Marriage is Like Dancing

I just finished reading a book entitled Marriage is Like Dancing. The author, Richard Eyer, a retired pastor and chaplain, wrote this book after he and his wife began taking ballroom dance lessons for the first time after almost forty years of marriage. He soon realized that the partnership in dancing paralleled the partnership between a husband and a wife. In his book, he discusses the importance of the man leading and the connections needed to dance well and to have a good marriage.

My sister and her husband have been married for twenty years, and during a recent vow renewal ceremony, her husband read her a quote by Elton Trueblood. “A successful marriage is not one in which two people beautifully matched find each other and get along happily ever after because of the initial matching. A successful marriage is a system which persons who are sinful and contentious are so caught up by a dream and by a purpose bigger than themselves that they can work through the years in spite of the repeated disappointments and make the dream come true.”

He told my sister at the ceremony, “This has been our dance, my love – all the spins, all the dips and all the twirls… may we always be ready to make life’s difficult sacrifices and may God grant us the courage to weather them. May we be honest with one another , always and forever trusting in the love of the Lord.”

This blog is dedicated to PJ and Susan. They have danced well. Dance on.