Our Little Ballerina

The photos above are of Lydia getting ready for her first ballet recital. She's a skunk--one of the forest creatures of Narnia in The Lion, The Witch, and the The Wardrobe. Ballet has been a growing experience for Lydia this year. For months, she hated ballet. She didn't like having to repeat the same steps over and over again. She didn't like the stretches. Most of all, she didn't like having to FOCUS for an hour! When spring came and her class joined the older ballet classes to prepare for the recital, she found something else she didn't like: the teenage boys her teacher had recruited to play the parts of Peter and Edmund. There were quiet a few "Come to Jesus" meetings at our house over going to ballet during those weeks! It wasn't long, though, until Lydia became very insistent about going to ballet. She began to count the days until her next practice. When Tuesday would come and I reminded her it was her "ballet day," she got so excited! What changed? I'll never really know, but I think it was the realization that every monotonous stretch or boring repitition could eventually be put together to tell a fascinating story. All of a sudden, she got to be a part of something big, exciting, and fun! I've wondered in the past few days if I can learn something from my little ballerina. So many days my life feels like a repitition of the same tasks--over and over and over. I wonder at the end of the day if I've accomplished anything more than feeding children and folding laundry. But every once in a while, I look at my children and realize that, even in seemingly meaningless work, God is allowing me to be a part of three fascinating stories.

I'm proud of Lydia. Not only because she did a fantastic job at her recital, but also because she kept going through fears and frustrations to find something that she has truly loved doing.