Just Keep Your Feet Moving

I stepped back in time last week.

The feeling was familiar as I opened the door to a different room that contained memories and fears and encouragement and hope. A small group of ladies meets twice a week in an unmarked room upstairs in our church. They pray and encourage and motivate and commiserate. My 12-stepper friends think you know where I was last week, but I doubt it.

This little band of mighty warriors goes by the name Firm Believers. I suspect I could survey 500 people entering our church Sunday morning and not find one who knows of this ministry that reaches women at a point of need and stretches them toward health, strength and submission of the body to its Maker, all to the beat of contemporary worship music.

It's not a new ministry. I don't know when Firm Believers first organized but it was through their door that I was introduced to Idlewild 23 years ago. My neighbor Sallie invited me to join her in working off the remainder of our pregnancy weight gain after the birth of our boys.

I stayed on the back row then, as I've done the last two weeks. The rhythm gene was deleted from my DNA at least several generations ago. I never learned to dance and even when you call it choreography, I have to plead ignorance. It was embarrassing 23 years ago. Not that anyone made fun of me. They just told me to keep my feet moving. The told me not to worry about the disparity between my movements and the movement I was seeing on the front row. Just keep my feet moving.

My memory cannot recall how long I stuck with it all those years ago, but I suspect not long, because my own internal level of discomfort probably made me run and hide. But no longer. I still stick out like a sore thumb but I know that's okay. I'll get better with time. I may never have the grace and mid-life beauty of the women on the front row but that's okay. I'll keep my feet moving. And someday I might just stay in rhythm for a whole one song! My body will be stronger. The scale will be happier. My soul will be richer for the trust built in this community of Firm Believers.

And I'll keep my feet moving.