Here’s a little known fact that I’ve always found cute and endearing: my husband loves to dance. I didn’t say he is a good dancer. I often equate him with Steve Martin’s The Jerk when he discovers that music has a beat.
I’m pretty sure that Ken sees himself more like Fiero in Wicked.
But the truth is that Ken really, really loves to dance, and he wants to be good at it. In fact, when we were first married, he told me that someday he’d like us to take ballroom dancing lessons. Well, someday is here.
For Christmas, I gave Ken a month of ballroom dancing lessons. I went into it thinking it was going to be easy for me. After all, I’ve always loved to dance. I took dance as a little girl and actually learned square dancing and the waltz in gym class. Ken and I used to do country line dancing all the time before we had children. I knew that this was going to be a piece of cake. I was so wrong.
We go to dance every Thursday night from 7-9pm. We are learning the Rumba, the Bolero, the Waltz, and the Salsa. I’ve had to throw everything I knew about dance out the window and begin at step one, literally (you know, 1,2,3and 4 or 1and2,3and4). It’s exhausting and sometimes frustrating. I can hear the beat, but Ken cannot. He can grasp the side breaks, but I struggle.
Four dances in two hours is brutal. And then there is the hour of at-home practice that Ken insists upon every night. If I thought the arthritis in my foot was bad before, aye-yi-yi! It’s killing me! But last night, as we danced around our living room, I could sense a break-through. We began working together. Sure, we had our moment of frustration with each other, but we let it go. We let it go and just danced.
We will never be Fred and Ginger. And all joking aside, we make the newbies on Dancing with the Stars look like Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. But we are learning to dance, and perhaps, we are learning even more important lessons, ones I sometimes need to tell myself over and over again.
Be always humble, gentle, and patient. Show your love by being tolerant with one another. (Ephesians 4:2)
Hot tempers cause arguments, but patience brings peace. (Proverbs 15:18)
The end of something is better than its beginning. Patience is better than pride. (Ecclesiastes 7:8)
And most of all, the words that were read at our very own wedding over twenty-four years ago:
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)
Perhaps those were lessons God intended for us to learn all along.
What I was writing about this time last year: The American Way
Amy Schisler is an award winning author of both children’s books and sweet, faith-filled romance novels for readers of all ages. She lives with her husband and three daughters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her books, Picture Me, Whispering Vines, and Island of Miracles are all recipients of Illumination Awards, placing them among the top three inspirational fiction books of 2015, 2016, and 2017. Whispering Vines was awarded the 2017 LYRA Award for the best romance of 2016. Island of Miracles has outsold all of Amy’s other books worldwide and ranked as high 600 on Amazon. Her next children’s book, The Greatest Gift, is now available; and her novel, Summer’s Squall, is on sale online and in stores.
You may follow Amy on Facebook at http://facebook.com/amyschislerauthor, Twitter @AmySchislerAuth, Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/amyschislerand at http://amyschislerauthor.com.
Amy’s books: Crabbing With Granddad (2013), A Place to Call Home (2014), Picture Me (2015), Whispering Vines (2016), Island of Miracles (2017), Stations of the Cross Meditations for Moms (2017), The Greatest Gift (2017), Summer’s Squall (2017)
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