Dances with Providence

Reflections on Life & the Unexpected

God’s talking to us all the time from many directions. Occasionally we are listening and hear him from an unexpected direction—like Garth Brooks, for example:

And now, I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss
The dance.

This is from Brooks’s song, “The Dance.” Garth Brooks hit it big during a period when I wasn’t listening to country music or, maybe, any music at all. So the other day when I heard this line, I didn’t even know who was singing. I...