In dedication to my 2025-26 Intermediate Worship class

I struggled with my nude leotard to keep the straps from showing. I had on a black, short-sleeved leotard over the top, but I had two dance numbers in our Christian studio’s recital, and they had different leotards. Wearing the nude one underneath just helped with changing. Next was my green skirt followed by my skin tone tights, and all was topped off with my canvas half-sole shoes.

The 32nd dance of the entire recital was Intermediate Worship dancing to King of Kings by Chandler Moore. As my teacher, Miss Daina, said, “We are the amen!” Basically meaning that we were the last dance of the entire recital. That was pretty much my class’ motto that semester: “We are the amen!”

My friend, Crystal, and I grouped up all of the 14 girls, and we joined hands in a large circle.

“OK, guys,” Crystal said, “since we’re the Worship class, we’re going to have a popcorn prayer before we go on.”

“Do you wanna start or should I?” I asked.

“Um, you go on ahead,” Crystal decided.

“OK.” Everyone bowed their heads. “Dear Lord, thank You for bringing us all here safely today. Help us to dance to glorify You. Amen.”

Several others prayed. We prayed for safety while dancing, we prayed for the audience, we prayed for ourselves, we prayed for the studio staff, we prayed a thank you that the recital had already gone well. We thought of every conceivable thing. Everyone contributed a prayer of thanksgiving and a request to help us do our best.

I’ll never forget when we came around to Haley. There was a silence, and I opened my eyes and looked up. I knew it was Haley’s turn, but Haley’s head was bowed and her eyes were closed. Everyone paused to stare at her. Her head suddenly snapped up.

“Oh, me?” she asked.

We all burst out laughing, and about five people said, “Shh!” at the same time.

As we were about to head on, Miss Daina came backstage and prayed a blessing over all of us. I was starting to get the usual butterflies. After dancing for 9 years, they weren’t a huge surprise. And then came one of the coolest experiences of my life.

After a last “Good luck” from Miss Daina, we walked out onto the dimly lit stage. The audience was hushed in anticipation of the last dance. Miss Daina had told us, “Don’t practice the dance until you get it right, practice it until you can’t get it wrong.” And I had taken her advice.

The music started. Just a few simple notes, but I took a deep breath and began to dance. The craziest thing happened. I had never done this in a dance before, but I started to pray. Only in my head, just me and God. I was dancing on automatic, my thoughts solely focused on God.

God, I prayed, thank You for getting us to this moment. Please help all of these dancers. Please help Minnie to get the right arm at this part, Lord, You and I know that she’s been struggling with this. Yes! She got it! Haha, thanks, God! Please bless the audience with this dance. There’s someone out there who needs to hear this message.

And then came the part that I had somewhat struggled over. Not physically. Physically I knew it only too well. That was the problem. I was moving to the back line, and I was more of an up-front person. I wanted to lead the dancers if they got stuck, but I realized that Miss Daina couldn’t just keep one girl up front all the time. Still, I had improved so much over the summer, and some girls had told me that I was definitely one of the forerunners of the class. I was one of the best. But I was in the back. Oh, well. I do have my moments of egotism and conceit.

But, just as we were beginning this part, the girls in the front started to go too fast. Desperately, I kept to the pace. I could see the girls next to me watching me out of their peripheral vision.

It’s not a race! Slow down! my mind screamed to the girls in front.

Suddenly realizing their blunder, they simply repeated the movement, and the dance ended almost spotlessly except for the fact that I defaulted my arms at the very end. Other than that, it was perfectly executed. I ran back to the dressing room (anyone who’s been at a recital in my studio knows that that’s the funnest part), a little upset that we had botched the dance in that one section. But I was about to get the surprise of my life.