She didn’t see me at first watching her private dance but once our eyes locked there was no embarrassment. The dance continued, her body swaying in a rhythmic motion. My own inner child responded and I moved to simulate the same rhythm, giving her my “coolest” pointing fingers to show her I loved her grooving. To my surprise she grinned with the most innocent look I had seen in years, giving me approval.
Against all protocol of our culture I approached this young girl and pulled the earphone away from her head, asking what it was she was dancing to, all the while trying to match her with my own “funky dance” of the moment. Without missing a beat, she kept moving to the music and showed me the artist’s cd she was listening to, telling me it was one of her mom’s favorites! In her ingenuousness she also shared that her mom couldn’t buy it.
I asked her name. “Grace” she spoke. How perfect I thought, a true beauty in the Lord. Before we left the store we paid for the cd to give to her mother. It was a small token of the joy her daughter Grace had given me. She reminded me of the innocence of a young girl’s dance from long ago.