by Gary Smalley
But we serve a Good Shepherd who is committed to restoring lost sheep. When we stray, God sets in motion a plan to redeem our lives and restore our hearts much like we see with Jim and Marilyn in The Dance. As this mending begins, we get a taste of what God has always intended: real love, real joy, and real passion happening right there . . . inside the home.
What will happen to Jim and Marilyn’s relationship from here? Will they be able to fully rekindle their love on a second honeymoon in Italy or will the problems of their past return? What about their adult children, Tom, Michele, and Doug? They’ve been raised in a Christian home filled with legalism and harshness, by parents who have drifted apart. How will this affect their own family relationships in the future?
How will it affect Tom and Jean’s marriage (didn’t we learn that Tom is just like his dad)? How about the newlyweds, Michele and Allan? Will Doug continue to follow the Lord as he transitions from high school to college? Will he pursue the values he’s grown up with or abandon them altogether?
Join us for books 2–4 as a number of new storms come, revealing the “sand foundation” the Andersons’ lives have been built upon. They will face some of the same problems you and I face every day. Through the lives of this fascinating family we’ll see how God restores and mends broken lives, bringing hope and healing in place of heartache and pain.
As with The Dance, I’ll be drawing from the rich resource of Gary’s wonderful books on marriage and family relationships. Gary has spent the last thirty years helping millions of people understand the beauty and wisdom of God’s Word regarding these critical issues. His insights, wisdom, and humor are legendary. My own marriage has benefited greatly from reading Gary’s books, and I was thrilled when he asked me to consider writing this series together.
While writing The Dance, I drew heavily from Gary’s bestselling book The DNA of Relationships. I served as a pastor for twenty-five years. Putting it simply, I’ve never read a better book on marriage and family relationships than this one. You’ve got to get it!
I invite you to take a few minutes to read a follow-up interview I did with Gary, talking about The DNA of Relationships as well as The Dance. I wanted to give him a chance to elaborate on some of the things Audrey Windsor and Uncle Henry shared with Jim. I’m sure it will bless you.
I can’t wait to get back to work on the rest of the Restoration series. Be on the lookout for The Promise due out in the fall of 2013. Between now and then, feel free to visit me at www.danwalshbooks.com. From there you can send me emails (I’d love to hear from you), read my blog, connect with me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Dan’s Interview with Gary about The Dance
Dan: Of all the characters in this book, which one do you relate to the most and why?
Gary: With the husband, Jim. As we were working on this book, I remembered so many things that I had said and done to my wife Norma, things like Marilyn had to put up with. Norma could have left me after five years, because I didn’t have a clue of how to value her above fishing, the church where I worked, and the youth department where I also ministered as the youth pastor. I took better care of other church kids, wives, and husbands than I did my own children and wife. When she admitted to me, after five years, that she was “dead” inside when it came to love from and to me, I woke up and started changing. She told me that she was never going to divorce me because she had committed herself to God and had given me the promise that she would remain forever until death. But the death came earlier than she had imagined.
I began to listen to her more, to interview older wives in my church on how to love Norma, and to read everything that I could get my hands on to improve as a husband. I started teaching a college Bible study on marriage, and the students helped me refine my message to couples. My new knowledge actually began the roots of my present ministry to couples.
The main thing that I began to learn was that no one can love a person until they first learn what it means to honor them. Honor is to consider someone highly valuable. One way to honor someone is to list everything about them that is praised, valued, important. That is, valuable memories with them, things about them that are beautiful, character qualities that reflect the high value of God. A person can find unlimited reasons to value someone, and as Christ said, “Whatever a man treasures, that is where their heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:21) Affection, desire, caring—all spring from honoring someone.
The second thing I learned was the awesome importance of keeping my anger as low as possible toward Norma, my kids, and all others. Anger destroys love and connection between people. First John 2 indicates that when a person harbors anger or hatred toward another, they cannot live in God’s love or light. If you say that you know God but you hate your brother, the truth is not in you and you don’t love God or others. It is impossible to continue hating someone while God’s love is flowing within you.
Dan: I drew much of my inspiration for our story from your bestselling book The DNA of Relationships. In that first dance lesson in chapters 26–27, Audrey introduces Jim to a word picture she calls the “Fear Dance.” Is there anything more you’d like to say about this Fear Dance?
Gary: The Fear Dance has been one of the best metaphors that Norma and I use to remain in harmony and love. There’s an entire chapter about this in the DNA of Relationships book. When my son, Greg, taught us how our “core fears” affect us, we began to understand why we argued in anger at times. For instance, my core fears are of being belittled and of being controlled. One of Norma’s core fears is the fear of failure or not doing things right.
When Norma believes that some of my actions toward her or others are not up to the highest standards of God, she may try to suggest certain changes in my behavior. But for most of our married life, I would perceive her suggestions as her way of trying to control and belittle me. I would react by requesting that she not point out my flaws, and she would hear me telling her that she was not “doing the wife job correctly.” She would then react by trying to change me, and I would again perceive her as trying to control or belittle me. When we figured this “dance” out, our new understanding allowed us to take full responsibility for our own core fears and start working with God and his words to become more mature in him.
Dan: Can you share an example of what it looks like to break free from a “core fear”?
Gary: One time, Norma was inside our house getting the final touches of a big Fourth of July party ready. My daughter Kari yelled across the creek that she didn’t have anything for dinner. So I invited her and her two kids to join us for dinner just as Norma was walking out the back door. She immediately knew that two grandkids can destroy an entire house in seconds and that the meal I was offering to Kari was actually being readied for the next day.
It seemed to me that she was belittling me and controlling me as she uninvited Kari. I wanted to say, “Wait a minute, I live here too.” But instead, I kept my mouth closed and took full responsibility for my emotions and thoughts. I began praying and immediately remembered two very important things I had been needing and praying for in my own life.
I’d been asking God to show me how to establish him as the controller of my life and how I could become more like his Son in humility. So, in that moment, I thanked him for taking me under his wings and showing me how to lay down my life for my wife and daughter.
Once I saw this, I suggested quickly that we all go out for dinner, my treat.
Dan: In my experience as a pastor, I often found that the wives seemed more concerned about the quality of the marriage relationship than the husbands did. Has that been your experience? If so, why do you think that’s the case?
Gary: God said that it is not good for man to be alone. So, he gave us a “completer.” I have found that most wives have a built-in relationship manual. They use this natural gift from God to help their husbands become a better lover and a better parent. I have never found an exception to this amazing gift given to women of all ages. I
can interview women from any country on earth, and they all know what a good relationship should look like.
Most tell me three things that make a marriage or friendship a better relationship. Better communication, better loving (with a gentle touch), and better ability at honoring each other. Communication, they tell me, is listening in order to understand, which places a high value on who the other person really is. The result is the number one cure for divorce. That is, a husband listens until he deeply understands his wife and vice versa. Then, they value each other’s opinions and ideas and try to help their mate “win” arguments because of the high esteem they have for each other. When they both like a suggested solution to a disagreement, they both feel like a winner, and deep harmony and love remain between them.
Dan: In chapter 32, during the lesson where Audrey and Jim actually danced for the first time, she explained to him a concept called the Power of One, which is right out of The DNA of Relationships. What was it about this truth that caused you to decide it should be the first “dance step”?
Gary: The Power of One is when a husband or wife decides that their mate is neither the cause nor the answer to a higher quality of life. God and his words are the source of the highest and best life possible. When the husband or the wife expect their mate to “fulfill them” somehow, those expectations result in stress, frustration, or anger. It is amazing what happens to a person when they “fire” their mate as the one responsible for their ultimate happiness. Christ is the source of life as Colossians 3:4 states. The enemy of God is the ruler of this world, and he is a liar and tries to steal, kill, and destroy all that is good in people’s lives. Whereas Christ came to give us a more abundant life! So, when a mate finds the secret to the abundant life is in Jesus, and makes it their responsibility to see him as their source, the happiness they get in their relationship with their spouse becomes more of an additional blessing, not their only hope.
Dan: At the end of another dance lesson in chapter 38, Audrey talks with Jim about the importance of safety in a marriage relationship, particularly in the way couples communicate. Could you share a little more about that? Why is that so important?
Gary: Marriage researchers have discovered that when a husband or wife feels safe with their mate, an amazing thing happens. When a person feels like they will no longer be condemned, criticized, or judged, the safer they feel. The safer they feel, the more they begin to open their heart, and the best type of friendship happens naturally. The single greatest goal a married couple should set for themselves is developing a lovingly safe environment for each other.
Dan: To keep the story moving in The Dance, we sort of skimmed over the third and fourth dance steps mentioned in the DNA book. Could you tell us what they are and a little about them?
Gary: All four of the actions taken in the Fear Dance are: (1) When someone pushes my fear buttons, I start hurting and feel very uncomfortable. For instance, if I believe someone is trying to control me, it hurts and I want to make the pain stop. (2) I want something. I mainly want a solution to stop this person from pushing my buttons. I may believe that when a friend or my mate realizes their actions are hurting me, they’ll say, “Oh, sorry, I won’t keep doing that” or “I’ll never do it again.” Wrong. People are not like that, and, if anything, just by the way that I explain my hurt, I might be pushing one of their fear buttons. Then, the dance gets moving faster for both of us. (3) Now, I really do fear that my relationship with this person may be damaged, and I really don’t want that to happen. My fear increases, and the dance may become worse. (4) I tend to react then by using my best skills to get the other person to change their ways toward me. But, more often, the fear dance just turns ugly instead.
It’s always best to stop the dance at any point and begin to address your own core fears and seek God and his words to find your own healing and maturity. Stop blaming your mate or others for your own immaturity. It’s your journey that you get to go on, to discover the cure to your own problems. This is one reason why life is so much fun and so exciting. I get to cry out to God, or search Google, or get advice from an older mature follower of Christ, or pursue any number of other ways that will help me grow up and take responsibility for my own life. (Note: These steps are all found on the GarySmalley.com website or on pages 25–29 in The DNA of Relationships book, paperback version.)
Dan: In chapter 42, Audrey talks to Jim about the fifth and final dance step in the DNA book—teamwork. She shares something you wrote about called a No Losers Policy. I loved that. Is there anything more you’d like to add to
this?
Gary: The No Losers Policy is when a couple agrees that both have ideas that are important and worthy of honor, both have opinions that are equally valuable, and it is unacceptable for either of them to feel like they are losing an argument or a disagreement. My wife and I can spend five minutes or as much as a day discussing a disagreement. But only after both of us have listened and tried to understand the deep feelings and needs of each other, then and only then will we start offering various creative ideas to solve our disagreement. After that, we can offer any suggestions whatsoever, no matter how wild they may seem (because often it’s a weird suggestion that sparks a solution that we both love). I no longer lose any arguments, nor does Norma. We help each other win no matter how small the conflict. This is wonderful and highly valuable for each of us.
Dan: Finally, I wanted to mention something that both Audrey and Uncle Henry discuss with Jim—humility. What does humility look like in our relationships with God and others and why is it so vital?
Gary: Humility is simply an attitude of deep awareness of how helpless we are in developing a loving heart and having the energy or power to live a life that truly reflects God. As a human, I am not able to become like Jesus. No amount of effort on my part could earn me a place in heaven or a high spiritual position on earth. God’s Word tells us that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8). So, as it states in James 4:6, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
Humankind cannot do any of Christ’s commands unless they are filled up with God’s love and power. And God gives his power and love (his grace) only to the humble; he resists anyone who is proud or puffed up with their own importance or self-sufficiency. A proud person leans toward self-centeredness, being “cocky,” selfish, boasting, and crediting all their accomplishments to their own abilities and skills. They tend to see themselves as better than others, and are therefore judgmental and arrogant toward others. They are usually not aware of or grateful for all the other men and women who have helped them become what they are today. The proud tend to avoid crediting their Creator for their existence and the gifts he’s given them but live as if they had created themselves and are single-handedly responsible for all of their personal successes.
The humble, however, tend to be very aware of their Creator and realize that their accomplishments are only possible because of how they were created. Their brain, body, and senses are all a part of how God created them. They happily give God the credit for everything about themselves. They acknowledge that God’s commands are far superior to their human plans of finding and living the highest quality of life. If God’s Word tells them that loving him with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving others as Jesus loved people are the greatest commands, then the humble person believes it, and they live that way by the power invested in them from God Almighty. As Proverbs 22:4 puts it, “True humility and fear of the Lord [standing in God’s presence with awe and trembling] leads to riches, honor and long life” (New Living translation).
The humble are very aware of their helplessness and powerlessness in trying to create God’s kind of love and power by themselves, with their own human abilities. They simply “cry out as beggars” to God and wait patiently for his grace to empower them to follow Christ and live in a way that pleases
him.
Discussion Questions
Which of the characters in this book could you most easily relate to and why?
What do you think made Jim so dull that he didn’t have a clue Marilyn was about to leave him?
What do you think of the way Marilyn handled her unhappiness? What might you have done differently?
What kind of problems could you foresee their adult children facing in the future, due to being brought up in “this kind” of Christian home?
What kinds of weaknesses and problems did Jim and Marilyn’s “old church” have that made the members unable or unwilling to offer them any useful help?
What were some of the life lessons about marriage and relationships you learned (along with Jim) as he listened to Audrey Windsor? And to Uncle Henry?
How would you evaluate Charlotte’s friendship toward Marilyn? Was she just right in terms of her ratio of acceptance vs. advice? Did she say too much, or not enough, in your opinion?
How do you account for Jim’s change of heart toward Marilyn? What caused it? What lessons do you think he learned through this ordeal?
What were some of your favorite moments in the book and why?
What are some of the challenges you think Jim and Marilyn will face in the months ahead, now that their restoration has begun?
If you have any thoughts, comments, or questions about The Dance, we’d love to hear from you. Email [email protected] and mention The Dance in the subject line.
Dan Walsh is the award-winning author of The Unfinished Gift, The Homecoming, The Deepest Waters, Remembering Christmas, The Discovery, and The Reunion. A member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Dan served as a pastor for twenty-five years. He lives with his family in the Daytona Beach area, where he’s busy researching and writing his next novel.