I was already having one of those days. Maybe it was the stress of a long day at work spilling past quitting time and being made late getting to where I needed to be. Maybe it was the heaviness that has become familiar with my sister Cheryl’s illness.
But tonight, the nursing home had transformed one of its rooms into a prom. There were balloons, music, decorations, smiles, and volunteers who had worked hard to make it special.
Cheryl looked beautiful. She wore a bright red dress, fire engine lipstick and a crown. She smiled at her reflection . For a short while, she was the fashionable diva sister from her youth.
Her son and her former physical therapist proudly escorted her as her two handsome prom dates, while our older sister, Melody, and I happily served as her royal court attendants.
She enjoyed herself.
And yet, if I’m honest, part of me couldn’t stop seeing what wasn’t supposed to be.
It was still a nursing home. She was still in pain. She was still in a wheelchair.
Some losses don’t disappear just because someone hangs streamers on the wall.
Then the music changed.Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” began filling the room.
Across the room sat another resident—a woman a little older than Cheryl. She was dressed in a sparkly black gown with a fluffy tutu peeking beneath it and ballerina slippers on her feet.
When the music started, she didn’t apologize for her wheelchair. She lifted her hands toward the ceiling. She spun. She laughed.
She did wheelies across that nursing home floor as though she were dancing on the biggest stage in the world.
As I sang along with Whitney’s words, she rolled her wheelchair right over to me, reached out with a smile, and invited me to dance with her.
For a moment, she wasn’t asking me to ignore her wheelchair. She was inviting me to look beyond it. I couldn’t stop watching her.
Then something surprised me. I wasn’t feeling pity. I was feeling jealousy.
Not because she could walk. She couldn’t. Not because she wasn’t hurting. I’m sure she was.
I was jealous because she possessed something I had misplaced:
Joy.
She reminded me that joy isn’t the absence of pain. Joy is refusing to let pain have the final word.
That woman never stood up. But somehow she rose above the room.
I wonder how many of us are waiting to dance until everything is healed. We’re waiting until the diagnosis changes. Until the relationship is restored. Until the finances improve. Until life looks the way we imagined.
But what if joy was never meant to wait for perfect circumstances? What if worship can happen in a wheelchair? What if celebration can exist in a nursing home?
What if God is inviting us to dance while we’re still waiting for the miracle?
That evening , I went to encourage my sister. Instead, God introduced me to a ballerina in a wheelchair who quietly preached a sermon I’ll never forget.
Maybe today you feel confined by something you didn’t choose. A diagnosis. A disappointment. A loss. A season that doesn’t look anything like you prayed it would.
If that’s you, don’t wait for life to become perfect before you lift your hands. Some of the most beautiful dances happen in places where no one expected joy to live.
“You have turned my mourning into dancing…” — Psalm 30:11
Healing isn’t always the first miracle. Sometimes joy is.
Love, Chelle
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