Traveling a grief filled month, of childhood memories of my Mom and Dad’s birthdays, wedding anniversary, and my first Mother’s Day since my Mom’s death four months ago, not to mention my estrangement from two of my children, found me seeking healing for many wounds. Learning in the process, some wounds fail to heal completely. Yet I can still find Joy in life as I embrace dancing with a limp.
A broken heart never heals perfectly after loss; but that is the beauty of it, for through the fissure shines a transcendent love no longer bound by physicality, but vibrant forever in memory.
A dance of sorts, grief invites many emotions to fill its dance card. Each partner bringing its own measure of healing. Even my most popular dance partner, regret, soothed my willful heart with the balm of grace.
living with a limp
Instead of a sign of weakness, living with a limp actually implies great inner strength. The breaking open of our hearts and lives endows us with a greater capacity for love, compassion, and service.
Within the embrace of our own brokenness, we become wounded healers.
In the well-known story of Jacob wrestling God in Genesis 32:22-32, Jacob prevails, but God leaves him with a limp. The limp, along with the name change to Israel, serve as reminders of Jacob’s strength, not his weakness.
As grief and the brokenness of our past mar our lives with a limp, we learn dancing with a limp celebrates the strength of love which shines brighter through our wounds.
dancing with a limp
More of a perspective shift, dancing with a limp implies a choice. At times, grief or our own woundedness feels heavy and we sink under the weight, sitting life out for a while.
But as resilience produces Hope, the resultant joy invites us to love well through celebrating with our limitations, rather than using them as an excuse to withdraw.
The more I move into healing, the more I notice God inviting me away from a mindset of complete removal of pain and brokenness and into a place of acceptance.
For in the place of acceptance, my eyes now see love’s beauty even in loss. Memories hold joy rather than sorrow, and brokenness speaks of strength.
Moving me to choose dancing with a limp as a way of celebrating God’s strength in my weakness.
Learning the Steps
As with any good dance, we have no Hope of mastery unless we make learning the steps a priority. While no real steps for dancing with a limp exist, we can keep in mind a few things which help move us to at least give it a try.
- Let Go. Release the expectation of your version of healing. Remember while on earth, Jesus healed in various ways, and sometimes, not at all.
- Loosen Up. Release rigid mindsets of your need for things to be as they were “before” the death, estrangement, trial. Remember God makes all things new, not the same.
- Love Anyway. Choose new ways to express your love even without reciprocity. Loving well through your woundedness shows forth God’s strength and beauty.
Accepting God’s transformative invitation to dance with a limp, we open ourselves to new avenues of loving both God and others well.
loving well with a limp
Though entering the month of May with a heavy heart, my deep desire was to transcend the grief and move into loving well through acceptance.
God’s invitation was simply “dance with the limp”.
Ultimately, as I shifted from the heaviness of varied losses and wounds, I felt lighter, almost free. Suddenly each memory held love, grace, and unexpected healing.
While I still have my limp, it adds a depth of authenticity and character. Instead of waiting for something outside of me to author healing, joy, or love, I simply become love.
From a place of love, dancing with a limp becomes the conduit through which I not only love others well, but find Hope within my own brokenness, restoring Joy in the midst of suffering.
If you enjoyed reading this post, there’s more! Sign up for my Substack; a little slice of serenity delivered right to your inbox!
I found myself wanting to quote so much of your article that I just had to release it and say you have communicated the heart of the Lord, your heart, and the walk of a surrendered life so well. Thank you. Grieving with you over the loss of your dear parents, the estrangement of your dear children, and the celebration of holidays that required abundant grace.
Lisa, I appreciate your words of encouragement! What a balm to walk along with dear friends who choose to support and lift up along the hard paths!
A beautiful analogy Donna, grief in all of its mountainous forms is a difficult journey to climb (one I’m very familiar with) but I’m glad you have found your strength & solace in the Lord for only He can truly be our Belayer (the One who anchors us as we climb & stops us from fallling off the cliff).
My heart aches for you in the estrangment of two of your adult children, that is devastating…God in time will bring them back, keep dancing before His Throne of Grace & you will see miracles one day dear friend.
Bless you, Jennifer
Thank you, Jennifer, for joining me here. I know you are well acquainted with grief. I love the analogy of the Belayer-YES! the Lord truly keeps us from falling. I know God is not finished writing our stories yet, so we can certainly trust Him for miracles yet to come!
This is a beautiful post, Donna! I’m sorry for all the difficult memories you have had to deal with this month, but I’m glad you’ve found hope in God in the midst of it all. I love that, while God may not resolve every situation as we hope, he enables us to keep going and keep dancing, even if it is with a limp.
Lesley, thank you, I’m so glad you stopped by! God truly is showing me the true Hope in Him, and the more I release my expectations, the more of Him I receive!
I’m sorry to hear of your losses, Donna. I love how you summed up all at the end: “Instead of waiting for something outside of me to author healing, joy, or love, I simply become love.” And God is love. May Love fill us, giving us all we need as we navigate this place called life on earth.
Thank you Lynn, for your kind words of comfort! Embracing love and allowing it to flow forth to others transforms my pain and brings healing!
I’m so sorry for all your losses, Donna. They can definitely take a toll on us in many different and often unexpected ways as we journey through life. I don’t know if I’m up to dancing yet with my limp, but I am at least walking with it on most days instead of staying crumpled on the ground. 🙂 I appreciate women ahead of me like you who show a way forward. Thanks for this encouragement.
Thank you, Lisa for your comforting words. I know God is in all of this and revealing himself in new ways as I choose to embrace rather than run from the pain. Grief is for sure a journey, and one that cannot be rushed. Trusting God to bring the comfort you need when the path is most difficult.
So encouraging, Donna! “God’s invitation, ‘Simply dance with a limp.” Every person Jesus healed had to simply obey – open eyes, stand, pick up their pallet. Simply choose to dance – what a beautiful, redeeming message for when our hearts are breaking!
Thank you, Maryleigh, for your kind words. Indeed, choosing a different way to embrace our suffering brings glory to God and the healing we thought we missed!
‘A broken heart never heals perfectly after loss; but that is the beauty of it, for through the fissure shines a transcendent love no longer bound by physicality, but vibrant forever in memory.’
Donna, that you give all us grievers that kind of acknowledgement and permission is a huge gift of validation and hope. We all find ourselves in good company here.
Linda, I find such comfort with others walking a similar path. Let us continue to validate, comfort, and lift one another up as we dance with that limp!
That’s so true that we tend to look for and hope for complete healing, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. I think some pains, some limps, remind us of our encounter with God and our need for Him. I’m sorry for this season of pain you are going through and pray for God’s continued grace and help.
Barbara, I know as I formed the ideas for this post, I kept coming back to what I really wanted from God, and that was complete healing, and removal of the pain-almost as if it had never existed. Yet His plan for my pain and limitations spans so much more than my little world!
As I sat reflecting on your words, Donna, some thoughts began to form. Maybe what we need is a change of perspective. Perhaps the limp becomes part of our testimony, part of the very way God uses us. Maybe limping does not mean broken but repurposed. Much the way an item is repaired or painted in order to be used, our lives may also be used in ways we would not have anticipated or expected apart from our limp. Beautiful imagery in this post – limping may not be a limitation. Limping may be the way we discover limitless avenues of being used by God. May May the Lord bless you deeply!
Joanne, I love the way you frame the ideas here as a change in perspective. Allowing our limp to become part of our testimony and the way God uses us, truly redeems what often was meant for evil in our lives. We give God glory when we choose to move forward limp and all!
I’m dyslexic and it’s vital
to say I read stuff at a limp,
’cause first I saw this title
as Dancing With A Chimp,
which fits quite appropriately
with the view of my dear wife,
because it does describe, you see,
just how she views our life.
She knew I was informal,
but knew not the extent
of departure from the normal,
and seeing where we went
through the years, she’d call it true,
she wed Fugitive From The Zoo.
Ok, sorry, an extra ‘he’ found its way into the last line even after proofreading, perhaps underscoring the dyslexia through which I first viewed the title.
No worries, Andrew I corrected it for you! But I think Barb finding you at the “he” Zoo actually worked better…LOL
Absolutely loved this, Andrew! there are so many ways we dance with a limp, which after a while becomes the best part of us!
Your words, “love well through celebrating with our limitations, rather than using them as an excuse to withdraw,” resonated with me because I tend to withdraw when hurt. But that is taking the easy way out and I believe we are called to something more. This year I am focusing on finding a scripture to pray over each one of the people God leads me to deal with including the ones who may have hurt me in the past. I’m relying on the words of James – The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Fervent means I have to put my passion into my prayer, even when I’m praying with the limitation of a hurt heart.
Jerralea, I think it has taken me so long to learn to dance with a limp, because my default is to withdraw too. But as you say, we don’t do ourselves much less anyone else any good when we take the easy way out. I love the thought of praying scripture over others in our lives, I often do that too, but I admit I haven’t stepped out to pray scripture over those who have hurt me!