Last weekend, my childhood best friend married her high school sweetheart! I was honored to be a part of their special day, acting as the maid of honor, cake baker, tulle hanger, linens ironer, and pretty much anything else that needed to be done.
Out of all of my duties of the week, the most important to me was the speech that I was privileged to give at the reception. Mary Beth has been such an encouragement to me over the course of our lives that I could talk about our friendship for hours! We have had a unique friendship that has challenged each other "in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity" (I Timothy 4:12). Instead of rambling on, I decided to share a few (believe me, there were many more!) of the preparations that Mary Beth and I made for our future spouses, long before we knew them, and then to include how Drew came into the story.
May you be encouraged by their/our story!
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My name is Catherine W, and I decided that as the Maid of Honor, I would take this opportunity to give you a little bit of insight to Mary Beth and Drew’s relationship from my perspective.
Mary Beth and I have been friends since we were born. I think our first exposure to weddings and romance was when we’d have ceremonies for our Barbie dolls, and we did it mostly because that’s when they could wear their most beautiful dresses.
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| Lori, Anna, me, and Mary Beth at Lakeland Park |
We planned Mary Beth’s wedding often when we were little- most of the time focusing on such details as ice swans at the dessert table and penguins serving the drinks. Somehow neither of those showed up here today.
We caught a little bit of boy fever when were in middle school, but not too much. And while we weren’t your typical boy crazy high schoolers, we did a little planning for our future romances.
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| Six Flags (jr. high?) |
For starters, we made “The shopping list,” which contained the characteristics that we wanted in our future husbands. We vowed to never date any man who didn’t fit the list. Those lists developed and matured over the years, as we did I suppose, but one thing didn’t change- we began to pray for the guys what would someday fulfill our dream lists. It was definitely going to take divine intervention to find a guy good enough hold up to our standards!
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| "I love my husband- and that's why I'm staying pure!" (Pure Freedom 2006) |
We were blessed to attend several purity retreats, where in we learned that our relationships were an area in our life that we could use to serve Lord. I specifically remember being lead in a devotional on Matthew 13:45-46, which reads:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
This was one of the things in our lives that encouraged us to find out what meant to seek God’s kingdom, as though we were searching for a precious pearl. And in the meanwhile, we began to learn that we were a precious treasure as well. At that purity retreat, we were given a pearl necklace to remind us to seek God’s kingdom in all we did, including our relationships. I'm wearing mine today.
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| Non-prom 2006 |
One of the ways were given the opportunity to grow in our relationship with the Lord together was through many trips with our youth group.
By this point, you’re probably wondering where Drew comes into the story. That would be now!
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| Drew (4th of July at Mansker's house) |
On one of those trips, our youth group teamed up with the Wesley United Methodist youth group to go on a trip to pack Christmas presents for disadvantaged children around the world through Operation Christmas Child. I noticed a quieter boy in the opposite youth group, and I asked one of my friends who he was. She said, “Oh, that’s Drew K. He’s probably one of the nicest boys in the world.”
I wasn’t able to attend the following year’s Operation Christmas Child trip, but apparently my best friend caught Drew’s eye, and from that moment, I had to keep my eye on Drew K.
When we graduated from high school, Mary Beth and Drew started dating. I had to give him a quiz to make sure that he was good enough for my best friend, complete with multiple choice, short answer, and an essay question. What do you know? He passed!
Another thing that happened after high school was that I moved away. For some reason, we started signing our emails with the quote from Robert Munsch’s children’s book: "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my [insert the other one’s name] you'll be."
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| Mr. John's 50 birthday party (July 2010) |
While I was away, Drew took pretty good care of Mary Beth, and so because of that, eventually I gave permission him to marry my best friend, and then eventually he proposed to her.
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| Getting our fingernails done for the wedding! |
And do you know what? We always said that if we were going to get married, we wanted it to be to our best friend. And if I have to share best friendship with anyone, I suppose “one of the nicest guys in the world” is a pretty good guy to share with. It has been my joy to watch you two, as you have joined together in seeking after the kingdom of God. May you be blessed, and may you glorify God and serve Him more fully together than you ever would apart.
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| My beautiful friend preparing to walk down the aisle |
So that being said, Drew, I’m glad you passed my quiz. Thanks for loving Mary Beth, and for cherishing her as she deserves.
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| Have you ever seen such joy?! |
And Mary Beth Elizabeth K, I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my MB you’ll be, no matter what your last name is. I love you!
