The Next Step

Happy New Year!! It feels great to be sitting here composing my first post in the New Year, 2019! My heart is so filled with hope and excitement for this year. We all have goals we are hoping and working to achieve in the upcoming year. There are limitless podcasts, blog posts, and books written on the subject of setting smart goals and reaching them, but that's not what I want to visit with you about today. I want to have a heart to heart chat about "the next step." 

Goals and dreams are incredible and handled properly they accomplish great things. But has anyone ever been through a time where you stopped dreaming? Where your world closed in on you and became so small you could barely see the next step in front of you, much less the bigger picture of your long term hopes and dreams? I have. As shared in my blog post "In The Door," 2018 was a shake you to your core hard year for me. I hit the lowest place I've been to more than once in 2018. Yet life springs from death, joy follows sorrow, and it was and is through what I walked through in 2018 that God has been teaching me the power of "the next step."

As 2018 drew to a close I was in a pretty low place. The rug had been ripped out from under me. The direction I had been confident I was headed in had done a 180 and left me reeling saying, "Alright, what now Lord?" The answer came in a quiet steady whisper that echoed through the weeks that followed. I kept hearing the same thing over and over again, "Just take the next step."

In asking the Lord what was the next step and how to overcome the pain I was wrestling with daily something completely unexpected happened. I would have guessed the next step would be something big, something drastic. Maybe a career change, a move, a new business venture, anything to grab my attention and dull the pain I was struggling through internally, but it wasn't. No, the next step was much simpler than what I would have chosen if it was up to me. Through a crazy set of circumstances I felt the Lord challenging me to step out and start attending line dancing lessons. I have wanted to learn to dance for some time. But I had never before made time for it or sought it out until I reached this point in my journey where I was pleading with God to show me how to take the next step. I couldn't see the big picture, my world had closed in on me, and I was in a place of pain and vulnerability that I have felt very few times in my life. Line dancing seemed an interesting choice for "the next step," but I decided I would follow what God was putting on my heart and see what happened.

For about two months now on Thursday nights you can find me at Bushwhackers in Ralston, NE dancing the night away. I've changed in ways I never anticipated through taking the next step! Let me tell you, God has great ideas! The first time I showed up at Bushwhackers for the dance lesson I was nervous, I felt out of place, I was worried I would make a fool of myself, but I showed up, I took the next step. That initial step has led to hundreds of additional steps, literally! God has opened my heart back up through dancing in a way I never dreamed was possible. When I walk in that door on Thursday nights it is like my brain responds to what it knows the night holds, I immediately feel my spirits lifting. No matter how tired I am, no matter what the week has held, it falls off my shoulders. As the country music plays and we all stomp our boots and shimmy across the floor I can't help but smile and recognize how the next step has led me to new life and joy!

There is a time and a place for setting big goals, and dreaming is powerful and important. But let me tell you, if you barely know how to take the next step, I have been there. If you hear anything today, please hear that the next step is simpler than you think. What is your next step? It might not be dancing for you, but there is a next step, I promise you! In your pain, in your struggle all you have to be willing to do is show up, take the next step, and then just let God do His thing! There is joy around the corner for you, the next step may be painful now, but if you take it new life and joy awaits you. If you've always wanted to try line dancing, you know where to find me on Thursday nights, at Bushwhackers learning the next step! :-)