John Ortberg relates how his niece… “Courtney got married not long ago, and at the wedding reception they had a dance for married couples in which they would eliminate couples from the dance floor based on the length of their marriage. [He writes:] ‘At the beginning we were all on the floor. Courtney and Patrick were the first to leave, then all the couples married less than one year left, then those married less than five years, and so on. Nancy and I made it to the twenty-five year cut, and by that time the crowd had thinned out considerably.
Finally, there was just one couple left on the dance floor, and they had been married fifty-three years. Everybody watched them – a tall, courtly, silver-haired man who stood a foot taller than his wife – but they watch only each other. They danced with joy, not in the skill of their dancing, but in the love they radiated for each other. What a contrast between the newlyweds, fresh in the health and beauty of their marriage, and the beauty of another kind of love that shone from the last couple on the floor! Perhaps part of why we appreciate such beauty is that it speaks to us of an inner flourishing not visible to the eye.’
When the dancing ended, the master of ceremonies turned to Courtney and Patrick and said to them, “Take a good look at that couple on the dance floor. Your task now is to live and love together in such a way that fifty-three years from now that’s you. That dance is your dance. Now it begins.”
MISTAKES
John Ortberg, The Me I Want To Be, 2010, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, p.19
John Ortberg relates how his niece… “Courtney got married not long ago, and at the wedding reception they had a dance for married couples in which they would eliminate couples from the dance floor based on the length of their marriage. [He writes:] ‘At the beginning we were all on the floor. Courtney and Patrick were the first to leave, then all the couples married less than one year left, then those married less than five years, and so on. Nancy and I made it to the twenty-five year cut, and by that time the crowd had thinned out considerably.
Finally, there was just one couple left on the dance floor, and they had been married fifty-three years. Everybody watched them – a tall, courtly, silver-haired man who stood a foot taller than his wife – but they watch only each other. They danced with joy, not in the skill of their dancing, but in the love they radiated for each other. What a contrast between the newlyweds, fresh in the health and beauty of their marriage, and the beauty of another kind of love that shone from the last couple on the floor! Perhaps part of why we appreciate such beauty is that it speaks to us of an inner flourishing not visible to the eye.’
When the dancing ended, the master of ceremonies turned to Courtney and Patrick and said to them, “Take a good look at that couple on the dance floor. Your task now is to live and love together in such a way that fifty-three years from now that’s you. That dance is your dance. Now it begins.”
MISTAKES
John Ortberg, The Me I Want To Be, 2010, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, p.19
