The Dance

My husband is an engineer.  If you know anything about engineers you know they love perfection.  They plan every detail.  They imagine everything that could cause failure.  They get their little slide rulers and measure and calcuate. They crunch numbers.  They talk about it before they do it.  They try their best to iron out every problem so there is no possibility of a mistake.  They hate failure.  I’m not an engineer.  I figure it out as I go.  I don’t try to look for what could go wrong.  After all, isn’t there some kind of hard statistical information that says most of the things we worry about never happen?  Sometimes when we collaborate on a project, in his frustration and aggravation my husband tries to hurt my feelings by calling me an optimist.  I can live with that.

Here is a little known fact about my husband –  Long ago, before we met, Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Memphis, Tennessee awarded him a trophy for winning a disco dance competition.  Of course he won first place; he strives for perfection.  I never danced, but in the last few years I kept telling my husband, you really should dance with me.  Because he’s an engineer, there was a plethora of circumstances that had to be overcome.  First he wanted to know where in the world would we go dancing.  At the time we were living in the country, and I said we’ve got about five acres to dance on.  He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.  You mean we would just get out in the pasture and dance?  Had I lost my mind?  That was way out of his comfort zone.  Secondly there was the problem of the music. Where would we get music.  I quicky reminded him I had Spotify.  I would just take my Iphone with me and we could have any music we wanted.   He told me he hadn’t danced in years and doubted he could anymore.  I finally gave up.

One prayer that my husband prays often is “Lord change me where I need to be changed.”  I love this prayer.  I know when a prayer touches God’s heart, he absolutely answers.   I love how patient God is and how he is constantly working on making us into that beautiful image of His Son.  Recently, my husband and I were having breakfast in our dining room.  His back was facing the windows and the sun was shining on his shoulders.  He thought of that song by John Denver – Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.  He wanted me to find it on Spotify and play it while we were having breakfast.  We started to clear the table and he said to me “Come here.”

And then it happened.

He put his arms around me and we began to dance.  Now understand – my engineer husband who loves perfection, but yet has suffered a stroke was gently dancing with me under less than perfect circumstances.  It was in the morning, in between the kitchen and the dining room.  His right foot was dragging because of the stroke.  His timing was off. Dancing with the Stars would have given us failing marks.   It was absolute perfection to me.  It was an immensely rich experience.  I was floating the rest of the day.

Later in the day, as I began to reflect on our dance, I thought of  how many times God has asked me to do something that was out of my comfort zone.  Something that would really stretch me.  Something that felt unfortable.  Something I thought was ridiculous.  Like my husband, when it comes to doing things for Jesus, I want it to be perfect. Like my husband, I could come up with some pretty good excuses.   I feel like there is always someone who would be a better choice, smarter, a better speaker, a better writer, a better organizer, a finer education.  Could it be that God’s not really looking for perfection at all?  Maybe He’s just wanting me to do something that would mean so much to Him.  He knows he doesn’t really need me.  He just wants me.  I go back to my husband’s wise prayer “Lord change me where I need to be changed”. Jesus help me to not refuse you just because I’m uncomfortable with what you asked.  I’m so thankful for your patience.

Lastly, to my Beautiful – thank you for the dance.