Have you ever felt that life turns out to be more difficult and less picturesque than you thought it would be? Whether it is your marriage, a new job, a new city, retirement, or a new child, life seems to let us down when it doesn’t meet our expectations. I have felt that let-down before. I’ve felt cheated by life when it feels like it’s more than I can bear. But there is something that has kept us afloat in the tumultuous waters we’ve found ourselves in: hope.
David and I sat there in the small theatre when Andrew Peterson took the stage with his guitar and started singing, “Dancing in the Minefields.” At first, I just enjoyed sitting close to my husband and sang along with the lyrics but then I began to just listen to the words. I was suddenly overwhelmed and tears flowed down my cheeks.
David and I got married in 1994 when I was only 21 and he was 26. Reality settled in quickly as we returned home from our honeymoon and were met with a moving truck. We loaded everything up and moved from Minnesota to New York State. We were madly in love but the honeymoon phase soon wore off as we were faced with starting our lives together in a new community. It wasn’t nearly as easy as the movies imply.
Just five short years into our marriage, David was severely injured in an explosion at work that left him covered in burns over most of his body. Since then, it’s sometimes felt like we were on a battlefield. David fought for his life. We’ve fought to maintain our sense of humor. We’ve fought to find resources to help our family heal. We’ve fought to keep our marriage intact. We’ve fought to find ways to start living again with our new reality. Sometimes we’ve just fought. We’ve fought to figure out why bad things sometimes happen without any explanation. We’ve fought to find hope and joy.
If you’re feeling this way today, I’m writing for you. I wish I could sit with you and tell you this in person, but in lieu of physical presence, I pray these words will suffice: this life is hard. There are really amazing parts about it, and there are things that happen that we simply wish wouldn’t. But I believe there will come a day when the disappointments of life won’t exist anymore. I believe that in Jesus we have hope that goes beyond this life, and when we’re faced with extreme trials now, we can walk through them with confidence knowing that it won’t be like this forever. I pray that you can let this hope sink in to your pain, and breathe life into the parts of you that feel dead. Life can feel like a minefield, but it won’t stay this way forever. I pray this realization gives you the strength to hold on to hope, and cling to the future that God promises.
So, as we listened to Andrew Peterson sing, the battles we have fought all came to my mind, flooding me with emotion. Life has been so much harder than I ever dreamed it would be, yet I’m overwhelmed with thankfulness that David and I have been able to dance together in the many minefields and that we’ve survived the storms together, with God’s help.
May we all continue to dance, regardless of life’s battles.
“Dancing In The Minefields”
By Andrew Peterson
I was nineteen, you were twenty-one
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much too young
But we did it anyway
We bought our rings for forty each
From a pawn shop down the road
We made our vows and took the leap
Now fifteen years ago
We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for
“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
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
So when I lose my way, find me
When I loose love’s chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith, till the end of all my days
When I forget my name, remind me
‘Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man
So there’s nothing left to fear
So I’ll walk with you in the shadowlands
Till the shadows disappear
‘Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos, baby,
I can dance with you
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