Dancing Again
(LOIS) grew up about thirty miles south of Philadelphia, the location of the original American Bandstand TV show.
The dances we saw on Bandstand one week showed up on our school dance floor the next week.
Three years out of high school I married one of the best dancers in the class, Jack Mowday, and we clicked our heels together for the next thirteen years.
Then in December of 1979, the dancing stopped. Our daughters Lisa and Lara and I got Jack a ride in a hot-air balloon as a Christmas present.
Two of his close friends and business associates, Glenn Berg and Rick Rhine, as well as a balloon operator, went along with him.
The girls and I, along with Glenn’s wife, Gail, and Rick’s fiancee, Kathy, rode in our station wagon and followed the balloon in flight.
It was a beautiful day and the guys waved happily as they sailed along. We lost sight of the balloon behind some trees and when it reappeared, a blaze was growing out of the side of the basket.
We knew immediately that the men and the pilot were in terrible trouble as the flames licked up over the edge of the basket and into the small pas¬senger space.
All four people were killed that day, and my life changed forever. But God carried us in miraculous ways.
The truth of his promises became a reality for me and my daughters, and we experienced grace far beyond our imagination.
While pain and loneliness were sometimes consuming, so was the peace of God. I learned that peace and pain coexist and breathe hope into the darkest of nights.
But even when I felt God’s arms of love embrace me, I doubted that I would ever be truly happy again, and I was sure that my spirit would never be able to dance with the joy I’d known when Jack was alive.
One of my great comforts during those early days of grief came from copying verses on index cards and carrying them with me.
I’d read them when waiting in the car for the girls to get out of school or at a dentist’s office.
Sometimes the words would seem flat, and God would seem distant. Nights were the most difficult times; the hours dragged until the sun shone again.
But then those dark times grew less frequent. The words of the verses touched me in a healing way and my heart felt full again. My spirit danced.
Many of the verses I wrote on these cards came from the Psalms. The language and poetry of the Psalms lend themselves to creating a place of peace in the reader’s heart.
I also love to read the Psalms in the King James Version of the Bible, but you may find more comfort in another version.
A few of my favorite verses are:
I don’t live down the road from American Bandstand anymore, and I don’t dance anywhere but in my family room on very rare occasions.
But I can dance. The wailing has ended, the sackcloth of grief is gone and he has “clothed me with joy.”
Father, when pain is great we sometimes despair. How faithful you are to heal our wounds and bring our spirits back to places of joy.