Being married to your best friend is awesome. However, I want to preface this post by acknowledging those of you who may not be blessed in this way. I am sorry for your heartache and sincerely hope this post will not offend you, but perhaps give you hope for your own marriage or future spouse!
I didn’t say being married to your best friend is awesome all the time. Read on and you will see why.
Your best friend knows you ~
I was on my knees, blissfully working in my flowerbed, when I heard a noise behind me. Pulling off the road, my husband was driving his Jeep across the yard – straight at me. As he swerved past me, he threw a bag out the window to land in the grass.
Reese cups. My favorite.
Your best friend knows what makes you tick, what fears you harbor in your heart, and what will make you smile. They accept the whole of you . . . the love, the laughter, the baggage, and the struggles.
Your best friend will push you to be more ~
I was terrified of the Idaho Wilderness boys camp swing. I get queasy from heights and simply didn’t ever see myself jumping off that platform to catapult over a gully. {see pictures here}
That is not me.
I am a teacup-using, scone-eating, flower-planting, prissy kind of girl. I really should have been born in the Victorian era and would have fit in quite nicely. But God must have had other plans, because He plunked me in this century, married me to this adventurous man, and sent me five boys. Five. Five bearers of testosterone.
But my best friend knew I needed to get over that fear of heights. And he didn’t push, but gently encouraged me and said that when I was ready, he would help me. So I believed him. I simply told myself that all I had to do was obey the directions he gave me, and I would be okay.
His pride when I went off that swing was worth it all!
And a strange thing has happened after being married to this guy for sixteen years . . . I am finding there is a part of me that gets braver with each year. But maybe I shouldn’t tell him that . . . who knows what I will be doing next?!
Your best friend will refine you (or you may refine them) ~
I was on the mail route.
Now sometimes good things happen when I am delivering mail – like the other day when I was practicing our songs for the youth chorus. It was awesome! Although I did arrive home with a slight sore throat.
And sometimes things happen that are, well . . . refining to the man in my life.
Like the time I backed his Jeep into a customer’s tree.
Yep. I do not lie. Although I would rather have crawled under my bed covers than have to go tell my husband when he got home. It felt vaguely like going to the principal’s office.
And then to have him be so very sweet about it! That is what best friends are all about. They will refine you . . . such as my husband probably thought I was doing to him . . . and they forgive you.
Thankfully, our marriage survived that big oopsie.
Your best friend is honest ~
Sometimes brutally so.
It was Sunday morning and I remember feeling especially well-put-together that day. When you are a mom of six, Sunday mornings can be scary. You are trying to not only feed everybody a breakfast that will hold them through church, but also get a Sunday lunch prepared and in the oven so that it will be ready for starving bellies once you arrive home again.
This is all done while trying to balance a mug of coffee.
It gets tricky. And all this chaos can lend itself to you not getting put together very well for the Sunday service. Some Sundays I feel so bedraggled, that I plop into my pew and relish simply sitting there quietly . . . until someone jabs me in the arm – “I gotta go to the bathroom, Mom!”
However, like I said, this Sunday was a good one. Until IT happened.
I leaned over to my husband to whisper something. He looks at me with a strange expression on his face and says “Your breath smells like something died!”
So I might have whimpered.
While dashing madly off to find somebody with death-defying gum. Luckily, our marriage survived that one, too.
Your best friend laughs with you ~
This is the one I enjoy the most.
My husband gets my jokes. He really does. They are corny and probably awful, but he knows what I am talking about. He is my verbal sparring partner and can dish back what I give him.
I cannot say that we have always laughed alot. There are times in life when hugs say more than laughter. In the few years following his accident, we did not share many light moments. We did laugh when we could, but there were more times of hugs, prayers, and saying “We are going to make it through this together”.
But if you can laugh with your husband or wife, you will find the other one looks better both inside and out. Laughing at yourself is a good thing to do as well. It shows you do not take yourself so seriously that you think you are without fault. You know you are human, your spouse is human, and God is the only one who is perfect.
Think of two little kids on the playground at recess. One says to the other “Let’s go play!”
This is what marriage looks like to me . . .
Two devoted, faithful adults who are willing to be best buddies,
face the rest of the playground as a team,
and laugh at themselves when they fall in the mud.
If you haven’t played for a long time, do something awesome for your marriage:
Go out and play with your best friend!
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Mariann Miller says
I like this Kendra! Having my best friend at my side as we journey through life makes all the difference.:)
Kendra says
I know what you mean!