A Juggling Act: How the Air (Ruah) holds up your "everything"
A dancer learns to balance very early in her training. Balancing is in the mastery of the craft, and a beautiful ballerina is described mostly by her ability to lift up and sustain herself on her toes. Applauded and awed over, she makes it look so easy and not everyone is able to do that. Next, she may even decide to one-up herself, and take one foot off the ground, now not only is she balancing on her toes but only on the toes of one foot. She's a darn flamingo; an absolute anomaly.
She's magical! Most of us love watching her, she's amazing. She carries everything about herself so well. However, there's something she cannot do while balancing on her own...
I remember having several different jobs while in college, and I would finish with the outside world around 8pm, only to begin my schoolwork and choreography at home until the wee hours of the morning. I used to view life as only productive if I could operate like that ballerina, holding myself up like no one else could, and making it look so easy...though it was not at all. I had to learn to balance all my requirements then; as many college students know, academic life is in essence a balancing act. However, I took that philosophy, which can be quite unhealthy, into the "real world," and 1) had many titles/jobs all at once and 2) gave exhausting amounts of myself to each one simultaneously. I thought If I can stand here, during this chapter of my life, holding all these things up without dropping one, I'm succeeding. However, the ballerina training of self-sufficiency could very easily remove God from your life equation, and it is nearly impossible to pick up something additional, or be thrown another priority when attempting to balance on your own abilities. You're more prone to your "everything" throwing you off balance than helping you to sustain it.
Balancing: Internally-applied pressure to hold yourself up, mostly done while maintaining a stationary position and concentration on your body's/performance's outward appearance. It is a personal fight against gravity in order to stay upright.
Balancing is holding up the beautiful appearance without having a true understanding of how to healthily handle your "everything"...
Gravity: The heavy thoughts and actions that weigh you down emotionally, mentally, or physically, making you believe that you have to control, manipulate, and coax yourself into success, accomplishments, and carrying "everything" in your life. "I need this to happen in my life," "I deserve ____," "If they can, then I can." It could be the pull on your heart to do certain things to get certain results even if it's at the detriment of other priorities, but no curl is capable of fighting gravity on her own.
Curl Check:
Are you a balancer? Do you find that you mostly lift yourself up on your own toes? Does it feel as if "things" are being thrown at you and you have no way of catching them, AND staying upright against gravity? Are you stationary when you need to learn how to move about while carrying your "everything"?
I've learned that the circus of real-world life cannot be dependent on how great we look while holding everything. Real-World life requires jugglers. The ballerina is beautiful, she has her place, and she is extremely talented, but a Curlfriend who juggles knows how to keep her current load, gain more, relinquish some, and continue stepping forward.
When you juggle the things that make up your responsibilities, desires, charges, and needs, you learn how to actively and healthily focus on every thing in its time. Your eyes are on the highest, most pressing priority, while your hands keep everything else in rotation as well; nothing is neglected. FACT: Jugglers are anomalies too - truly talented multi-taskers. We learn to prioritize and not over-extend. It's much more feasible then for God to add or subtract things from our lives without it causing us to fall apart, or lose our footing.
What is "everything":
A Strong Disciple
A Daughter of Royalty
A Honorable and submissive wife
A Committed and pure single curl
A perfectly imperfect mom
An Obedient child
A Loyal friend
A Stellar employee/career curl
Etc.
Juggling: Allowing the Air to assist you in moving with the times. Juggling makes room for easily transferrable responsibilities, desires, and needs. You are not solely in control of maintaining your "everything," but you are directed, assisted, and supported by the Air as it rotates your items in and out of your hands. Whenever you're not holding it, God has it. You don't have to worry about balancing "everything." You then learn how much of yourself to give to certain aspects of your life, as the Air fights against gravity on your behalf to ensure that you're not overloaded, weighed down, or creating idols out of your priorities.
Curl check:
God's got the whole world in His hand, but we do not. We may not be able to be a stellar Career Curl and a strong disciple simultaneously as soon as the ball is thrown at us. That's when recalling the prioritizes of God is immensely important. 1. What does God deem as a higher priority of what I'm holding right now? 2. What would He desire for me to choose and what needs to be temporarily removed from my eyesight? Some things have been placed in your hands and not your eye view because He wants them for you in due time, but not at the expense of anything else. Trust Him to return it back to you in perfect rotation, if you choose His best first. DO NOT try to balance it in the wrong position in your life - gravity will get the best of you every time.
4x4 Ephemeral Architectures Trailer: https://vimeo.com/117536055
Gandini Juggling's piece "4 x 4 Ephemeral Architectures," showcases the interdisciplinary artistry between professional dancers and expert jugglers. The collaboration is really amazing, and as the ballerinas and jugglers perform some of the same moves we see how abnormal it is for a dancer to actually juggle. For a balancer to learn how to juggle. For one who normally applies great internal pressure on herself to now allow the Air to assist in the movement of her life's priorities.
I want to be like that dancer though: able to take on the choreography, or movement, of life while juggling my "everything."
So, as Curls, we know how to balance, but how do we learn to juggle? We have fought against gravity for ourselves for long enough, now let's partner with the Air.
1. Proverbs 12:24-25 - The diligent hand will rule, but laziness will lead to forced labor. Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down, but a good word cheers it up.
Diligence leads to perseverance, longevity, and completion. Do not stay weighed down focused only on one item that may not be working, but instead gain knowledge from other "things" in your hands as they influence how you responsibly handle that priority. Remember that stagnancy can morph into laziness/misuse, and you may find yourself in the forced labor of life: a slave to gravity and working hard to simply not fail. That's not God's plan for you, He wants you to have an abundant life. Mat. 25:29; John 10:10
2. 1 Peter 5:5b-7 God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, under the mighty hand of God, So that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on Him, because He cares about you.
Juggling has a groove, a fluidity, and cyclical pattern. We must submit to God's rotation of our life’s priorities. Curlfriends, do not attempt to control events and people by asserting autonomy, but humbly kneel in what actions you can and remember that there is a proper time for everything. A proud heart demands things to stay the same and for life to always go its way; cast those requests onto God's ears and let His Air/Ruah Breathe guide you, not follow your lead.
3. Psalm 25: 1-3 Lord, I put my life in your hands. I trust in you, my God, and I will not be disappointed. My enemies will not laugh at me. No one who trusts in you will be disappointed. But disappointment will come to those who try to deceive others.
By living one step at a time, working to walk in alignment and having things be thrown to you by God's provision alone, we see that He is the great rotator of priorities. God teaches us how to best struggle with Him in order to prevail. God gave us all a weakness to overcome, so that we do not have an appearance of perfection, but simply enlighten the world to the wonderful miracle of promoting His perfection even with our fallibilities. Genesis 32:24-28; Galatians 5:16-17
4. Psalm 20:7-8 Some take pride in chariots, and others in horses, but we take pride in the name of Yahweh our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand firm.
Fight against the rewards of self-sufficiency and working for your own pleasures, they are temporary and will not sustain your endurance in life. We cannot believe what the world says is necessary for us to possess and handle. Sometimes we have to look like a clown and only juggle what God wants us to hold. We more easily rise after obstacles or stumbling blocks because of our rejection to trust in our own abilities. Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 2
Balancing looks at the ground and persists "I will defeat you," but Juggling looks at the Air and exclaims "I will trust You." Stop balancing your "everything" on the pressures of your own toes. Learn to juggle and allow God to guide your eyes to the higher, more pressing priorities of your current chapter, taking off the appearance of beauty, by actually becoming a beautiful representation of Him. You don't have to hold up "everything" yourself, let the Air direct you.
Smile, Shine, and Love, Curlfriends!
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I love you, Curls!
