my sons as much as possible. His plans also included this book you’re reading right now, which I honestly don’t think I would have felt the need to write had my dreams worked out the way I thought they should have. I would never go back and change a thing.
So I encourage you to hold your dreams up in trust to God and surrender to His lead. I know it’s scary. I know that sometimes it’s incredibly upsetting when your dream is not happening. I know it’s heartbreaking and confusing when you have to say goodbye to a dream. And I know it’s frustrating when the road ahead seems unclear. God sees it all. And He’s there for you, guiding you to His good plans for you. And He will get you there as you let go and let Him lead. Lean in to Him, dear one, and enjoy the ride. God will get you to where you need to be.
Prayer, Scripture, and Reflection
for Your Dreaming Heart
Amazing Lord, help me want to give You the dreams of my heart. Help me trust Your lead and believe Your plans for my life are far better than anything I could think up. And Lord, thank You that dreaming draws me closer to You. May my dreams make me fully dependent on You as I seek Your plans and Your heart for my life.
“Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5–6
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.” Matthew 6:33
1. Does it feel difficult at times to surrender your dreams to God? If so, why?
2. Which dreams seem appealing but deep down you know they aren’t God’s best for you?
3. Think seriously about your life for a moment. Have you been letting God lead your life or have you been taking the lead?
4. In what way have you attempted to make your dreams come true on your own?
5. What questions about your own dreaming journey could you bring to God today?
6. How do you feel about the thought that God’s dreams for your life are better than your plans?