A Christmas Message from Marie, Louise and the Girls…
As I reflect back on my 80 years on earth, I find myself looking through a lot of my things I have accumulated over the years, and as many of you may know – I have quite a bit of “stuff” 😊 I happen to find one of my Christmas letters I did in the early 2000’s and I just find it so relevant and so beautiful especially because of the year we have all experienced. May you be blessed reading this.
“Mourning makes us poor;
it powerfully reminds us of our smallness.
But it is precisely here,
in that pain or poverty or awkwardness,
that the Dancer invites us to rise up and take our first steps.
For in our suffering, not apart from it,
Jesus enters our sadness, takes us by the hand,
pulls us gently up to stand and invites us to dance.
And as we dance, we realize
that we don’t have to stay on the little spot
of our grief but can step beyond it.
We stop centering our lives on ourselves.
We pull along others with us and invite them into a larger dance.
We learn to make room for others
– and the Gracious Other in our midst.
When we become present to God
and Gods people, we find our lives richer.
We come to know that all the world is our dance floor.
Our step grows lighter because God has called out others to dance as well.”
“Turn my mourning into dancing” Henri Nouwen
This Year (early 2000’s) I had the blessed opportunity of being reunited with an estranged cousin. When I met her, I discovered that she was confined to a wheelchair and my heart, full of pity, went out her in her plight. But if I thought the reunion alone was cause for celebration. I was to be pleasantly surprised. She told me that she was to participate in the “South African Association for Dancers with Disabilities Annual Ballroom Dancing Championships” And invited me to come along and watch.
As I sat watching, my heart was flooded with revelation. Here, despite mangles limbs and other disabilities, were people who went beyond that and joined in the dancing, with just as much determination and exuberance as would any able-bodied person. I realised then and there that admission into the dance of life is not dependent on our qualifications, incomes, status or abilities, but rests in the hope and courage with which we approach it.
JOIN THE DANCE
My prayer for you in the next year is that, no matter what circumstances you may have faced or will face, you will glide through it with the grace of a dancer and realise there is One who longs to lead you in this dance we call life.
With Warmest Wishes, Cosmetique 2000 Team XXX
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