How did you meet your husband?

Part 2 of The Introduction Cards Project

I was a first-year student and he was a senior at a college down the road. My school had no Christian fellowship, so I went to the one at his school. Spring semester I ended up in a Bible study that he led. It was just him, me and a sophomore woman, but it was a great group. I'd grown up in a Christian family so I knew the 'right' answers; Jrex took us to places and concepts in the Bible I'd never wrestled with before. He would say, "Let's talk about what it means to have faith" and then two hours later my brain would feel like it was going to explode.

We were just friends with zero romantic interest in each other until I'd graduated from college. He'd left for University of Rochester after his college graduation and came back east for a retreat. During those few days, one night we chatted from 10 pm to 4 am. At the end of that conversation we both started thinking, "hmmm..." At the time I was getting fairly burned out and cynical (at the OLD, OLD age of 21). Except for one guy (husband of frequent commenter "k"--a guy who truly was my little brother. Love him), most of my guy friends had ended up wanting to date me. After I said 'no', I ended up losing them as friends. I just wanted to take a vow of singleness and get on with my life without all the emotional trauma of dating. After that conversation with Jrex, I thought, "huh. maybe it IS possible to find the package deal." I still wasn't thinking it might be him specifically, but I thought, "I respect him, he's funny, he's smart, he's attractive, we can talk about anything and we share a similar way of thinking about God."

He came back three weeks later for a wedding and I stalked him. Or at least, did subtle manipulative things to be around him. Chatted with him outside the church until it was time to go in, thus ensuring I could sit next to him. Ditto at the reception. At the end of the weekend he asked if we could talk. Inside I gulped, "Uh oh, he's going to tell me to stop following him around!" Instead he wanted to check if I was interested in thinking about a relationship.

We talked and prayed for 6 months before starting to date. He knew that his parents would have a hard time with a non-Korean woman. They did. (more on that Monday).

In that first conversation about possibly dating, Jrex made me the core promise of our relationship, "I have no idea what life has in store for me, or for a woman who is involved with me. The one thing I know for sure is that it will never be boring."