Perhaps you've seen the photo by Tyler Shields of the ballerina's feet? The left foot is wrapped, looks beautiful and graceful, wearing a ballet slipper while the dancer balances enpointe. The right foot is bear, showing multiple bandages, bruises, blood, cuts, worn toenails. It is showing the raw beating that a foot takes to Dance enpointe. You can see the image here. It is what inspired this post I originally made during Lent.

I was taken aback when this image showed up in my Instagram feed on Thursday. Dance, broken-ness, projected image, perfection, practice, things hidden and those revealed, all rolled in to this one picture.

Each of us has flaws and our own brokenness is inherent to who we are. Even the most practiced of ballerinas, embodying beauty and grace, has her own brokenness, some of it hidden just below her shoes. Just below the surface. The scars of her practicing, her falling, her getting back up one more time then she falls to try again. And she does it all to fulfill what she is driven to do.

It is love and passion and failing that brings us to life, in our entirety, in our wholeness. We dance greatly because of our imperfections, they are what has formed us, what made us stronger, what gave us such strength and focus and purpose.

Like the ballerina, each of us has scars, our own equivalent of bruised toes that have supported our whole weight. Some of the the scars are emotional, some physical, some run so deep that we are nearly swallowed by them some days, while other days we stare it down and tell it to "be still." But each morning, we rise, we muster faith, we cover up what we can with pep talks and emotional bandages, and we keep going.

It is all a story of Crucifixion. It is all practice of dying and rising, getting ready for the final dying and rising. Our brokenness, our scars are reminders of dying. We sit with suffering. We are given opportunities to rise, to live out and past our pain, but for now, this is just practice. Practicing the dance and practicing living and falling and dying and rising.

"And great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us, through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil.
Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it." - Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Jesus is showing us how to do this;  He is the exemplification of sitting with the suffering. And on Easter Sunday, we will witness the trans formative nature of His suffering, His sharing in our suffering, as he Rises and our brokenness and lovelessness is redeemed.

If we embrace our brokenness we can accept ourselves in this moment, and accept the invitation to rise again. For today, we sit with broken-ness and see how it is intimately woven with love, with wholeness, with balance, and that it is all a part of the dance.