Here’s a great story I read yesterday from John Ortberg’s The Me I Want to Be:
My 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 marriages. 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 that five years, and so on. Nancy and I made it to the 25 year cut, and by that time the crowd had thinned out considerably.
Finally, there was only one couple left on the dance floor, and they had been married 53 years. everyone watched them – a tall, courtly, silver-haired man who stood a foot taller than his wife – but they watched only 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 in such a way that 53 years from now that’s you. That dance is your dance. Now it begins.’
Discipleship Blog 
Hi Matthew, I’ve been reading this book too and finding very encouaging. Last year in our village church we had a ‘Marriage Celebration’ service, where we renewed our vows to our husbands and wives. As well as each other, we all need friends on the journey with us to support and help nurture our relationships.
What a lovely title “the dance of marriage” and how well that describes the life that can be shared with the right partner….thinking in dance terms….the exhilaration of the quickstep, the romance of the foxtrot, the tension of the tango, the seduction of the rhumba, the turmoil of the viennese waltz…..all of life’s moments that can be shared with the right partner in the marriage relationship. 10 years’ ago we renewed our vows before a party of friends and family at our Ruby Anniversary and now this year we are to celebrate our Golden (50 years). Though a sedate waltz is mostly all we can muster now the years are full of memories shared with each other and others and we are grateful to God who has sustained us and who brought us together in the first place….yes! right there on the dance floor!!