For Kate. My love.
The night lays its head over glass-still waters. The early evening stillness erupts into sound. Lights, tires, laughter.
A vision of youth and beauty screaming contrast of hot pink against the black night air. Eyes caught, the future comes into sharp focus.
Intentions stated and vows made lay a cobblestone foundation to journey. First a walk, then a trot, then sprinting towards inevitability. How do we love well when we don’t know well? I don’t know myself. Do you?
This was no straight road. Curves (some, of the dead men’s variety), detours and dead ends. At every fork or bend, God’s will pulls us further and faster and farther than either of us had ever been before.
They say that deepest peace lies in the eye of a hurricane. Amidst the swirling chaos, at the very heart of it, gentleness, peace and respite. There are times when the winds around us are too strong to discern their source. Are they blowing from me? You? Principalities and Powers?
It doesn’t matter. Whatever direction the winds blow, no matter their strength and fury, it is in your eyes that I find peace. Safety and love lie at the center of you. Shelter for a beaten and battered man.