Tony Woodlief provides a masterful job of picturing for us via brutally honest the essential of drawing husbands and wives together... with an ache for close communion that really matters above all earthly pursuits.

tony woodlief

We went back to bed and I pulled Wife extra close to me. I need her extra close. We listened to the booming and then the sheets of rain. We talked about hard things. I wished I could pull her into my skin, so that there would never ever again be anything that could come between us. This is why you have to hold your beloved close, so that nothing divides you, and because sometimes it feels like your heart won’t beat right unless the gentle thunder of her heart’s rhythm finds its way through your flesh.....

...And I hope my sons will hold their wives tight when there is no storm, because there is always danger, even on the brightest days, and all we have in the end are our prayers and our lives pressed close. I hope they will know this, that I can teach them this one thing, that you have to lay down everything you were and are and hope to be, because the only things worth having are the things you can make with her, the life you can live with her. The rest of it is just air and glimmer, thunder and lightning. If they can learn this one thing, have it written on their courageous hearts, then maybe everything I have done and been will be worth something after all.