I Hope You Dance

When marriage gets rough
I hope you dance

For those who have kept up with our ministry over the few years we have been here should know by now our love story. If you don't I will give you a little of it. We fell in love on the dance floor. I love to dance and my husband does too. We have dance through every season of our marriage. Good ones as well as the difficult ones. Our children were brought up dancing and now our grandchildren dance as well. We would hear music and just jump up and start moving. No one cared if it was good or not. We just moved our bodies to the music and had fun. 

My husband and I were in sync from the very moment he asked me to dance. I knew then that I would like to be with him. So what am I really trying to say here I feel you wondering? Marriage like a dance takes time and effort to run smoothly. For some the moment you meet you just naturally are able to follow the dance that is being written. You know that you are meant and you take that step to become one and you just blend. You learn the marriage dance from the very beginning and move forward. 

That's not to say that those couples don't make a wrong step in the dance or are off key. It just means that they can easily move together in the dance of love, commitment, and marital intimacy. What it means is that this couple knows how to follow each other during the dancing process. They know that at different times in marriage one might lead while the other follows. This does not make either of them better it just means that at that time the one leading knows what's needed to accomplish the goals during the phase of their marriage. While the one following is there for support and encouragement.

This phase of the marriage dance for some maybe extremely hard. Instead of following the steps together that will allow them to move on to other phases of the marriage dance they fight for leadership and the dance becomes difficult and awkward. Once they get out of step or cannot figure out the pattern of the marriage dance just like real dancing they appear less cohesive and everyone can see their flaws. 

Sometimes that very couple may not know that they are dancing out of step. They continue with their struggle for leadership of the marital dance. If neither want to yield to the other in order to get the dance steps right then the dance of marriage is a disaster and then that couple needs to seek a dance instructor. That instructor just like a real dance instructor knows the dance and can help you as a couple get back to the real act of the marital dance. 

You will learn the proper dance and begin to enjoy each other as you dance the real dance of marital love. As time goes on as a couple you learn to blend together. During your troubles as with the act of physical dancing you have to take your time and work together to get the steps right. The same thing with the marital dance. You have to work through times of adversity and work together as you learn that marital dance step. Then before you know it you can dance together without looking at each other.

You can dance the marriage dance with ease. Ever watched a couple who has been married for a while dancing together? They seem to be enjoying themselves. They are dancing together with ease. They know their moves. They don't care who's watching. They dance until they can't anymore but while they are doing it they are having fun. If one or both of them miss a step then they will start laughing and keep going.  From their very dance moves you can see how their marriage has grown and blended together.

This couple has learned each other over the years and are now moving together as one unit. They have weathered the storms of different marital seasons. They have learned who should lead and who should follow. They have learned that mistakes maybe made but it can be corrected. Or they could just laugh and keep going with the dance. Most of all they have learned to get the dance right they must learn the steps from the dance instructor. The one who made up the dance in the first place. 

They have learned that the instructor is God. He is the leader and creator of the marital dance. Only He can teach us how to get the steps right. Only He can guide us as we travel through the seasons of marriage. As we lean on Him He will get us to the place where we can just get up and dance as we keep the faith growing in our marriage.

The dance of marriage God's way is being threaten and only those couples who listen to his voice and follow his dance step will make it to a harmonious end. Marriage as given to us by God is for the life of the couple. We want all couples to learn their very own dance as God directs them. It takes time, effort, togetherness and love to keep your dance moving in a progressive healthy forward movement. 

Take the chance and learn the dance. No matter where your marriage is at the moment its never too late to go back to the dance instructor and learn the steps to save you two. We each have our very own couple dance and once we learn it then we can dance together in love for the rest of our marital lives. 

In the end I pray that as a couple you take heed from the words of this song by Lee Ann Womack. It states the following:

give faith a fighting chance and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

"I hope you dance"!