Hello friends! A warm welcome to a new Life Testimony series – Dancing Through the Seasons by Joyce Ewing-Chow.

Authenticity is sometimes not something we relish - it is like suddenly exposing a messy wardrobe. Also, it is not easy for people to share their past because too often, the process of unearthing is agonisingly painful. They must face the ugliness of sin and injustice too. However, without pain on our journeys, we seldom experience the joy when healing comes.

The author, Joyce Ewing-Chow, chose to share her stories candidly. This book also includes testimonies shared by a few other women. They tell their stories courageously, with grace and poise, yet with a forthrightness that will bring hope to their fellow sisters who are still hurting. For the sake of their unsaved family members, some of them have used pseudonyms.

As these women turn over their stormy struggles to Jesus,  these once-wounded women are healed. Today, all of them stand tall and indeed, rise with wings like eagles. Yes, the process hurts intensely but God, who is our Saviour, is also a good Listener and Healer. He touches the broken-hearted and we believe you will be overwhelmed and be blessed richly as you listen to their stories.

Ann Chan from the Covenant Evangelical Free Church, Singapore, is Joyce’s mentor. In the foreword of the book, Ann wrote, “Dance is not merely about movement. It is essentially about the heart. With the movement of body, soul and spirit, a true dancer amplifies the grace of the rhythm and the soul of the music. The motion is not incidental but deliberate. The purpose is not merely to evoke emotions but to express it. Whether it is a waltz, tango or any other form of dance, the best dance is that which expresses the soul and comes from the heart.

Like a beautiful dance, Dancing Through the Seasons – a Journey of Healing for Women is written from the heart. It is a book that reflects the movements of God’s healing touch in Joyce’s remarkable life. It profoundly presents God as the Master Choreographer; the One who has lovingly orchestrated the cleansing, restoring and transforming of a redeemed life from the inside out.              

Ann is not a mere spectator of Joyce’s redemptive dance, she has the privilege to sometimes join Joyce in the dance as if in the rehearsals of her healing.

In Ann’s eyes, “Joyce is determined that her moves are conformed to God’s loving direction. She never loses sight of the fact that her dance is before the audience of One. If there is one thing that marks Joyce, it would be a tenacious desire to finish the last dance with great finesse, grace and poise. She knows that ultimately God is the faithful partner of her first and last dance”.

The birth of the book

Joyce was at Seven Fountains Retreat Centre in Chiangmai, Thailand. It was six o’clock in the morning and the sky was still dark. Groups of brightly coloured butterflies flitted among flowering bushes; but Joyce carried a heavy heart. She stood in front of a hibiscus bush and studied closely two purple butterflies chasing each other around the scarlet blooms.

She was amazed at the light-hearted movements of their delicate wings as they fluttered gracefully as if to the beat of some mysterious rhythm. Round and round, up and down, over and under and round again they went! Suddenly, Joyce heard the words, ″May I have this dance?″ in a soft and gentle tone. She was startled and wondered who was speaking to her at that hour? But as she turned to look, the echo came again, ″May I have this dance?″

Then Joyce remembered Mary who stood outside the empty tomb on resurrection morning two thousand years ago. When Mary heard her name, she knew at once it was her Lord speaking. What was disclosed to her by the resurrected Christ changed her life forever! Mary became the bearer of the good news that Christ had risen. She was a witness of the living God, who spoke tenderly to her, relieving her of all her fears, uncertainties and anxieties.

Joyce responded immediately, ″Lord, is that You?″

″Beloved, may I have this dance?″

She protested, ″My heart is broken, my spirit is weary, and I have a real pain in both my heels. You’re asking the impossible, Lord!″

″Look at the butterflies. They have such short lives, and yet they are dancing for Me and with Me every morning.″

Joyce looked again, and her eyes were suddenly opened to the reality of the scene. The butterflies were not playing a chasing game. They were dancing. She could almost hear the heavenly chorus accompanying their graceful flight. There were not just two butterflies but dozens, swirling, twirling and flitting in a hilarious dance of great abandonment before their Maker. These butterflies with flimsy wings and flimsier lives were rejoicing in dance before their Life Giver.

Joyce laughed out loud and answered with enthusiasm, ″Yes, Lord, teach me to dance!″

That’s the birth of the book.

Joyce said it is her prayer that women everywhere would find the healing rhythm of dance in the midst of their pains, be it physical, mental or emotional. Jesus, the Lover of our souls, is waiting by the side-lines with the same question, “May I have this dance?” Patiently, He awaits your consent and cooperation before He moves on. Certainly, He will not leave you in misery or frustration or in pain, but He is patient to wait for your answer. And Joyce said this wholeheartedly: saying “Yes” to Jesus is saying “Yes” to healing.

In Psalm 142, David expressed his utter despair at the injustice of being pursued by wicked men. Despite that, he affirms that God is his refuge and there would be restitution one day. And like David, many women are in despair because of hurts and wounds, sometimes caused by the church. However, these women have no recourse for healing and so they remain silent. There are still many walking-wounded around.

What is mentioned in this book is more than a physical dance. It is the tutoring of our souls to dance in triumph over our circumstances. It is stepping out in abandoned faith, knowing that God is there for us as He has promised. It is experiencing the reality of divine healing as we take his hands and let Him lead.

The Lord showed Joyce that dancing with Him would be her way of offering worship that pleases Him in Psalm 149: 3, “Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp”.

Friends, we will broadcast Dancing Through the Seasons in the coming ten weeks. Each episode will feature two parts. The initial part is what Joyce called her Dance Step. Here, we listen to Joyce’s stories - her pains and wounds and how she discovered her own healing in the dance with Jesus. The other part which Joyce calls A Woman’s Dance, consist of stories of her ‘band of sisters’. These women shared their journeys from pain to purpose as they surrendered their wounds to Jesus and learnt their own unique dance with Him. Joyce masterfully weaved the redemptive stories of her ‘band of sisters’ to complete her dance. Their twists and turns offer readers or listeners a glimpse of God’s loving hand behind each movement. In short, we will bring you two stories each week.

Francis Frangipane in his book entitled The Three Battlegrounds talked about the battleground of the mind. Where there is darkness, there Satan sets up his domain. Humility brings in the light of Christ. The light will dispel darkness, demolish strongholds, expel the devil and set up the glorious throne of God. Truth, told in humility, is light. We are to simply let our light shine!

It is Joyce’s heartfelt wish that listeners and readers will be blessed as they know these stories in the book. She encourages our audience not to remain being blessed but have the compassion to share the healing dance with other women in their spheres of influence. By doing so, many others may enjoy the dance and be healed in the name of Jesus Christ. Psalm 147: 3 (NLT) says, “He heals the broken-hearted and bandages their wounds”.

Here is Joyce’s prayer before we begin our journey of healing together with her next week:

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for calling your daughters to dance with you, to move from pain to purpose, to let You guide us on our journey to healing, so that we may live fruitful lives for Your glory. O Lord give us the grace to dance; give us the grace, Lord, to dance one step at a time and to come fully into our wholeness promised in the Scriptures. We ask this in the redemptive name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

God is able to turn our depressing darkness into a beautiful dance. As we bring you the heart-felt, inspirational stories the next ten weeks, you will learn the songs He is singing over your lives and enter into the rhythms of His grace. You will be calmed by His tender love like those women who had shared their gripping stories with courage and transparency. God is truly our healer. Come, dance with Him through the seasons of life. Join us and witness the dance of joy amidst life’s inevitable seasons of pain. You will be immersed in the dance steps of Joyce and her fellow sisters. See you all soon!