dancing with justin

For some reason I have not been sleeping well lately. Tonight, while I was restlessly arguing with myself about whether to get up and work or take some melatonin....this random song started going through my head. Tim McGraw's live like you were dying from 2004. Why. I don't really prefer country music. It bores me... unless my husband is whisking me around the dance floor.
The song is about a guy in his early forties who finds out he is dying and he begins to check things off his bucket list. He goes sky diving and rocky mountain climbing and he loves deeper and speaks sweeter and he reads the "Good Book" and he forgives and rides a bull and you get the picture. Cute song and apparently very catchy as it showed up into my brain 10 years after its release date. I very much remember wearing a short denim skirt and dancing around the sawdust circle at midnight rodeo with my cute boyfriend to this very song. Adorable. What a care free time of our lives! I doubt we recognized how carefree we were.
Here is where it gets a little less adorable.
My husband can't dance anymore and he is only in his early thirties (31 to be exact) and he sure as heck can't do any rocky mountain climbing. Depressing, right?
For some reason, no matter how tired and delirious I am right now...I just can't be sad. Somewhere along the road of doctors telling Justin to live like he were dying (oh yes, several have said as much) he realized that isn't a bad way to live. It isn't much like this song....because it's better. Living in daily never ending pain with gazillions of meds and appointments and no spark of hope in providing for his family in the near future...wait. That's not better. Waiting for the next "issue" to be discovered and getting 100% wiped out after being out of the house for 2 hours. Not better. Not a bit.
But, what IS better is the opportunity he has to look death in the face and say...it's ok! I am not scared of you. I don't like what I will leave behind, but you are good.
It is just all too cliche for us to declare that we are going to live like we are dying. So, maybe we should all decide to live like the power of Christ is living in us instead. He traded himself for our lowly souls to wander this earth and rush around and be on time and have the laundry put away and make lots of money and wait. No, that's not right....That can't be the reason. Our Father must have had more in mind for us when He allowed His son to die that death. As that temple veil parted and the sky darkened...we were given LIFE. Heaven became accessible. We need no longer fear death. He shed blood so that we may live like we were dying. 

I don't know why this song popped into my head tonight. I don't know why this story is ours. I don't know how my husband smiles everyday. But, I do know that the ending to all of this is far greater than my wildest dreams. I may not get to be whisked across the dance floor to songs I barely like...but I am going to let this handsome man lead me in a dance far greater than any dance that ever hit the sawdust floors of midnight rodeo.

And we will sing a new song...

No guilt in life no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till he returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand!