The Bucket List

LIFE LESSONS

I remember it clearly. My “Bucket List,” created in my midthirties, was a list of what I wished to accomplish before I died. Was I ready to share this list, and my escapades, with the rest of you? After much prayer, thoughtful mind wrestling and more prayer, well why not. I couldn’t be the only one out there wondering if they should share a “bucket list,” and what if, just if, it could be a gift to another person? This seemed unbelievable, but then, a lot of unbelievable has happened since the Lord came into my life.

As I mentioned, the list began in my mid-thirties…. the desire to do things I’d always wanted to do as a child growing up, but in a family of six that lived paycheck to paycheck, my dreams weren’t going to be fulfilled. There wasn’t money for music lessons, let alone dance, voice or drama classes. These were considered a frivolity when money was needed for food, clothing and bills. Instead, I lost myself in books and movies. I became Jo March from Little Women, Anne (with an E) of Green Gables and studied dance by watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly dance in their movies. I dreamt dreams of grandeur while helping the family get by, which wasn’t a hardship as I loved them all so much. Still, a girl can have her dreams of becoming the next prima ballerina.

Hence, the “bucket list.” It consisted of taking ballet, tap and jazz classes, flute and piano lessons, voice and finding God (yes, in that order, again, what did I know).

It began with taking ballet classes at a ballet studio that forced my first position turnout, (a big no-no when it came to adults like myself, because it could ruin your knees). Yet it was so exhilarating to be in pink tights and a black ballet leotard and pink ballet slippers, holding on to the ballet barre as I learned the five-ballet foot and arm positions. I was in heaven but wanted more than pliés and arm positions. I found another studio that trained its dancers to become real live ballerinas. My new ballet instructor told me not to expect much at my age as she handed me a band for my knee and asked why I was forcing a turnout. I was also told that I would never be able to accomplish the splits or earn my point shoes. Did that deter me? Always one to rise to the occasion of a challenge, I disciplined myself to work at home every day on the splits until I was able to do them and earned my point shoes.

The hard work led to a small part in The Nutcracker! Imagine that! Baryshnikov had everything on me! Four years later I was not only doing pointe classes but taking tap and jazz classes as well. I was in dance heaven! Eventually the director asked me to teach three- and four-year-olds the joy of ballet and to fill in teaching the new older adults like I had once been.

Then it happened. I came down with dancer’s feet, with bunions that would surprise me with their pain as I was walking and make me hold on to a wall for support. Off I went to a podiatrist, who had begun his career in New York working with ballet dancers from the ballet companies located there. Yes, I needed surgery, and yes, if I kept dancing there could be a reoccurrence. Hence, my dancing career came to a screeching halt, but oh, what a thrill it had been! Meeting dancers from all over the world, doing workouts at LeBarre, and even getting invited to New York for a weekend to practice with New York City Ballet, which I never got to go to because of my surgery. After four years of hard work and enjoyment, it was over. Now what?

Not one to be deterred, I decided that it was time for flute, piano and voice lessons!

I began weekly piano lessons from the same woman who came to the house to teach our sons. She was very sweet but made me aware that I would need to practice a lot! My fingers required a nimbleness they no longer possessed. However, I stayed at it every day for about a year, and to this day, I can play a fairly decent Chopsticks.

Flute was another story. My sister, who is very good at anything she does, was blowing into that instrument and emitting beautiful sounds from her second week on. Me, not so much. After three weeks, I still could not get one sound out of my flute, and the instructor even suggested that maybe I should just give up and quit. I just couldn’t do it; quit, that is. I persisted and within another week, I was getting sounds out of my flute that probably alarmed anyone who heard them. I did get better, but knew a philharmonic orchestra was not in my near, immediate or future life.

Voice led me to a Sweet Adeline barbershop group chorus in town. Again, my sister and I went together, and yes, they took her immediately, while I was placed in a probationary capacity. They just weren’t sure about my voice quality, even though I had always thought I had a lovely singing voice. Again, I persisted, worked hard and eventually my sister and I had our own quartet! We called ourselves “The Resounders.” All this led me to win the “most improved” voice award. My dance background also led me to becoming the chorus choreographer.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. Over those four years, I learned about discipline and a little about a lot; however, the best was yet to come. All this time God had been steering me towards him. Little did I know that I was on God’s “Bucket List.” His list is what began my next journey and destination. Although my original bucket list bridges are burned as far as my active participation, the decision to follow God in my life has been the right one to pursue and build my life on, and it is also becoming one of my greatest strengths as God’s grace continues to be sufficient for me.

As Elisabeth Elliot said in Ellen Vaughn’s book Becoming Elisabeth Elliott, “the second that any of us starts to get preoccupied with our power, platform, image, or identity is the moment that we run into trouble. The search for recognition hinders faith. We cannot believe so long as we are concerned with the ‘image’ we present to others. When we think in terms of ‘roles’ for ourselves and others, instead of simply doing the task given us to do, we are thinking as the world thinks, not as God thinks. The thought of Jesus was always and only for the Father. He did what he saw the Father do. He spoke what he heard the Father say. His will was submitted to the Father’s will.”

I began to realize that I was thinking as the world thinks, not as God thinks. In trying to transform myself through the worldly disciplines of dance, music, drama and voice, my transformation (although I didn’t know it then) had already been planted. My courses of learning and training from my “bucket list” were preparing me for learning and training in the Word of God, the Lord’s Supper and fellowship.

As J. I. Packer says in his introduction to Donald Whitney’s book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life: “God has called us to pursue godliness through practicing the disciplines out of gratitude for the grace that has saved us, not as self-justifying or self-advancing effort.” God prepared me for the workout to find health for my soul.

“In any discipline, whether it be sports, music, the trick is to bring the materials to life and deliver it in such a way that it becomes a gift to the world” (Overcomer, by Chris Fabry). A discipline, no matter what it is, should be worked at with all your heart, as if you’re working for the Lord and not for people. My identity was being tied to what I gave my heart to, and the Lord wasn’t in first place.

Like Jacob, in Genesis, my human strengths and weaknesses had to be matured by God’s refining work in my life. It hasn’t been easy. I was not, and am not, always obedient but God has been tenacious in his pursuit. He keeps designing circumstances to break me of my wrong thinking and actions. For example: a few years ago, as I was working out at the health club, I saw a ballet barre. I could not resist walking over to it and raising my right leg on it to do some stretches. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t bring my leg back off the barre! I stood there, on one leg, for what seemed liked hours before I had the nerve to ask another person for help in getting my leg down. That was God’s sense of humor at play, while showing me my sin of pride. He continues to be committed to my growth in him, even with my ongoing setbacks.

As I learned to discipline myself in dance, voice and music, I wasn’t sure where any of it was going to lead. I had a full-time job and was raising a family, but God’s plan persisted. Imagine if God had not taught me to give up on any of my dreams, I would not have understood what his dream was for me….to be “born again.” Little did I realize that he was steering me toward his personal and interpersonal spiritual disciplines. Like my bucket list activities, his spiritual disciplines are activities that need to be practiced for the purpose of godliness.

In his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald S. Whitney sums it up well when he mentions that “the only way to be spiritually disciplined is to model what we are taught in the Bible, knowing and experiencing God and growing in Christlikeness.” Hence, what God was really allowing me to learn from my bucket list endeavors was that the more I practiced, the deeper I would come to understanding each of his disciplines.

With God’s help, and the discipline he taught me in dance, music and voice, I would learn that disciplines are means, not ends. That as we grow in conformity (both inward and outward), that my bucket list was really an exercise in how to grow in conformity to both the heart of Christ and the life of Christ. Without learning to practice in ballet, music and voice, my performances would have been mediocre, filled with vanity and empty. Who knew that God foresaw all these things long before he brought me home? My bucket list was just the beginning, as God was going to lead me into something much deeper – the spiritual disciplines he was going to set before me.