Kristy's Wedding

I will never forget the first time I spoke to Liz on the phone. It was the summer before my freshman year in college, and I was filled with excitement and anxiety. One of the chief causes of my anxiety was the idea of being randomly placed with a roommate. I am not a big fan of random. I had heard all of the horror stories about roommates who partied late into the night, trashed the room, or had generally difficult personalities. I sincerely desired that my roommate would also become my friend. With all of this in mind, I filled out the "Roommate Placement" form in extreme detail, even adding a paragraph where I further expounded on my definition of the Perfect Roommate (shocking, I know).

From the moment I spoke to Liz, we clicked. It was obvious we both valued family, our studies, and, above all, our faith in God. She immediately asked me how many siblings I had (one brother) and laughed aloud as she told me that she was one of 10, with number 11 on the way! While I had never shared a room with anyone before, she was looking forward to sharing a room with only one person instead of four. I got a good laugh when she confessed that she had been highly specific on her roommate form. Dean Barker must have known immediately that we were meant for one another We ended up living together for my entire 3 1/2 years at Hillsdale. I thanked God for her daily. She is incredibly kind, generous, considerate, and fun. I cannot think of a single argument we had, although I am sure there were times when we rubbed each other the wrong way. The stability of her calm presence in my life was one of the main reasons why living so far from home was never a problem.

I cannot remember the first time I met Kristy. I do know that our friendship became very close during the second semester of my freshman year, when Liz and Kristy worked together as RA's. Kristy is genuine, outgoing, perceptive, and has one of the best laughs I've ever heard. Pretty soon, Kristy was hanging out in our room multiple times a day. It was icing on the cake that Kristy and I also shared a major. When I became a Pi Phi during my sophomore year, I could hardly stand not being able to share it with Liz and Kristy. Thankfully, we became friends and sisters before the year was over. It's nearly impossible to think of a college memory that does not involve one or both of them.

After college, Liz returned to Detroit, Kristy to Milwaukee, and I to North Carolina to get married. We agreed to meet yearly and have come pretty close to achieving that goal. They are always a phone call away in the meantime - the kind of friendship where no matter how long it's been since you touched base, the conversation continues pretty much where it left off before. Liz married Pete in February 2008. You can imagine how disappointed I was when the wedding happened to fall on my due date! However, Liz and Kristy promised to fly down as soon as possible to meet the baby.

I love the way God works. When Liz and Kristy visited me this past October, one of the main topics of conversations (after Ryan, of course) was Kristy's desire to meet a godly man. The dating scene was looking bleak, and Kristy was understandably eager to meet "the one." We were all praying about it and encouraging Kristy to trust in God's perfect timing. Little did we know! In January, the brother of Kristy's best friend of 20 years began pursuing her. She knew him well, but they both began to look at one another differently. It did not take them long - Valentine's Day, in fact - before they realized that they were a perfect match. Why am I always so quick to limit God? How exciting it has been to share in her joy and to see how He has been preparing them for one another for many years.

Paul and I flew to Wisconsin for her wedding, which took place on July 18. It was a wonderful weekend!

At the rehearsal dinner


Hair +make-up + dress = Ready to go!

Mr. and Mrs. James R. Bowman


Liz and Pete

Pi Beta Phi sisters

Liz, Kristy, and I

"Kindred Spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
Anne in Anne of Green Gables