North Korea

I met this guy last spring with whom I had several things in common. I was a little nervous to meet him because his profile indicated he had kids. In my head I assumed 1 because often you just check a box if you have kids but it never specifies how many. However, I liked his profile and I'm old enough to understand that the odds of my meeting someone at this time in my life without kids is slim so we agreed to meet for brunch one Sunday morning. I got all dressed up in my church dress since he was coming from church. On a side note, I was reminded of all the girls in college who would put their dresses on and go down to the dining hall on Sunday mornings at Baylor under the pretense that they had been to church when in reality they had slept in. I never did understand that because I was the one who would go to church, then go back to my room and change clothes before going to lunch. Anwyay, back to brunch...

As we started talking I learned he loves Jesus, teaches Sunday School, is Korean American, perseverates on North Korea (much like I do and hence the name) former military, former consultant, moving towards being an executive at a notable company, divorced with 4 kids. WHA?????? It's a really good thing I have a really good poker face because I cannot express in words all the thoughts that went through my head, yet he would have never known.

I never could wrap my brain around 4 kids but we ended up going out a couple of more times after that, and had a wonderful time, to be quite honest. Once to a Ranger's game and once to a Turkish restaurant. I learned that he was a foodie...always wanting to try new foods and was really not into ballpark food (we went out for steak before the game because he couldn't imagine eating a ballpark hotdog). He also thought I was very funny and he had a very jovial laugh.

I liked North Korea. He was very intelligent and he loved Jesus but once I was removed from the situation I realized that he made me laugh only because his laugh was so infectious. In the end he needed to focus on his kids and his job and did not feel he was ready, nor did he have the energy for a relationship. He didn't "dump" me really, but it hurt nevertheless because I was beginning to like him. I actually called him about a month later to see how things were going and we had a nice conversation about his kids and some intellectual books he was reading and he asked me about my vacation to Jamaica. That was the last I heard from North Korea and thankfully, I feel good about that.

In Loving Memory...

Grandma

1923-2013

I always loved sitting and chatting with Grandma at the kitchen table over a meal. It was during those times that I learned a lot about our family and the way she thought. It was at that table in the kitchen where I learned that her father was saved on his deathbed, surrounded by his family. It was at that table where I learned about Grandma’s grueling assembly line job putting airplane parts together in Kansas City during the war. I learned why Grandma would always send some cash to the Injured Veteran’s of America whenever they would solicit her: she knew it could have been Dennis, her youngest. It was at that table where I learned the reason that Grandma never stopped completing those silly fortune telling word puzzles from that weekly magazine of hers. It was because one time it got it right…TWINS.


I learned of some of the old funny stories she would often share…like when Uncle Ronnie made fun of Denise because of her using a small juice glass instead of a regular glass for her breakfast drinks, or when my mom cried through her wedding and Grandma thought she didn’t have to marry her son if she was going to cry about it. I learned about the family dog, Inky, sliding around on the ice at the pond and the antics of three kids growing up in a small house together. I learned how proud she was of them. If there was one thing I learned about Grandma at that table, it was that she was a very proud woman! I really think that must have been her favorite word. She used it a hundred times a day.

It was at that table where Grandma told me how difficult it was to send her oldest son and his young family thousands of miles away so they could act on their calling. She realized later that sending them off was her calling. As a result, she later became very active in the women's missionary union at church. She got to practice it again many years later when her youngest son moved his young family to The Philippines with Wycliffe to help translate the Bible in his wife’s family’s native language.

I learned that Grandma and I didn’t always agree on things, but we were perfectly content to agree to disagree on topics such as church dress, church music and preaching styles. I specifically remember one time, after a rather heated discussion, I had to practice the very difficult task of saying “I’m sorry,” when I had used some rather harsh words toward her. I remember her being incredibly gracious and her reply was to laugh and say, “I’ve been called worse things than that before, Marci.”  But, when it came down to it we respected each other’s opinions and realized that the most important thing we did agree upon was God’s great love for both of us…and all of us, for that matter.

One more thing I learned about Grandma at that kitchen table was that she prayed for her family. She prayed for everyone by name, very often. She prayed about current marriages, and future marriages and our children and future children. She prayed for our health and she prayed for blessing and she prayed for prosperity. I feel blessed to be a part of such a legacy and am thankful for such a model as I move forward.