Years ago, my bride and I were read­ing through a book of evening devo­tion­als for mar­ried cou­ples called Night Light.  One chap­ter told the beau­ti­ful story of some kids who learned what a truly inti­mate mar­riage looked like by observ­ing their grandparents.

When they watched them together, they saw a cou­ple that was gen­tle with each other, truth­ful with each other, and car­ing for each other. They noticed how they looked at each other, and how they held hands.

This old cou­ple had a quirky tra­di­tion of leav­ing notes for each other in the most cre­ative places. They left them under pil­lows, inside toi­let paper rolls, in under­wear draw­ers, in the refrig­er­a­tor, and just about every­where else one could imagine.

Each note had the word “SHMILY” writ­ten on it. None of the kids had a clue what it meant.

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