Dancing in the Minefields

This is my new favourite song:




One of the things I like most is seeing elderly people holding hands and being in love.  There's something about seeing their hands - old hands that have been held in courtship, rocked babies, spread peanut butter on bread, helped with homework, cuddled grandbabies, and brought comfort to so many - together in such timeless love.  That would be why I fell even more in love with this song after seeing the video.  I've always been intrigued by elderly couples who are still so much in love.  I want to be one of those couples.


So I'm going to say some things I don't say nearly enough.


I love my husband.  And I just really like him.  I like his heart and his mind, his feelings and his thoughts.  God has done (and is doing) something amazing in that guy.


Also, I'd like to say that I am married to a man.  And I don't mean that he is of the male gender - that's obvious (except when he's knitting or wearing Lululemon pants).  He is a man.  He stands in front of me, and protects me.  He respects me, is gentle with me, and treats me the way he would want his own daughter treated by a man.  I feel safe with him.  I hope our boys will be husbands and fathers just like Kris, and I hope our girls (if we have one someday) marry men like him. 


After having 2 kids and being caught in the whirlwind of bottles, baths, poop, Legos, and the Backyardigans (a whirlwind we love!), God has really rekindled something here.  We've allowed the Holy Spirit to come like fire through our lives - into the deepest parts of our hearts, and into our marriage.  It was good before, but now?  I can't even describe it.  And I'm so excited for the future. 


I think (I know) it's easy to caught up in playing the good Christian wife.  The good Christian husband.  The good Christian family.  The good Christian, period.  I used to think that those things would somehow "save" Kris and I from future problems, that would save us from inevitably ending in divorce.  But they don't, and you only need to google "Christian divorce rates" to see that point illustrated all too clearly.  


Christians can have faulty marriages.  And Christians can have mediocre marriages.  The great news is, is that God isn't a mediocre God.  He's a God who's extravagant.  And that is what has couples dancing and - dare I say it?! - having great sex well into their old age.  


So, all this just to say, thank you Lord, for being extravagant in our lives, and changing me, changing us.  For raising the bar and saying, "I'm not a God of 'good enough'".  And thank you to my husband for allowing the Holy Spirit to do a work in him too.  You are truly my knight in shining armour.  


Hardships will come.  There will be trials.  But I hope that in the midst of it all, we can dance together in those minefields.