Easter is terrifying.

I'm creative.  I just am.  I like to dream up ideas and write and build and edit, but most of all I love to dance.  When I'm not dancing or choreographing, there's a hunger.

A hunger to do something new.

A hunger to create.

It's as if the dances are in my brain fighting to get out.  There are some dances that never get a chance to see the light of day.  There are some dances that get out and then people hate them.  Then, there are those dances that get out and it's like magic.

Last month, I had the chance to choreograph for my church's Easter production.  I'm sure you have seen it on my Facebook, but i'm just not sure you know the whole story.

Choreographing something like that is insanity.  28 people, 28 paint rollers, 34 buckets of paint, 12 paint pans, 10 paint balloons, 4 sprayers, and one 19' by 48' wall.  (oh and whatever I choreograph has to be reset for  second service an hour later....)

I had to get that wall fully painted in 1 minute 45 seconds...  (oh and by the way, you don't get a dress rehearsal with paint)...  then you get 30 seconds to get everything off stage... and then have a full dance number...

I spent every spare moment of my life planning this thing.  Listening to the music over and over during lunch breaks and in my car, choreographing, making maps of where people went, planning how the walls would move,  figuring out paint so that it wouldn't look like mud... The list went on and on.

I, luckily, had amazing people around me.  Like Nick, the creator, tarp manger, paint tester and director who would sit and discuss it with me.  Jessica who sat with me for three hours figuring out where props went.  I had Renee, Michele and Jessica choreograph sections so that I wouldn't have the carry the weight all alone.

I was keeping up five jobs and trying to do this thing.  By the end I was exhausted and scared out of my mind.

"Scared?" you ask.  Yes, scared.

I had to perform in the show in order to have the right amount of people.  So, I never saw the show. And since we didn't have a dress rehearsal with paint, I honestly had no idea how it was going to look or what would happen when we threw paint on wooden walls for the first time.

The hardest moment, anytime I create something, is when I'm finally finished, because then I have to set my creation into the light and let people see it.  To let them take what I have created and judge it.

Easter is the worst because I have to set my creation into the light for the first time when 12,000 people are watching.

I was terrified.

But I will tell you, the moment the first bit of paint hit the wall and the audience gasped.  I knew we created something that would get people's attention.

You know, I will never really understand what it was like to experience this celebration because I was on stage, but I do know this; it was amazing.  Not the show necessarily, but the process.  To work so hard I was falling asleep at stop lights.  To get the chance to work with amazing people.  To have so many uncertainties and watch God make it happen.  To be totally terrified and yet have more joy than I could imagine while falling on my butt center stage.

In the end my favorite part was not even something on stage.  It was watching the dancers celebrate together after the show in the wings because we had come together and we had done something fantastic that celebrated God and the joy he brings.  We did this.  All of us.  And so we celebrated.

If you haven't seen it yet, watch this... it's the recap of the entire service.

http://vimeo.com/23031374

If you want to see the whole dance.  Here is a link to the up close and personal version:

http://www.vimeo.com/22968871

Or you can watch this version: