To Marry Your Best Friend.

Kassie is my best friend. If you know me, chances are, you know this simple truth. However that doesn't mean you know Kassie. I live with her, talk to her everyday, and she knows everything about me. But some of my friends have only seen her in passing - it sounds like i'm talking about a stuffed animal here but I can assure you, she's real. The thing is Kassie and I are complete opposites.

Sure, throughout our friendship we have become more and more alike but in those basic fundamental ways we are far from a like. We have different tastes in music, men, food, dancing, dress, decoration styles, and expression. But Kassie and I have something most friends do not have - we have history and acceptance of the others flaws and awesomeness. Kassie and I have accepted each other for who we are, basically. 

Why am I talking about my best girlfriend when the title of this post is "To Marry Your Best Friend" well no I am not considering swinging the opposite way - but Kassie is my best friend and the other day it dawned on me that I want a relationship like we have when I get married. 

For instance, when Kassie wakes up in the morning, even though she hates uttering even a breath when she rolls out of bed she says "good morning," because she knows I like hearing good morning. And the other day when I was doing something or saying something [ I can't remember ] I told someone how Kassie would feel about something because I love her and I know her. So I made sure of this thing. That's when it hit me. Kassie and I think of each other when we do things. Even when we know we don't want to do something. We keep the other person's feelings in mind and we have accepted our fighting styles, our laughing styles, we don't get [too] offended when the other isn't up to par that day and we still love each other after we're angry. We hardly hold things against one another for months or weeks or even days - not that we're perfect at that either. We always say I love you and we make sure to make time for one another. We know that we can NOT forget each others birthdays and we leave notes for each other when life gets messy. 

Is Kassie the perfect husband or WHAT?!?! Just kidding, but seriously. On this year journey, and long before, I have made it a point to ask what people like about their marriages and what they don't. I read books about good relationships and I listen to what the pastor says in church about being a good partner. Yet here I am, with my best friend, and we have it down pretty good. 

I told Kassie the other day that if I could find a man and we had all these same things - plus more [obviously] then I would have found the love of my life. She then pointed out that we weren't always like this. In the beginning of our friendship we fought, compared one another to the other, and had a general mistrust of the other but over the past 8 years we have built something great. I don't want a relationship that starts out with arguing because that leads to resentment but I want to understand that love, like friendships, age. Relationships take time for two people to get to know the other, to appreciate all that the person is made of, and to accept with love the others differences. To fight and make it through stronger, and to make think of the other persons feelings when you're doing something. 

Kassie and I have even found that we have grown apart, only to grow back together, and we're not afraid to point these moments out - when we don't understand the other person or how they've become. We say things out loud, with honesty, in an attempt to get back to where we were - thank God we usually make it back, better than before. Even when I am angry with her or annoyed or I feel unappreciated, etc - I could not turn my back on my best friend. We have made it through what most friendships do not and even in the middle of an argument we don't turn to another and say "Kassie/Heather is no longer my best friend." We have each others backs, we support each other, and we go out of our way to be a good person in the others life. We bring each other up, not tear each other down, and we work on communicating all the time. 

So when I am looking for examples on how to honor 1 Corinthians 13 or the type of relationship I want with my future husband, all I have to do is look to my best friend, because we have learned what it takes to make a relationship work, to grow together, and to love each other no matter what happens. That's what I want in a husband some day, and how lucky am I that I have that in a best friend as well?