A Dancer

The most mesmerizing thing about a dancer is the combination of grace and strength; beauty and calm draped over determination and control. Handling the pull of gravity, the pressure to fall and yet, remain steadfast is hard enough, but to make it look effortless is true skill.

Looking back on tough stuff, I want to know I handled the mess with grace. Rather than shaking my fist at God, I ran to Him and allowed Him to hold me. It's in those moments of weakness, God became strong in me.

We look at people who seem to have it all together and wonder at their secret. Are they faking it, perhaps? Or, like a skilled dancer, have they found the ability to live in the tension between vulnerability & determination. Under pressure they run to the only one who is strong enough to uphold them during the storm. It's His strength we see, and their ability to lean on the grace allows them to be graceful too. I pray someday that His grace and strength, have become my defining markers.

~ Shelby

You Failed

That's about the worst thing someone could say to me. Not "you're ugly" or "you're stupid", the worst is failure.

When I operate out of this lie, the results are ugly! Defensiveness, because I can't afford to be wrong. Blaming others, because then it's their problem, not mine. Depression because when I fail, I don't deserve to be trusted, or worse I don't deserve love. 

Failure becomes a life killer, because we forget that God loved us in our failure.

I fail, and it's ok. You fail and you're loved.


Failure is something I still avoid like the plague, but when I tell myself the truth, that God's love doesn't change for me whether I hit a home run or flop - I can rest.

The hardest thing to do after we fail is to get back up. But God's love gives me courage. The truth is, we are ok when we fail. We're loved and we'll be ok tomorrow, when we fail again.

~ Shelby

Choose Life

Everything within me fights this. Our entire world is made up of efforts to deny it. But after years of therapy, an eating disorder and some other falls and searing pains along the way, everything in my life, and likely yours, proves this true: life is hard. And that is an understatement. 

My friend who lost her father too soon, my husband whose sister died at 15, young girls sold into sex, people who I love were abused, and the list goes on. Life is so incredibly tragic that truth seems a trite response...

We are safe, secure as this little child, when we cling to God, who is big enough to give us life out of all this mess. Hope out of the darkness, comfort in grief & truth rather than lies. This lie, I choose to see it for what it is...fear. 

Fear that someone I love will die.

That my heart will be ripped out and trampled.

Fear that dreams remain unfulfilled.

But Truth allows us to choose life.

A life worth living.

~Shelby

Farther Along

This is not perfect.
A little wobbly on my feet.
Legs a little bent.
Jumps are really hops.
Yet, I'm farther along in understanding dance than I have ever been.

When choreographing, just like any other art, you live with it, breathe it, sleep it and carry it around with you for a long time. It becomes a part of you that can drive you crazy, or give you strength. This song and this dance represent and mean so much to me, on so many levels, that go way beyond dance; a few imperfections mean less than they used to.

I'm starting to realize how art parallels life. And we can take heart when things don't go as planned. We'll understand that it was the living, breathing and sweat of the process that gives us joy and glimpses of real truth, beyond what the end result had ever promised.

Farther Along from Shelby Lynn on Vimeo.

~Shelby

Only Truth

There are things that I cannot express, that I wish I could make you understand. But I'm unable to put comprehension into your mind of something that is so profound it makes me weep. 

Some days, I literally have to dance around in my living room because of this truth.

"...heaven filled me with more than enough..." is a line from a song I recently choreographed a dance to (hoping to post here soon!). It describes perfectly my reaction to this truth:

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

I am more than weak most of the time. My feet limit me, my insecurities box me in, and our vulnerabilities separate us. God sees the lies you're believing, whatever is swimming in your head right now and messing you up. And He sees...
His grace
His sufficiency
His power
His perfection

Thank you Jesus
~ Shelby

You're "On"

Oh man do I think I'm smart. Somedays I sit up in my chair at work, my back straight, and I just know the words coming out of my mouth are brilliant. Ha! It's even worse when life is tough. Because I know the Creator of the Universe, I feel this pressure to have secret insight into how He works. Unfortunately I rarely understand His plans, so I end up frustrated, or feeling like I've failed.

But really, I know nothing, and that's what scares me. The closer I get to Jesus, the more I am struck at how His plans are greater, bigger, and often more confusing than mine. I can plan, prepare and study myself until I know it all, but I don't know HIM. He...Jesus...God...is the one that I need to know if there's hope of me saying anything insightful or compassionate or true.

Now that's truth.

~Shelby

Thankful

When my heart hurts it helps to remember the good...

A husband who's been in my life 10 years, and who I've shared a name with for nearly 5.

The truth that I run to, it's the love letter from my Savior Jesus

Heat, it's keeps my toes from being purple

Tears, they remind me I'm feeling instead of shutting myself off from pain

A friend who lets me tell her all the good and bad of my life...and her husband who put a spare tire on my car, cause I had a flat.

The sweet man who got out of his car, at a stoplight, in the rain...to tell me I had a flat

Music to match my emotions and remind me that God is big enough

Peppermint Mocha Brownies

~ Shelby