Finding it

My best friend recently fell in love, the rush over you like a rapid and knock you down kind of love, the two months and she’s already talking forever kind of love.

Today we met for a day of fun in Memphis, and I couldn’t help but notice how in love they seemed—how he’d look for ways to touch her back or shoulder, how he’d keep his eyes on her, especially when she wasn’t looking his way. She called him Babe and touched his hair while she told me a story.

I don’t know why I feel such overwhelming, empathetic giddiness about this, why I share somehow in the joy and peace she’s found in this relationship, but I think it’s because I’ve been by her side for the journey that led through so many not-at-all-right relationships to this just-perfectly-right one. She took her time finding it; she kissed plenty of frogs, ate lots of bowls of too-hot or too-cold porridge (any other fairy tale metaphors I’m missing?) and now she’s finally found it. Yay!

I can’t help thinking that this situation is a lot like seeing someone you love finally come into a relationship with God. I have a friend who was married to a man for ten years and for ten years He completely ignored God. He looked for completion in money and diversion and alcohol, but never, ever in God. Then, in a whirlwind of events, everything changed, and suddenly this man who seemed determined to reject God had decided that he couldn’t possibly live without Him. And her joy was almost as big as his, because she’d been there for the journey, knowing all along how beautiful life could be with the one thing He was missing—the thing he’d finally found.