Dancing in the Minefields
Every time I turn on the radio lately, I hear Andrew Peterson’s song “Dancing in the Minefields.” It serves as a poignant reminder of how fragile, and yet how powerful, our marriages can be. When we’re standing at the altar with love filling our hearts and “diamonds” in our eyes like we see in the eyes of cartoon characters, we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into.
Every time I turn on the radio lately, I hear Andrew Peterson’s song “Dancing in the Minefields.” It serves as a poignant reminder of how fragile, and yet how powerful, our marriages can be. When we’re standing at the altar with love filling our hearts and “diamonds” in our eyes like we see in the eyes of cartoon characters, we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into. “For better or for worse?” I’ll take “for better.” Really, how bad could things get with this perfect person?
“For richer or for poorer?” I’m a seminary student; I’m already poor! No problem there, right?
How about “in sickness and in health”? How sick does one have to get in order for the other one to have “permission” to bail out of the marriage?
“‘Til death do us part”? That’s a long time! What if we develop irreconcilable differences? (I once heard someone say that we ALL have irreconcilable differences!)
Yes, marriage turns out to be much more challenging than any of us thought. But that’s what it means to love someone in a fallen world with flawed hearts. We try to love like God did but we fall woefully short. That’s why we need the love of Christ in us – to give us the supernatural ability to see the other person through “God-colored glasses.”
Andrew Peterson writes:
“Well, ‘I do’ are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another, I’ve heard,
is a good place to begin
‘Cause the only way to find your life
is to lay your own life down
And I believe it’s an easy price
for the life that we have found
Chorus:
And we’re dancing in the minefields
We’re sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
That’s what the promise is for
So when I lose my way, find me
When I lose loves chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith
to the end of all my days
when I forget my name, remind me”
One of my seminary professors told the story of a student who would take all of his papers and projects after receiving them back from his professors, and no matter what grade he had gotten, he wrote “GRACE” on top of the grade in big letters. I hope that we can take a lesson from that today and write over all of the faults of our spouses with the word GRACE.
