Generous Love

Meet Matt and Karaline Caudle. They are goofy, weird, gushy, fun and obnoxious,and I love them both. They just got married this weekend. The ceremony was beautiful, and personal, and perfectly displayed the love they have for each other. The reception was truly a party to celebrate the commitment they had just made and was as fun and exciting as they are. But that’s not why I want you to meet them.  I want you to hear about the incredible, God-fearing relationship these two have modeled out for me. 

Karaline moved in with me and my other roommate Jess last year, which was the first time I met her. She’s one of those people that just instantly makes herself comfortable around you, which allows you to make yourself comfortable around her. It’s one of the many things that makes her so uniquely special and beautiful.  A couple of weeks after Karaline moved in, she and I went to dinner before going on our first of many awkward adventures together. We fondly call that night our “first date.” She shared her testimony with me, and I with her, and what I did not know is that was the start of a very deep and meaningful friendship that would develop over the next year. 

Not too many weeks later, Jess invited her friends from college over to hang out with us on Halloween. That’s when Karaline and I both met Matt. After he left, she confessed to me that she thought Matt was pretty cute. Unbeknownst to us, Matt told Jess that he thought Karaline was pretty spiffy as well, and by Thanksgiving, they were dating.

I have watched their relationship develop from the very start, and what I am continually struck by is the many ways God makes himself present within it. I have seen Matt love and lead Karaline gently and intentionally all along the way. Pursuing her heart, not just with sweet gifts, but with words and actions. It was clear that he did not just want to know Karaline the girl, but wanted to know and love Karaline, the soul. I saw him support her through so many difficult trials in that short time with love, and patience, and understanding. And I watched her do the same. I watched them pray for each other. I watched them fight well, lead well, and learn well.  I have watched them mirror Christ and the church, and I have been encouraged and inspired by it. 

But here’s the thing. Matt and Karaline don’t just love each other well. They love others well too. Matt did not swoop in and steal my roommate, as I often joke he did. He came in and got to know her friends as well, and she his. They didn’t just want to start a new life together, they wanted to enter into each other’s lives where they were at. And that is one of the many reasons all invited to their wedding desired to celebrate so loud, so big, and so freely.  

In all my time spent with Matt and Karaline, there was never a feeling of being a “third wheel.”  Sure, they might be mushy and gross when we were all together, but I never felt excluded by them. I truly felt valued as a dear friend to both of them. On a few occasions, they even planned surprises for me.  And at a time when I often still felt lonely and discouraged, I cannot thank them enough for the encouragement that gave me.

Let me be clear: They have a relationship that is personal, and private, and just theirs and they protect it fiercely, as they should. But they also know how to love others well. I see Christ reflected in both their lives and I know that He will look down and tell them “Well done, my good and faithful servants.” 

My point in all this is to encourage those in relationships to love your single friends this way. I’ll confess that some weddings are bittersweet because there is a sense that I am losing that friend in a way. That once they start their new life, there will no longer be a space in it for me. That feeling is seldom accurate, but occasionally, it proves true. And it is almost always when the significant other has not gotten to know the friends of their spouse and so hanging out together is awkward and hard and eventually avoided.  But at Matt and Karaline’s wedding,  I never once had that fear. Because I know both of them. I have spent time with both of them. I have deep friendship with both of them. I love both of them. And I know that once they return from their honeymoon, there will be nights ahead of dinners full of laughter and games and friendship with both of them as a couple. And I can’t wait. 

Matt and Karaline, thank you for sharing you life and love so generously with those around you. I know I speak for others when I say that we can never truly express how grateful we are to know you, and how proud we are of you.