I've been avoiding writing this. And I'm not really sure why. Because, really, it's quite an amazing story to tell! Oddly, this story is actually two stories woven into one. There is a post on this blog titled "For Good" in which I tell about a sweet friend that God brought into my life at the end of last summer. But, unknowingly to me, God needed that sweet friend to be in my life for a far greater purpose.
Here goes the tale...
As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've danced most of my life. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I took a large slew of dance classes. Dance has been my passion. Dance has been my go-to to get me through things. So when I don't have dance, I tend to not know what to do with myself.
When I got into college, dance wasn't as easy to come by. Sure, I was on the dance team for 2 different years. But when my junior year came by, due to some circumstances stemming from my sophomore year, I was cut from the dance team my junior year. I tried to let other things take the place of dance. My junior year of college, I lived in an all-girls dorm that also had a "great hall" attached to it (big open space with a wood floor). Occasionally, I'd take myself, a pair of dance shoes (I was always prepared with ballet slippers and jazz shoes...and a pair of tap shoes, if I'd need them), and some form of music-playing device...and make my way down to that big open room and dance around. There was one point in my college career, when I thought God was calling me into the international missions field, that I thought I'd need to raise some money. So, I was attempting to put together a dance benefit for missions. The only issue with my idea was that I didn't know anyone else who would perform....so I was looking at being a one-girl show. It was a fun idea, but unrealistic. Sure, most of the girls in my sorority claimed to love "dance"...but some of them meant more along the lines as the "dance" they would do after a little too much alcohol...and preferably using a pole to dance around and on. It was always hard for me to find a way to express myself when I didn't have dance.
I've mentioned in other areas of this blog about some of my struggles towards the end of my college career. Along with those struggles, anxieties, and even some depression, food and I were either best friends or worse enemies. I prided myself with NOT gaining the "freshman fifteen" my freshman year. However, by the end of my college career, I'd gained what I'll call the "senior seventeen"...plus interest. A lack of regular workout mixed with ongoing anxiety and hormonal issues created for a few increases in weight. My senior year of college, I'd tried to get a friend to join me in finding a regular fitness outlet...but her schedule was too busy to accommodate that and my wallet was too empty to purchase all the DVD workouts I wanted to get to try to do!
By the time I moved home after my fourth year on campus (I still had one more semester to go for student teaching), I was in need of a fitness outlet. A friend from church had been telling me about how her mom taught Zumba classes at the YMCA in the same town my church was in. After a little more prodding, I finally decided to check out the Zumba class. I enjoyed it. It wasn't the same as my dance classes I had taken. However, a few months prior to taking my first Zumba class, I had gone back to my dance studio to take a couple classes over the winter break. Between tendonitis in at least one knee and not dancing regularly for a while...my body was in so much pain after that class. A couple weeks later, when I left to go back to college...my body was still aching from that dance class. I had somewhat decided at that point that going back to dance classes wasn't really much of an option for me anymore. So, Zumba seemed to be a decent alternative.
I took Zumba through the summer. However, a few weeks into my student teaching semester, I was starting to get too overwhelmed with the demands of my student teaching along with the part-time job I'd gotten. I ended up giving up Zumba for the rest of the semester until after student teaching ended. I remember going back to my Zumba class the first time after student teaching ended. I wasn't sure if any of the people in my class would remember me...or even notice that I had left. While sitting in the lobby of the YMCA, a couple of the ladies from my class asked where I had been. Before heading in to the room for class, I still remember one of the ladies telling me "well I can tell you that you were definitely missed!" Maybe to some that was a simple comment...but it meant a TON to me. I realized in the next couple weeks that I could combine my love for teaching and my love for dance...and opted to become a Zumba instructor a couple months later at an instructor training that would take place at the same YMCA.
I began teaching Zumba in March 2012 with high hopes. But, things didn't really work out the way I thought they would. In August 2012, I moved to North Carolina and in August 2013, I moved back to Ohio. I wasn't able to do much with my Zumba training while in North Carolina. After getting back to Ohio, I went back to the same YMCA, but Zumba had taken a toll over the past year and wasn't gaining as many people as it had been a year ago. I started getting frustrated that I had been an instructor for over a year and had never taught my own class. I was regularly teaching 2-3 songs during the Zumba class...but I had a playlist of 10 songs. Those 2-3 barely scratched the surface. I started looking at other places and eventually landed a Zumba job in the same town as my college alma mater.
I could spend a decent amount of time on this blog depicting the next 2 years teaching Zumba. But...that's not the point. After 2-3 years of being an instructor and not having my own class, I finally got my own class...but I had started to become burned out. I'd been using a lot of the same music and choreography for those 2-3 years. Since I hadn't really taught my own class, I didn't see a reason to change things that much. As I started teaching my new class, I made the shocking discovery that my participants were "average". All of a sudden my 13+ years of dance training seemed to make me almost a little too over-qualified to teach. As time went on, I started not really liking a lot of the Zumba music and the choreography seemed too hard. The choreography was fine for me (the girl with years of dance training) but wasn't "fitness for all" for my "average" people in my class. I had to spend a lot of time that I didn't always have modifying choreography to make it easier...then having to deal with not-so-great reviews of my class because apparently now the songs weren't "Zumba-ish".
And then my sweet friend walked (or actually danced) into my life. As our friendship grew, it became easier and easier to talk to her about dance. I even remember a couple times talking to her, using a dance analogy to get my point across...and she understood exactly what I meant. But the thing is, our friendship wasn't just based on our love for dance, but also on our love for Jesus. (Please see the blog post "For Good" for more of the story on her...).
Throughout my new-found excitement with my new friends that I'd been getting to spend some time with, my friends breathed Jesus in to me every day. No matter if it was a Bible study or a verse they posted on Facebook, a message on a group page on Facebook, a text message to one or multiple friends...this group of friends daily lived and breathed Jesus. When they posted songs on Facebook, it wasn't the newest song on the secular station...but something from church or on the Christian station that had been touching their hearts. This started having an impact on me.
I started choreographing more songs for Zumba. Only this time I was using Christian songs. I loved it. My participants loved it. But there was a problem. Zumba has a rule that in order to have a legit Zumba class, you have to follow a 70/30 format...70% of the choreography and music had to be Zumba-released...the other 30% could be what you want. I was already way past that 30% mark. I tended to be more of a 50/50 girl myself. I'd had some complaints come in about my Zumba class that it wasn't "really Zumba" or that it was "too easy" or "too dance-y".
Sometime during the summer or fall, I got this great idea. I had been teaching Zumba now for a couple years and had used a fair amount of Christian music in my 70/30 or 50/50 models. How about if I took all my Christian music and put it in a playlist? I was making a silent bet with myself that I could probably have close to a full hour-long workout using the music I already had. At this point, I was only thinking this would be a fun thing for me to get my groove back and get my heart back in love with Zumba. So one night, I went through all my old Zumba playlists and put all the Christian songs in a playlist. It was like 40 minutes long. More than half-way to a full workout. Over the next couple weeks, as a joke to myself, I started tossing the idea around of what would happen if I started teaching a class like that.
What I didn't realize at the time, was that what I thought was just a quick idea being tossed around, was actually God starting to work something out in me.
By the end of the summer and heading into the beginning of the fall, I was trying to figure out what to do with my Zumba class. I knew my heart wasn't really in it that much. I wanted to re-brand what I already had into my own Christian version. But...I'd been hired to teach Zumba. I wasn't sure if I re-branded, if the same people would even come to my class. Were they there because of the name Zumba? Or were they there because they liked me? Where I REALLY wanted to see something happen was at church.
I don't remember exactly when this started happening...because it started out slow at first. But I started tossing around the idea last fall about starting a Christian dance fitness ministry at my church. In the 16+ years I'd been going to this church, I've never known them to be too fond of any form of dance in the church. I was almost positive that nothing like this would ever happen...but I continued to dream anyway (as away to combat depression and anxiety...I try to re-direct my thinking by dreaming some big dreams). I looked up more choreography, and found a company through YouTube. I'd actually used this company's choreography before during my Zumba class...but I hadn't noticed that they also offered instructor trainings...or that one of their trainings was coming to Columbus in March. As I did more research about this company, I discovered that they claimed to be a "faith-infused" alternative to Zumba or other cardio dance fitness classes. I was intrigued. I remember when I went to my Zumba training, it was all about how to teach Zumba, how to incorporate the Latin moves yet keep it fitness. But I was interested to consider going through their training to see what they could offer me.
In September or October, I remember randomly telling my sweet friend about this idea. She loved it and thought it was an amazing idea. "Great"...I thought to myself..."she didn't think it was a horrible idea". I had even started coming up with a name for the idea...Cardio Worship.That name just seemed to incorporate exactly what I was going for. A cardio workout class...that was both an expression of worship, as well as using Christian and worship music.
Still not 100% positive that this would ever happen, I wanted more feedback. So, I took to the biggest platform I could think of. I started recording myself doing routines (after doing a full hour of Zumba) and posting the videos on Facebook. The first video I posted with a lengthy disclaimer about how tired I was from Zumba, all the flaws I saw in the video, and a basic thought of the idea to start a ministry. The feedback was amazing. People loved it. People wondered why our church didn't have anything like this available.
And then something even crazier happened. A woman from my church messaged me on Facebook. She loved what she saw and had felt God compelling her to work with me to start this ministry. Not gonna lie...I wasn't completely on board. In my mind, this idea was still destined to fail miserably. It sounds great on paper and looks great on a Facebook video (my alternative to getting this ministry started at my church was going to be to find a way to gain Mandisa's attention and see about turning it into a DVD workout series). But actually having the church go through with it...seemed doubtful. Now I was beginning to get a small army of people that I'd be disappointing when it didn't work out...which I was pretty sure was going to happen.
I started enjoying working on this idea so much, and felt so compelled that Zumba was no longer in my future...at the end of October, I emailed my boss at the Y I taught Zumba at and said I wouldn't be teaching Zumba anymore come January. Why was January so important? Well...in the 16+ years we've been attending our church, we have watched this church grow from 400-500 people when we first got there...to the bustling church of nearly 2000 weekly attendees! We have also watched the church building itself physically expand at least 3 times. The newest expansion was a new student center...complete with a full gym, classrooms, bathrooms, and a built in sound system. When they broke ground on the new building, the timeline was placed that it would be complete in January. My grand plan was to end Zumba in December, and then switch gears to something more God-honoring in January.
In mid-November, I went to visit my sweet friend out of state. I don't remember how much I'd told her about Cardio Worship at this point. We enjoyed a trip to a chocolate festival together and then arranged to go to church together on Sunday. She lived about 3 hours away from where we met...I was more like 600 miles away...neither of us had been to the church before that we visited. After the church service, before we even got out of the building, my sweet friend turned to me and told me that she heard something in that sermon message that made her think of my dance fitness ministry. A few days later, after asking her through to text me what she heard...she sent me this quoted message via text:
"Don't get caught up in the mechanics of how you are serving, but rather embrace and feel the joy there is in serving God and worshiping Him."
At the time...I was confused. That quote seemed a little out of place. I mean...I was just working on an idea here!
Shortly either before or after my visit with my sweet friend, I decided to put this idea to rest once and for all. Using some comments and suggestions from the woman from my church who wanted to help out...I emailed the women's ministry director at my church and asked if such a ministry was even something that the church would ever even consider. At the beginning of December...I got my answer (the women's ministry director had to talk to one of the pastors on leadership at the church). "Not yet." It actually took a couple people pointing out to me that I had not been given an absolute answer of "NO". The answer I got was more of an indication that it just wasn't the right timing. You see...that January completion date for the new student center building? Thanks to Ohio's weather...they were a couple months off on their estimate. The building didn't get completed until March.
But...as God works in all ways...as I look back on this story, I think there was another personal reason for that answer of not yet.
In a previous post on this blog, I have posted an updated version of my personal Christian testimony. I had always struggled each month with my hormones, and at the beginning of my senior year of college, I went on birth control as a way to hopefully relieve some of those issues and find some balance of my emotions. Unfortunately, the birth control caused me to go into a great state of anxiety and depression, hitting an all-time horrific low in October of my senior year, when Satan began whispering thoughts into my mind that maybe my life wasn't worth living. In a not-so-fun-to-recall event in my life (I was reported to the dean of students at my college and sent home for 4 days)...I was forced to come to terms that the birth control wasn't working, and I was actually doing worse than when I had started. Although it had been 5 years since that time...I still struggled with my hormones.
A few weeks before my weekend trip to visit my sweet friend, I sent her a panicked text message on a Tuesday night. I had been hired at the end of the summer as a teacher at a school for the school year, but I had been offered the job as I was there for the interview. In one day, I went to an interview, got offered a full time teaching job, and put my 2 weeks notice in to my part-time retail position I'd been working. For the next 2 weeks, I worked 12-hour days between my retail job and doing orientation and beginning of the year prep stuff for a school year of teaching. By the time I got to the end of the first quarter of school, I felt like I was running a marathon and was falling dangerously behind. On top of it, my hormones were at an all-time high. I was finding it hard to get through the day...even while at work...without feeling like a crying break down would be in my future. On that Tuesday night, I sent her a text telling her I wasn't sure how or if I would manage to survive the rest of that week. I think she fell asleep during that text. But the next morning at 6 a.m. she started texting me.
You see, I never really solved the issue of my hormones. After birth control didn't work out...I just went back to doing nothing. And that wasn't doing much good for me either. Every month for the last 5 years, I went through crazy hormonal issues with no answers in sight. When the symptoms subsided, I would take a breath of fresh air...before remembering that the same thing would happen again in another month. As my sweet friend pointed out to me...I was only really living half of my life. The other half was spent dealing with anxiety attacks and depression that I couldn't seem to solve. After that conversation...after our weekend get away...and after I had a chance to talk to someone else from my church to look into some alternative options to get my hormones back in check, I went to see a nutritionist and began a regime of supplements in December...about a week before Christmas. The same day I went to the nutritionist for my first appointment, I had been looking to move out of my parents' house...and found and applied for an amazing apartment in the same town as my church.
Before finishing this tale...I did want to mention that normally I wouldn't have wanted to include that whole story of depression, hormones, and all of that stuff that happened. But I feel like there's a great message in there. You see, as Christians...and even as a population in general, sometimes we have to take care of ourselves first before we can help take care of others (think about what they say on airplanes before take off...when a drop in cabin pressure happens, you are to put on your oxygen mask first before helping those around you). Serving others is an outward display of what is going on in our hearts. When Christians serve, it's because they are sharing something that God has blessed them with, no matter if it's a skill, a resource, or just a simple smile. Before I could work to share my heart for ministry, dance, and fitness...I had to take care of some issues in me first. That "not yet" answer from the church? As much as it was an answer because of a physical problem (the building wasn't ready yet), I believe it was also an answer that God had to work on a few things in ME first. I remember hearing a statement that God doesn't call the equipped...He equips the called.
So...back to the story.
After settling in to my apartment, getting back into taking my supplements regularly, and now NOT teaching Zumba...I realized I was missing something. In February, I knew that I was spending a lot of time eating junk food and watching Netflix. The supplements had helped me lose 5 pounds in the first couple weeks. But I wasn't actively exercising. There weren't many fitness options at the YMCA that is literally around the corner from my apartment. It was too cold outside to play our beloved game of Fishball. I wanted to get back into some kind of fitness. So...I started looking at some of the plans I had started for Cardio Worship and the upcoming instructor training in Columbus in March. As a means to influence myself to fill out my taxes, I filed my tax return in February, praying that my return would be enough to finance the instructor training. It was. So in February, I re-posted one of my first videos about Cardio Worship on Facebook, excited to announce that I'd be going to that instructor training.
My sweet friend was back on board. The woman from church started messaging me again...wanting to get together with me to talk details about the dreams and ideas of this ministry. I still wasn't 100% convinced anything would come out of this. But...I HAD waited...and the building was mostly close to completion.
In March, the woman from church approached the church about starting Cardio Worship. We waited. And waited. And waited. And we prayed. And prayed. And prayed. I was on fire to get something like this started! Just to be on the safe side...I started getting a lot of choreography ideas together (I wanted to be able to hit the ground running IF we happened to get approved). I had started taking some dance classes at a dance studio not too far from my apartment. The owner of the studio had been a member of our church while she was in high school back when we first started coming to our church. I started talking to her and mentioned the need and desire to have a place to work out and do some personal choreography...and low and behold...she gave me the key to the back door of her studio! Whenever I got anxious waiting for an answer about Cardio Worship...I'd go to the studio and start running through choreography.
And finally...it happened. In April...I got a message from the woman from my church. We had been approved!!! This my friends, is completely and totally a God thing. As we were waiting for an answer, I had started getting a little less pessimistic about the likelihood of this ministry starting.
On May 20, 2016, we held a kick off class of Cardio Worship for about 30 attendees from the church!!! May 20, 2016 was a day I realized that 9-10 months of hopes, dreams, prayers, sweat, tears, and maybe even a little blood...finally ended in success! Months of choreography, emails, messages, and even dealing with several unexplained issues (I like to refer to those issues as a classic case of Spiritual Warfare in my life)...FINALLY had a purpose and a reason. 9-10 months of asking my close friends daily and weekly for prayer requests related to Cardio Worship had been answered.
I know that Cardio Worship is far from being "my" doing. It's not even really "my" ministry. It's God's. I just happen to be the lucky girl who gets to be the hands and feet (and abs, leg muscles, arm muscles, and every other muscle set for that matter) of God. From an early time in this endeavor...although I have called Cardio Worship "my ministry"...I am mistaken in my terminology. It's not mine. It's God's.
And as the Bible says...with God "All things are possible".
I believe 100% that God is far from over with blessing this ministry. I have no clue if we'll grow to multiple class times, days, locations...or if we'll just create a DVD workout series. But whatever happens...it won't be my doing alone. It will be me working...through the power of God through the Holy Spirit.
And before I end this post. That quote from the sermon my sweet friend texted me back in November? ("Don't get caught up in the mechanics of how you are serving, but rather
embrace and feel the joy there is in serving God and worshiping Him.") That quote...is pretty much 100% spot on!
Happy dancing, friends!
