Beware the grandma patrol Part 2
First of all, let me thank everyone who've waited patiently for me to finish this story. As you would reasonably expect, things got pretty busy after I got married, what with visits from the in-laws, visits to the parents in Michigan, work, and sundry other things related to surviving while the economy is imploding around you. At the same time, it really is a bit much that, in the time that's passed since I posted part 1 of this story, we've already had our one-year anniversary and have a kid on the way (a daughter). My bad.
And yet, the passage of time does mean that I can now fill in some details of the story from Soojung's point of view, since we've talked a few times about how it is we ended up together. That said, for the most part, this is going to be my story told from my side of things.
So once again, I start off with a quote. This time, not a Fortune Cookie fortune but a verse from the Bible:
"Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety."
Before I continue, I just wanted to explain the "religious content" warning I use for the LJ cut. Anyone who knows me or has read my LJ from the beginning knows that while I attend church quite regularly, I've never been "in your face" about it. While I believe that God exists and that it is His words recorded in the Bible, I've never been about shoving this fact in other people's faces.
That said, I feel my experiences both just before and after I got married are so intertwined with my faith that it wouldn't be fair to just tell one side of the story. So, whether you're a first-time reader or a longtime friend, I hope you'll indulge me while I tell the WHOLE story of my engagement, rather than a sanitized, religion-free version. Having said that, I'm sure there aren't many of you reading this who would've been offended anyways, but I'm just throwing it out there.
When I left off the last time, there were a bunch of people (relatives, mostly) telling me that I really should give Soojung a chance. And once I finished being mad about all these different people applying small amounts of pressure on me (sort of like getting a bunch of paper cuts all over), I stopped for a moment and gave it some thought.
Now, while I believe that the Bible is a collection of writings by people inspired by God, I don't see it as some sort of code or law that we HAVE to live by. And, since I believe that it was inspired by God, I also believe that it has answers to a lot of life's problems. It's just that usually, in my experience, I've gotten my answers "after the fact." It's generally been the case that only after the incident has come and gone do I see how some snippet from the Bible applied to my situation. That said, this may have been one of those cases where the opposite happened.
Specifically, I thought of the above verse talking about there being safety in a multitude of counselors. (Similar to, but definitely not the same as, the adage about there being safety in numbers.) Here were all these people telling me that Soojung really was someone I should consider, while I felt that she didn't meet any of the criteria I had been looking for. So it basically came down to either they were all wrong, or I had the wrong criteria. (i.e. I was wrong.) And, in the end, I went with the numbers.
So, from that point on, each time I met up with Soojung (which only happened because my mom, aka "the grandma patrol," kept setting things up), I acted nicer towards her than I had in the past. (She later told me she noticed this change.) And, as my time in Korea was coming to an end, I ended up admitting to my parents that she wasn't as bad as I had thought. That she actually was "marry-able," to coin a term. I guess that was enough for my dad because what happened next was that he started to push for the two of us to get engaged before I left for home. (Though he wasn't able to push for very long, since he left on a plane back to Michigan a couple of days later.)
Now, all this time, Soojung was nowhere near interested in marrying me. As I later found out, she was getting ready to officially dump me, because there was someone else she was interested in. But luckily for me, the way the timing and the schedules worked out, I was able to get engaged to her before she even had a chance to develop anything with this other guy.
The way this happened was that, after having spent a few days together hanging out together (when we could; remember that my grandma died around this time as well), I was told to go shopping for some decent clothes because my mom and I were going to meet with Soojung and her parents for dinner. (I hadn't brought any nice clothes because, one, it was damn hot in Korea during the summer and, two, I was expecting to be working the whole time, not meeting with people I needed to impress.) Since I have absolutely NO fashion sense, Soojung pretty much had to pick the clothes out for me; and, while we waited for the pants to get altered to fit properly, I suggested we get some frozen yogurt at the department store's food court. It was later that Soojung told me that that was the exact moment that she planned to dump me for the other guy, but because of my sad facial expression that day (possibly because my grandma had just died a few days earlier) she was unable to do the dirty deed.
Now, as for this dinner we were supposed to have, I was briefed just beforehand by my mom that I should pop the question to Soojung during dinner. As it turns out, my mom had brought an heirloom ring with her to Korea that she was saving for when I got married (the grandma patrol strikes again!), and she had already told Soojung's mom about this plan, as well. Well, in the end I figured, "Why not?" If Soojung said no, then I would be getting what I wanted in the first place which was to be free of this situation with Soojung. Of course, I hadn't really thought about what would happen if she said yes.... ;)
So, after a pretty inconsequential dinner with a bunch of small talk, I took the ring from my mom, got down on my knee, and asked Soojung to marry me. She later told me she was totally in shock when I did this (because, obviously, she wasn't expecting anything like this at all); but, again obviously, she said yes.
So that's the story of how I got engaged to one Soojung Lee from Korea. Looking back, there were a lot of things that had to go my way for things to end up the way that they did. All the damage I had done the previous times we'd met had to be undone. She had to be blocked from meeting this other guy. (Though it turns out I had no part in that happening. It just happened, all on its own.) And I had to change the way I thought about Soojung. In retrospect, that last bit was probably the easiest part of the whole deal.
So, as someone who believes in God, it's pretty much a given that I've come to believe that He played a part in things turning out the way they did since both Soojung and I belong to the same church and believe the same things. But that's not to say that I think God "helped" me in the same way that people say He helped them get a great job, or win a football game, or get into a good school.
I think it's pretty clear from my story that what ended up happening was NOT what I had been looking for or planning on. And the people who preach in our church also sometimes address this. God doesn't give you things simply because you want it, or because you think it would be good for you. Just because I believe in God doesn't mean I can just walk down to the corner 7-11 and keep buying lottery tickets until I eventually win, because that's not what He does. Instead, what He does is He has a plan. And He's had it recorded in the Bible. And in what may seem mind-warpingly contradictory, this plan continues forward to its inevitable end, in spite of the fact that He gave humankind free will to do as he/she pleases.
Applying this to what I just wrote about, at any step of the way both Soojung and I had choices we could have made. Some choices led down the road of us ending up together, and others would've ended up with us remaining apart. But, because this particular series of events occurred, the outcome was that we got engaged to each other. I believe with certainty that that is what God intended for the two of us. The funny thing about this is that I don't know why that is the case. But for now I'm fine with not knowing because, in spite of having attended church for a very long time now, I've never made a serious effort to read the Bible itself and understand the content in it. I've never made a serious effort to get to know and understand, well, Him.
I mean, yeah, I might've recently come to a lot of realizations about the content of the Bible while listening to sermons in church, but I know that there's still so much that I don't know yet. And one of the main reasons for that is my lack of study. So even though this might lead people to argue that I have no solid basis for it, I have a concrete faith that the way things turned out is the way they were meant to be.
Again, don't misunderstand me. Our marriage isn't some "blessed" one that's going to turn out well, no matter what happens. We've had, and will continue to have, our arguments. We've worked, and will have to continue to work, to make each other happy. But we're both willing to make those sacrifices to help make that happiness achievable.
Though I will throw in a gripe here to say that I have way too little time to play games these days. ;)
Finally, I'm sorry it took so long to get around to posting this. I guess now people will believe me when I say I have a PhD in procrastination.
As for what's next, well, I still have plans for this LJ. (At least, until LJ dies.) If people have questions they'd like to ask, fire away. I'll address them in an upcoming post. And I promise it won't be posted over a year later like this post was. :P
And yet, the passage of time does mean that I can now fill in some details of the story from Soojung's point of view, since we've talked a few times about how it is we ended up together. That said, for the most part, this is going to be my story told from my side of things.
So once again, I start off with a quote. This time, not a Fortune Cookie fortune but a verse from the Bible:
"Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety."
Before I continue, I just wanted to explain the "religious content" warning I use for the LJ cut. Anyone who knows me or has read my LJ from the beginning knows that while I attend church quite regularly, I've never been "in your face" about it. While I believe that God exists and that it is His words recorded in the Bible, I've never been about shoving this fact in other people's faces.
That said, I feel my experiences both just before and after I got married are so intertwined with my faith that it wouldn't be fair to just tell one side of the story. So, whether you're a first-time reader or a longtime friend, I hope you'll indulge me while I tell the WHOLE story of my engagement, rather than a sanitized, religion-free version. Having said that, I'm sure there aren't many of you reading this who would've been offended anyways, but I'm just throwing it out there.
When I left off the last time, there were a bunch of people (relatives, mostly) telling me that I really should give Soojung a chance. And once I finished being mad about all these different people applying small amounts of pressure on me (sort of like getting a bunch of paper cuts all over), I stopped for a moment and gave it some thought.
Now, while I believe that the Bible is a collection of writings by people inspired by God, I don't see it as some sort of code or law that we HAVE to live by. And, since I believe that it was inspired by God, I also believe that it has answers to a lot of life's problems. It's just that usually, in my experience, I've gotten my answers "after the fact." It's generally been the case that only after the incident has come and gone do I see how some snippet from the Bible applied to my situation. That said, this may have been one of those cases where the opposite happened.
Specifically, I thought of the above verse talking about there being safety in a multitude of counselors. (Similar to, but definitely not the same as, the adage about there being safety in numbers.) Here were all these people telling me that Soojung really was someone I should consider, while I felt that she didn't meet any of the criteria I had been looking for. So it basically came down to either they were all wrong, or I had the wrong criteria. (i.e. I was wrong.) And, in the end, I went with the numbers.
So, from that point on, each time I met up with Soojung (which only happened because my mom, aka "the grandma patrol," kept setting things up), I acted nicer towards her than I had in the past. (She later told me she noticed this change.) And, as my time in Korea was coming to an end, I ended up admitting to my parents that she wasn't as bad as I had thought. That she actually was "marry-able," to coin a term. I guess that was enough for my dad because what happened next was that he started to push for the two of us to get engaged before I left for home. (Though he wasn't able to push for very long, since he left on a plane back to Michigan a couple of days later.)
Now, all this time, Soojung was nowhere near interested in marrying me. As I later found out, she was getting ready to officially dump me, because there was someone else she was interested in. But luckily for me, the way the timing and the schedules worked out, I was able to get engaged to her before she even had a chance to develop anything with this other guy.
The way this happened was that, after having spent a few days together hanging out together (when we could; remember that my grandma died around this time as well), I was told to go shopping for some decent clothes because my mom and I were going to meet with Soojung and her parents for dinner. (I hadn't brought any nice clothes because, one, it was damn hot in Korea during the summer and, two, I was expecting to be working the whole time, not meeting with people I needed to impress.) Since I have absolutely NO fashion sense, Soojung pretty much had to pick the clothes out for me; and, while we waited for the pants to get altered to fit properly, I suggested we get some frozen yogurt at the department store's food court. It was later that Soojung told me that that was the exact moment that she planned to dump me for the other guy, but because of my sad facial expression that day (possibly because my grandma had just died a few days earlier) she was unable to do the dirty deed.
Now, as for this dinner we were supposed to have, I was briefed just beforehand by my mom that I should pop the question to Soojung during dinner. As it turns out, my mom had brought an heirloom ring with her to Korea that she was saving for when I got married (the grandma patrol strikes again!), and she had already told Soojung's mom about this plan, as well. Well, in the end I figured, "Why not?" If Soojung said no, then I would be getting what I wanted in the first place which was to be free of this situation with Soojung. Of course, I hadn't really thought about what would happen if she said yes.... ;)
So, after a pretty inconsequential dinner with a bunch of small talk, I took the ring from my mom, got down on my knee, and asked Soojung to marry me. She later told me she was totally in shock when I did this (because, obviously, she wasn't expecting anything like this at all); but, again obviously, she said yes.
So that's the story of how I got engaged to one Soojung Lee from Korea. Looking back, there were a lot of things that had to go my way for things to end up the way that they did. All the damage I had done the previous times we'd met had to be undone. She had to be blocked from meeting this other guy. (Though it turns out I had no part in that happening. It just happened, all on its own.) And I had to change the way I thought about Soojung. In retrospect, that last bit was probably the easiest part of the whole deal.
So, as someone who believes in God, it's pretty much a given that I've come to believe that He played a part in things turning out the way they did since both Soojung and I belong to the same church and believe the same things. But that's not to say that I think God "helped" me in the same way that people say He helped them get a great job, or win a football game, or get into a good school.
I think it's pretty clear from my story that what ended up happening was NOT what I had been looking for or planning on. And the people who preach in our church also sometimes address this. God doesn't give you things simply because you want it, or because you think it would be good for you. Just because I believe in God doesn't mean I can just walk down to the corner 7-11 and keep buying lottery tickets until I eventually win, because that's not what He does. Instead, what He does is He has a plan. And He's had it recorded in the Bible. And in what may seem mind-warpingly contradictory, this plan continues forward to its inevitable end, in spite of the fact that He gave humankind free will to do as he/she pleases.
Applying this to what I just wrote about, at any step of the way both Soojung and I had choices we could have made. Some choices led down the road of us ending up together, and others would've ended up with us remaining apart. But, because this particular series of events occurred, the outcome was that we got engaged to each other. I believe with certainty that that is what God intended for the two of us. The funny thing about this is that I don't know why that is the case. But for now I'm fine with not knowing because, in spite of having attended church for a very long time now, I've never made a serious effort to read the Bible itself and understand the content in it. I've never made a serious effort to get to know and understand, well, Him.
I mean, yeah, I might've recently come to a lot of realizations about the content of the Bible while listening to sermons in church, but I know that there's still so much that I don't know yet. And one of the main reasons for that is my lack of study. So even though this might lead people to argue that I have no solid basis for it, I have a concrete faith that the way things turned out is the way they were meant to be.
Again, don't misunderstand me. Our marriage isn't some "blessed" one that's going to turn out well, no matter what happens. We've had, and will continue to have, our arguments. We've worked, and will have to continue to work, to make each other happy. But we're both willing to make those sacrifices to help make that happiness achievable.
Though I will throw in a gripe here to say that I have way too little time to play games these days. ;)
Finally, I'm sorry it took so long to get around to posting this. I guess now people will believe me when I say I have a PhD in procrastination.
As for what's next, well, I still have plans for this LJ. (At least, until LJ dies.) If people have questions they'd like to ask, fire away. I'll address them in an upcoming post. And I promise it won't be posted over a year later like this post was. :P