You know, I look forward to being 80 and still just being madly in love with my wife.  No rush, of course, but imagine… that’s also how the Lord desires to have a relationship with us… with me… not a relationship where we visit him in the passing, but a relationship where we have dwelt so long in his presence, that even just a glimse of him in the room or on a walk in the park, just makes us long for him even more and perhaps even puts a smile on our face.  A relationship that only gets sweeter over time.

why do i say this?: I was out of town the other day backstage at a large 70,000+ person festival.  I only got backstage because I had an escort, an older gentleman in his 50s, take me to where I needed to go.  We knew each other very well only because he had already escorted me half a dozen times earlier.  What I witnessed next was so precious to me that I had no choice but to smile and just take it in for memory.  As we walked, we had to walk by the backstage crew, and one of those was an older lady already busy.  I didn’t notice my escort making a small veer in his path, until it was all over.  My escort drew near and extended his hand out to her.  She was busy with her conversation, but noticed him coming by out of the corner of her eye.  With his hand still extended and she having excellent peripheral vision, she extends her hand and holds his hand in his passing.  In addition, she briefly glances at him with the most precious smile and then lets go of his hand as he continues on to his destination.  No words were spoken, no time taken, not even a hint to me that we were subtlety off-course, but something deeper was communicated.