I ALWAYS KNEW YOU COULD BE LIKE THIS

I stood behind the bar in the paint studio. Mrs. W entered the shop with her husband. Her five feet tall self dancing to the 60's music, hair wrapped in a red scarf, arms and face animated in storytelling. We talked for a bit. She had found a pool table slab at a warehouse and was going to fix it behind her stove as a back-splash. She had painted her van with chalkboard paint so that strangers could write and draw on it while she was at the grocery store. 
The last time I had seen the W's, I was picnicking under a willow on Lake of the Isles. I watched her dance around the store, as I greeted customers. She was life, rapturous and valiant. Mr. W was tall and quiet, but there was a profound softness or warmth about him: I especially noticed it when he looked at Mrs. W. His eyes would fill with light as if he had seen her for the first time, yet eyes that knew her fully and truly loved. Nothing false or superficial in them. He saw her, the wholeness of her, and that was the end and beginning; I have not seen a man look at his wife like that before... well, perhaps I have, but it was right as the wife walked toward the man in a white dress. They made each other beautiful. Timothy Keller illustrates well what I saw in the W's. From his book The Meaning of Marriage: 

Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating, and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!

Please, do yourself a favor and read this book.

m