In August of 2005, I was a sophomore at Carolina living with Martha in a dorm on campus. We were leading a bible study of freshmen girls that year and it just so happened that one of the girls that signed up, lived in the room beneath us. We went to introduce ourselves (read: beg her to come to our bible study) and hopefully make a new friend. This cute, little (and by little, I mean a good foot shorter than me) spunky girl opened the door and proceeded to rock my world for the next 3 years. That first encounter turned into a friendship that was full of complete trust and vulnerability and I LOVED IT. We met several times a week - sometimes to read the bible together over coffee, sometimes to talk about boys, sometimes to cry because she was homesick - but every time the Lord somehow grew our relationship a little more.
I could spend pages going on about how much I love this girl, but I assume you get the point by now. She just spreads sunshine in my life and I want to make sure that's clear. The amazing thing about JKing is that she was dating Ben when she came to Carolina. The day I met her, there were flowers on her desk that he had sent her from Clemson, where he was in school. And they stayed together, apart, for four years. With different lives, different friends and different memories, patiently waiting to spend their life together with the same life, the same friends and the same memories. I love them for that. To see them at their wedding, ridiculously giddy with excitement (I think she may have even done a little happy clap at some point during the ceremony) was a blessing.
All of this to say, Congratulations Ben and Jess. I love love love that you're Mr. and Mrs. Mann.
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