31 Things I Learned During 31 Years of Marriage

April 24, 2024

If you’re newish here, this is my annual post about my marriage. I am not a licensed therapist. I am not a marriage counselor. I am a woman getting ready to mark 31 years of marriage by sharing some reflections, stream of consciousness-style.

My Dear Readers, you know the drill. Yes, it’s been another year, and this year is our palindrome anniversary (4-24-24)! What is time??

Over communicate everything. Oh, if we had only started our marriage by oversharing, reiterating, and asking clarifying questions, but we were in luuuuuuuuv and luuuuuuuv conquers all.
Luuuv doesn’t conquer all, but love sustains this marriage of mine – being in love, being loving, loving.
Romance is not the same as love. It can be a way to communicate love, but it’s not the only way to communicate love.
I really enjoy gifts of fresh flowers, but I didn’t when we were first married because they made me anxious because $$$. Now we have a Trader Joe’s and more room in our budget.
I am not always in love with Peter (I’m sure it’s mutual, but this is my blog), and if I only focused on the lack of warm fuzzies and romance our marriage would not have made it. I love Peter.
Sometimes I don’t like my husband’s choices or actions (again, I am positive this is mutual but he doesn’t blog), which is when I remind myself I love him.
Old habits die hard. One person in the marriage rarely made the bed. The other person more often than not made the entire bed. And then she got tired and just made her side of the bed. And then she stopped caring just when the other person started making his side of the bed. Go figure. Both old dogs learned new tricks. It’s possible.
Marriage is amazing, even without curated images posted on social media.
Marriage is challenging, especially with the curated images posted on social media.
What anyone posts on social media isn’t the whole of what’s going on in life, let alone a marriage. My husband and I continue to learn how to manage our consumption of social media while I manage my own social media presence.
CPAPs can save marriages. I can still hear the CPAP, but it’s so much better than listening to snoring.
We/I set a gift rule early in our marriage – no appliances. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken. Peter years ago bought me an Italian espresso maker and burr grinder. He does not drink coffee.
Sometimes our different attitudes and values around money and spending are challenging, and so we go back to #1. Know your own issues around money and how those issues present themselves. I grew up pinching every penny, saving every condiment packet, and searching clearance racks first. I had to learn that behavior doesn’t make me a better person or even a person who saves “more” money. (But it kinda does, doesn’t it? JK. I only keep the ketchup and soy sauce packets. No mustard or mayo. He grabs so many napkins, though, that sometimes even I am embarrassed.)
Back to sleep: we grew up in church and were told, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” That was BAD advice for us. We both do much better with sleep. We do angry and arguing better with sleep. We do not do reconciliation and forgiveness at 1am. We go to bed and pick up where we left off after work because we also have to sleep to go to work to pay the bills.
Marriages go through seasons and phases of development. The hardest was hitting the sandwich generation stage just after a decade of marriage with three young children.
You can marry someone of your same culture and ethnicity and still be in a cross-cultural marriage. Peter was born in the US. I came to the US at 8 months so same thing, right? WRONG. My younger sister never calls me by my first name. IYKYK.
I’ve heard as you get older people need less sleep and eat less. We have not hit that stage of life or marriage.
It’s good and healthy to have common friends and separate friends. He had bowling buddies he talked about for years. I have writer friends he probably will never meet. Our marriage is better because he could talk bowling with his bowling friends, and I can talk writing with writing friends.
It’s also good and healthy to have common interests and hobbies and separate interests and hobbies. Sometimes they rub off on you; I watch more movies in different genres because Peter LOVES movies. Sometimes you try bowling, but it doesn’t get beyond buying my own bowling shoes because I do not prefer renting shoes.
Peter still can’t read my mind. He asked me what we were going to do for our anniversary, and I responded, “Hm. What are we going to do, Peter?” (Thanks, Tina, for the coaching.) I blinked my eyes and stared at him, and once again learned he cannot mind meld. I told him I would like to go out to dinner.
I love buying myself flowers, too. It doesn’t mean Peter doesn’t love me. Sometimes you don’t need your spouse to get you that gift or take you to the thing or surprise you with whatever. Sometimes you can do that for yourself. Don’t expect others to be the sole source of joy and care.
This one is for the churchy people: I still don’t know what it means to be “spiritually compatible.”
Another one for the churchy people: I stayed at two churches until Peter was ready to leave. I will not go back, even if Peter is ready, until I am ready to go back.
I really don’t think there is such a thing as a 50/50 marriage. You can’t divide life in half every moment. It’s just when one person is carrying the heavier load for longer with no acknowledgement or help when things crumble.
When things crumble, before things crumble, you need to ask for help, for new and clear expectations. That’s probably what got us through the toughest part of our sandwich generation season.
Speaking of crumbling, women in perimenopause you are about to find out how brittle and dry your entire being can become. Hair, nails, skin, eyeballs, vagina – ALL OF IT. Dry as bread crumbs. Drying up like a walking desert coupled with mood changes, hot flashes and/or night sweats, sleep issues, anxiety, etc. will make any relationship a challenge. I’m done, which means no more eggs, but I swear my post-menopausal life is just less hot flashy/night sweaty but everything else remains. Let’s talk!
I’m still unpacking all the unhealthy and unhelpful messages about sex (it’s bad and dangerous if you’re not married to another Christian, and then sex is automatically good and easy after you marry a Christian) and aging and menopause aren’t helping.
Lubricants are helping. (Again, no one told me about that when I got married. HELLO?!?!?!)
At this season of our marriage, it’s not the quantity of sex but the quality, which actually should always be important – mutual pleasure was not brought up in our pre-marital counseling.
As I’m typing this I guess I should really ask Peter what he thinks about the quantity part. See, 31 years and I’m still learning, too, to over-communicate. Also, none of this was taught nor do I see it discussed much in the world out there.
I think Peter and I work not because we are opposites but because we make the other person want to become a better version of ourselves. And by better I don’t mean thinner or more fit or younger looking. (But I’m not gonna lie. I’m so glad he is my Botox injector.) We make each other want to be kinder, more patient, more loving and generally better humans – more Christlike rather than just Christians.

Any married folks want to add your lessons learned, My Dear Readers? And single folks what wisdom do you have to share about friendships (or marriages you have observed or been a part of) because if marriage isn’t a friendship, it’s doomed.

A bonus thing I’ve learned in marriage? We both like sitting in aisle seats when we fly.

Cold Plunging Into New Spaces

April 19, 2024

I didn’t quite manage to stay standing. I took the idea of a cold plunge quite literally, my body plunging into the Atlantic daring my feet, knees, or hands to find solid ground. My Dear Readers, they did not. Somehow my contact lenses stayed in while I almost lost my dignity. The cold waters tossed me and my bikini as the laughter and screams of a group of women I had just met 48 hours prior competed with the crashing waves.

The entire weekend was a cold plunge of sorts, and all seven of us said yes.

I Don’t Know You

From l to r: Jeni, Cha, me, Nancy, Soyoung, Kadee, and Deidre

The invitation came from someone I had never met through someone I had met once. I know. It sounds ridiculous, but such is the nature of friendship and connections in these times. Connections that could’ve remained parasocial snapped into the world of flesh because Jeni asked friends, acquaintances, and strangers to take a risk and head to the beach.

When my longtime friends asked me why and with whom I was headed to the coast, I sounded absurd. I was headed to a beach house with six other women – four women I didn’t know at all – for a weekend with no agenda and no expectations. If this were a movie, I might be yelling at the screen, “DON’T DO IT!”

Old Friends Were Once Unknown

It took years to establish a group of “mom friends” in my current neighborhood. I was the mom of three, my oldest starting 3rd grade. The girl moms had already established themselves into groups. My own insecurities coupled with limited energy to insert myself into the circles of conversation meant loneliness. My middle child was starting kindergarten. I hoped to find other women eager to connect over the start of a 13-year journey for our children. It felt like speed dating – catching quick conversations, hoping I would click with someone, ANYONE. Most of the women were kind and polite, some were even warm and open, but the search continued.

It wasn’t until my youngest started kindergarten (two years after the move) I started to meet other

women who were mostly launching the first or second child off to school. We exchanged numbers not just to arrange play dates for our boys but also to coordinate our schedules so we could get to know each other while the kids played. Those gatherings evolved over years into what would be the start of “supper club” where playdates spilled into dinner time. We would gather from our respective homes the makings of a potluck or an order for pizza, talking until it was time to get the kids to bed.

When the Kids Grow Up

Peter roughly cut and pasted two of the couples into this photo because he could.

Some of my friendships did not make it out of the ebb and flow of my children’s friendships. We change and sometimes friendships do not make it beyond kids’ friendships, activities or schedules. The real miracle for me has been a group of mom friends who outlasted our kids’ childhoods. We have mourned and buried parents, celebrated each other’s children, laughed and cried over aging and disease. And if all that wasn’t enough, our husbands are friends geeking out over tech, movies, music, craft beer, and audiobooks.

We have taken a few trips together, collectively deciding future trips should include fewer than 20,000 daily steps and warmer weather. But this trip by the ocean was not with them. This trip wasn’t to replace the supper club but to see if the woman shaped by old friendships could still learn new things in new spaces.

Cold Plunges to Make New Friends

I hesitated.

One does not simply walk into a house with six strangers. We all had our own reasons. My reasons? Well, let’s just say after almost 20 years in the Christian Industrial Complex, I needed to believe I could still hope and dream. I didn’t want to become jaded. I didn’t want to stop taking risks. It was scary to jump on that plane, hop in the car, walk into the house. It’s humbling to walk into a room of women who didn’t know me the way I might be known if I was a conference speaker.

I wasn’t coached into this gathering, but I was coached into my first ocean cold plunge. Cha was our coach. She told all of us to push through the initial shock of the cold, to keep walking in, and breathe. Who knew you could walk into a room of strangers or jump into the ocean, push through the shock, and breathe?

Vitamin L Diaries: I’m Depressed. Are you?

January 26, 2021

I’m working with my happy light just off to my right. I will let it do it’s thing – bombarding my brain via my eyes with fake sunlight minus the bad UV rays. It’s one of several tricks up the sleeves of those of us with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) where the lack of natural sunlight can impair and impact our mood and mental health. This year has felt like a triple whammy – clinical depression, a global pandemic and SAD. Oh, I forgot to add the unprecedented events including and leading up to an attempted coup so that makes it a quadruple whammy.

Mental health talk is slowly losing its sting, but there’s still a sting. How do I know? Because whenever I mention it anywhere publicly I get public comments AND private ones from Dear Readers who don’t feel comfortable sharing in a public comment about their own depression, whose loved ones and community still do not understand that we all should care about our mental health, whose churches will encourage them with toxic positivity to pray it away. Just because you talk about mental health doesn’t mean you have a problem, but if you can’t talk about mental health you won’t have any tools to help bring yourself or loved ones back to health.

So let’s talk about mental health

I want to be clear. I have no thoughts of self-harm. We need to make statements like that normal, normal and healthy for people to say them and for questions about self-harm to be normal and healthy.

For those of us in places will actual seasons, the December, January, February and sometimes March and parts of April are not all a Winter Wonderland (I’m looking at you my Dear Readers from warm, sunny places that think shoveling snow would be fun). They are cloudy, gloomy, cold and isolating. Because of the COVID19 pandemic isolation has taken on new levels. Our family has not entertained inside our home since February 2020. We haven’t had friends or family gathered around our kitchen table, a table that has uncomfortably fit 18 people. We haven’t hosted high school pre- or post-dance parties like we did in the fall of 2019 when 30 high schoolers feasted on carbs and left a trail of glitter, sequins, and corsages (parents we need to talk about how much money we spend on flowers for these kids) and socks from when the guys in the group slept over in the basement.

So the happy light brings fake sun to help regulate our brains and sometimes we add Vitamin D supplements for added measure. For some of us, and definitely for me, medication (10 mg of Lexapro daily) keeps the other things going, and when I’m on top of it I do the other things – exercise, stay hydrated, limit screen time (ok, I’m not so good at this).

But sometimes doing all the right things isn’t enough. It helps us keep from sinking further, but it isn’t enough because we can’t checklist our way out of depression.

It can feel a little like falling – that split second you experience the sensation of losing balance. But that split second is split into days and weeks and months of that sensation of losing your equilibrium, of losing a sense of balance and direction, of losing trust in yourself to make the right decision that could possibly break your fall but also break a bone or two in the landing. It’s feeling like you’re moving in slow motion as you are trying to right yourself and no single movement feels like it’s going to keep you from the inevitable crash because you can’t feel your body completely, you can’t see your surroundings completely, you can’t always understand your body or your surroundings at all.

Sometimes you…

Start missing deadlines or forget things or flake out, and then you feel horrible about yourself and want to crawl into a hole. So then you try to make up for that but that exhausts you or you stop trying. You can’t sleep or sleep too much and that makes you feel horrible and that horrible feeling can lead to anxiety or a deeper depression. It’s a vicious cycle.

Hit a wall. Last week I put on make up, dressed up, chilled a mini bottle of champagne, and celebrated the inauguration of our first but not last woman of color vice president – Madame Vice President Kamala Devi Harris and her running mate Mister President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. But for all the emotions and thoughts running through my mind and body I could not for the life of me cry. For me, that is a sign that my mental health is not tracking with my body and my emotions. And even my emotions felt numb, which I also fully recognize is part of healing from the grief and trauma of but not limited to the past four years.

Have to name it. I was telling myself it was a passing day of clouds, but the passing days have been weeks and months. I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Trouble falling asleep and then once I am finally asleep wanting to stay in bed for as long as I can get away with. The things that usually help (exercise usually perks me up) don’t help after days of trying and then the trying gets exhausting. I put on some extra weight during the months of sheltering in place, and that has made being comfortable in my own skin a challenge. It becomes a vicious cycle. I wanted it to just be in my head but that’s the thing with depression. IT IS IN MY HEAD. IN MY BRAIN. And I or anyone with depression can’t think it away. We have to name it and treat it.

Reach out. I told my husband and my friends that I’m on the struggle bus with my depression. I told them not because they were going to offer solutions and cures but because they could keep me in their actual, real, sincere thoughts and prayers. They check in, leave messages, send memes (please send all the Bernie memes, please), and text about the mundane and the daily realities. It helps me get through today’s six inches of snow and lack of actual sun.

That still didn’t make it go away

I haven’t written in months, in part because I was slowly slipping into this depressed space where the depression is as alive and present as I am. Words require patience with and for myself, and when I’m depressed my inner critic becomes even louder. Another vicious cycle. After I hit “publish” I will get back to an overdue writing project that stalled in my mental darkness. I will teach a virtual yoga class and reconnect my mind and my body. But I’m finally writing to give space and voice to those of us who keep on keeping on in a state of depression, in a small or big corner of clouds and darkness. Some of us aren’t able yet to reach out for help or who haven’t yet been able to name what it is we are going through or who are still wrestling with the stigma of depression, anxiety, and mental illness. I’m writing this to remind myself and others that no matter where we are in our journey we are still here fighting, even if it’s with a whimper, to please stay present even in the clouds and darkness.

Marching While Asian American

January 25, 2017

I feel sick to my stomach. Walls. Immigrants. Refugees. Native lands. Silencing federal agencies. If any of My Dear Readers think they are going to be OK because, you know, God is in control, let me gently suggest you read the Bible. There is hope and deliverance but there also is a lot of suffering. We don’t get to skip out on the suffering because we go to church or are documented citizens. I’m also sure that Enoch is the only one lucky one who was “taken up”.

With that, I’m going to write about marching at the Women’s March on Washington. I’ll probably write more, but it’s in process. Thank you for indulging me.

First, me checking my privilege:

I was able to be away from home Thursday-Sunday with little financial impact to my family, including carpooling with a dear friend the ride to and from D.C. from my safe little north suburb of Chicago and staying with friends while away.
This was only my fourth protest march in the US, and I’ve never been arrested. (A little known fact: I marched against US military presence in South Korea as a college student where I learned about tear gas, exiting protests when things look a little iffy, and how to make and throw a molotov cocktail. My people know how to protest.)
For now we live in a democracy where we have the right to protest. I have the energy and the cultural value of swallowing suffering. I didn’t have to worry if my wheelchair or cane would be problematic.
I’m not a black or brown woman whose mere presence can threaten some #notallwhitewomen.
As an Asian American woman I am often perceived by some #notallwhiteowomen as “safe” and quiet and practically white, practically invisible. I’m not. Because of that some but not all black and brown women don’t know what to do with me. I get that. We all have some learning to do. I do not experience the physical threat black and brown women face. WOC, however, all experience a dehumanizing through hyper-visibility and invisibility that as a Christian grieves me to the core. I’m still learning.

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Me in process:

The experience was better because of the 24 hours in the car with my friend Tina and my daughter. There was something about the adrenaline rush and crash, the expectation and the different experiences that filled in some blanks for me.
The experience was better because I was able to prepare for, be present, and recover from the march with a group of Asian American women – my adult daughter, two former colleagues, and one current colleague who all have been a part of my journey for the past 21 years. (Add that to the list of privileges.)
Why did that older white man feel like he could come up to my daughter and ask her to define intersectionality when he made clear he had seen it on other signs during the day? (I was so proud of her and her answer. If you don’t know what it mean, please Google it and know a black woman coined the phrase and developed the area of study.)
From where we stood (for almost 6 hours) the crowd was sort of diverse. There were WOC present but my unscientific observation is that the diversity of the rally speakers was greater than than of the crowd. Again, I HAVE NO ACTUAL PROOF except for the SMALL FRACTION of the crowd I could see. But WOC were there, with our signs, with our friends and signs.
When the Mothers of the Movement took the stage it seemed to me that many of the white women there had no idea who these women were and why we were asked to chant “Say Her/His Name”. Again, I don’t know this for sure, but I’m sorry. You don’t walk away and start marching because you’re tired of standing and listening to speakers when it’s the Mothers of the Movement.
I wondered if Asian Americans would be represented up front. My friends and I joked that when ScarJo took the stage she might be the closest we get to a celebrity. I think she was. I was relieved to see Sen. Tammy Duckworth speak (she’s Thai American and a decorated war vet) and thrilled out of my mind to see my friend Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director at National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, took the mic wearing her “Not Your Model Minority” hat. Again, I found myself wondering if non-Asian Americans in the crowd understood the importance and implications of that phrase.
The programming reflected a desire and need for representation but honestly we didn’t need to hear from Michael Moore, ScarJo, Madonna, Amy Schumer, and several other speakers. We didn’t because we hear from them when we don’t want to march. We meaning me/I.
There is a lot of talk about how “peaceful” and arrest-free the marches across the country were. I’m not gonna play respectability politics. Reality is that with that many white women marching there was no way police were going to come out all militarized with riot gear like they did just the day before for the inauguration. However, I also wrote down the legal aid number in an inconspicuous place because I’m not white, because I protested against the U.S. government in another country, and because the government also has all my info, including biometrics because I went through the naturalization process. Paranoid? Maybe. But I can’t help but remember Executive Order 9066 and the incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans especially under this current administration.
I went because I could, and I also have many (many, many, yuge numbers) of friends who couldn’t go because of work, family, health, self-care but wanted to march or wondered if they should march or could march. I marched for them and for myself. Marching isn’t for everyone. Protesting by marching, chanting and carrying signs isn’t for everyone. It’s for me. I can’t represent all Asian Americans but I can show up as one Asian American woman.

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My personal action steps:

Self-care. This is not about eating my feelings, avoiding the exhaustion and pain, or home spa treatments. It’s about making sure I am physically, spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically healthy and well. It means drinking more water, sleeping, praying, worshiping, laughing, crying, reading, and exercising. It means recognizing my body is a temple but I can’t hire people to clean, maintain, and feed said temple.
Sign up for monthly volunteer opportunities that will make an impact locally.
I’m a Christian and I might even still call myself an evangelical, and I haven’t been to church in months because it has not been a place of hope. If you are a person of faith, stay rooted in a faith-community. I am finding myself missing communal worship and prayer.
Making at least one phone call each day to a politician or organization involved in this mess. Today I called the White House Correspondents Association to ask them to stop reporting lies and “alternative truths”, aka lies.

Here is a sample script for the WHCA: “My name is —– . I am a resident of the —– congressional district in (state) and there is no need for a return phone call. I am calling to ask reporters to stop repeating the lies and alternative facts of Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway. The American public deserves to read and hear truth, and if this administration is unable to communicate actual facts please stop quoting them.” Call 202-266-7453

So, I’m wondering. Did you, my dear readers, march? Why or why not? Are you glad you marched???

A Quick Primer on #codeswitching

August 25, 2015

Dear Readers,

Have you heard about the crazy that went down on the Napa Valley Wine Train over the weekend?

So the wine train is a real thing, and my husband and I were on it about 21 years ago for our anniversary, about a decade too early for my tastebuds to fully appreciate what I could’ve been drinking. It’s literally a train that goes through Napa Valley, and you can eat and drink your way through it. It is a bar on wheels. How loud do you have to be to be too loud on a bar on wheels, especially if you are with a group of your reading besties enjoying a good book discussion?

Well, apparently it’s not about being loud. It’s about WHO is being loud and WHO thinks you are too loud. This is not surprising to some of us, but that doesn’t make it any less humiliating, wrong, and racist.

The CEO has issued an apology, and here is where I brought in my love for manuscript Bible study and intersected it with … my life as a Korean American woman of color who pays attention to what happens to other women of color. I looked at the apology and started marking it up with comments, questions, observations. I’m sorry for the quality of the photo, and you may see that the text didn’t fully print on the right margin – user error. But you can get the gist of it. Public relations folks might call it spin. I call it #codeswitching – where otherwise neutral words are used to describe a situation where more precise language connected to race, gender, sexuality, etc. could be used.

For example, when a group of women of color are referred to as “those people” as a way of minimizing the negative racial/ethnic implications of the comment without actually pointing out the obvious.

So that apology to the Sistahs on the Reading Edge Book Club? There is a lot of code-switching going on.

“…you would be loud, fun-loving and boisterous…”
“…a particularly vibrant group…”
“…we were acutely insensitive…”

I haven’t figured out my emotions in response to this situation and to the apology. What I know is that growing up as one of the few Asian Americans in my community I had a different standard of behavior I needed to live up to – for my parents and my Korean American community and for the white community. I had to behave and respect the norm in whichever situation I was in, aka respectability politics. Many times I still believe this is true.

Such was the case for the Sistahs of the Reading Edge.

As you read the apology, what do you read? What are the underlying, unspoken messages that stand out to you? What are the questions you have about my manuscript?

Grief & Gratitude

August 20, 2015

Sometimes the expression of an emotion has to catch up to the spiritual disruption. Grief is a very strange, powerful, exhausting emotion, and it didn’t really hit me until I opened my mouth and said the words on the phone.

“Someone very important to me died this morning. He has been my pastor since I was 15,” I said, requesting to be excused from a retreat I was to have attended addressing the connection between body and soul.

How appropriate that in finally saying the words I burst out in tears over the home-going of Rev. Robert D. Goette, good and faithful servant, pastor, husband, father, son, brother, uncle, spiritual father, lover of peanut butter, Bears fan married to a Packers fan, church planter, evangelist, leader, and friend.

Someone said Robert may now find himself bored because there is no one in heaven to share the Good News of Jesus with, but he is healed from the ALS that took him physically away from his family and friends bit by bit over the past 5 1/2 years. He lived longer than doctors initially expected, but that’s Robert.

Robert was a missionary kid to parents called to South Korea. By the time I met him (I was in high school) he was gathering groups of Asian American kids in the Chicago suburbs – mostly but not exclusively Korean Americans – for Bible study and fellowship. He and sometimes a few volunteers would pick up these kids to meet in the basement of a family’s home and meet Jesus in the form of a tall, lanky, blonde, soft-spoken white dude. Yes, Jesus was white in those years but strangely Korean because of his missionary kid experience. Robert had a unique perspective on and personal connection with the spiritual formation of Korean American children and youth – children of Korean immigrants caught somewhere between being the first and second generation in the U.S. also known as the 1.5 generation.

Me.

Robert understood that a generation of kids were growing up in the abundance of America with parents who had just experienced the aftermath of a war – the Korean War – and the political and social turmoil that followed. Robert knew that the language and cultural gaps would widen, that Western churches were ill-equipped to welcome us (they were happy to rent their spaces so long as we didn’t smell them up too much with our food, which really was superior to donuts and coffee IMHO), and that Korean churches would lose us because of the very gaps caused by chasing the American Dream.

Korean pastors thought he was stealing sheep even though most of us sheep weren’t thrilled to sit in the pews listening to pastors preaching in Korean, couldn’t (or didn’t want to or were never invited to) go to the white church youth groups, or weren’t going to church at all. And I have no idea what his white pastor-peers were thinking as he slowly built the foundation of a church with a bunch of junior high and high school kids.

Surely some people thought he was crazy because junior high and high school kids are not the group church planters are going after. That is not the demographic strategic, trained church planters necessarily go after when dreaming of a strong core. Kids are flaky and unreliable. We don’t have an income let alone our own modes of transportation. We bring and create drama (we were K-drama before it was a thing). We are immature in ways our non-Korean peers were not because we also did not have parents who understood America.

Yup. Robert was crazy.

I’m so grateful Robert was crazy. His investment in my spiritual formation and the formation of a generation of Korean American kids is immense. He understood that my experience as a Korean American child of immigrants was going to mean life and a journey with God would have different turns and curves and bumps and that I would need a place with peers who spoke and understood my heart language – not Korean, necessarily, but a way of understanding and connecting and expressing what our non-Korean American peers could not understand, would never experience, but at some point would benefit from our articulation and expression of it. Robert knew the Kingdom of God needed my generation before most of us cared, and his faithfulness in investing, discipling, mentoring, pastoring, and evangelizing…well, even though it had been a long time since Robert could speak on his own I knew he was still Robert. Even when he ceased to be the senior pastor at Grace Baptist and then Grace Community Church. Even when Peter and I left the church. Even as we stopped seeing Robert and Julie, his wife, on any basis. Even as ALS took away more than Robert’s balance. Robert was still Robert. He was still a missionary, a church planter and trainer of planters, a husband to Julie and father to Jennifer, Emily, and Robbie.

And because Robert was faithful I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Before I knew what ethnic-specific ministry was, Robert and those who believe in Robert did it. They invested in a bunch of kids who grew up to become doctors, lawyers, pastors, investment bankers, traders, and designers. He followed us to Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Chicago – Circle Campus; bible studies on those campuses eventually became Asian American Christian Fellowship chapters connected to JEMS – Japanese Evangelical Missions Society and then later affiliated with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Yes, the very organization I work with. See?

There is so much to be thankful for, so much to remember.

Grief is a very strange and powerful emotion. I’m looking forward to being on the other side of it someday.

Robert was one of three pastors we had presiding at our wedding. He also was the only one who spoke in English, the only one Peter could understand, and the only one who knew me. Robert didn’t mind being one of three. He understood the Korean family/church politics involved in planning the wedding of two firstborns and the son of founding elders of a church. Peter and I have been married 22 years, and we still remember the gist of what Robert said to us about respecting and cherishing each other.

Found! 11 Female Conference Speakers at Q and My Voice

November 22, 2013

I was nervous. I’d be lying if I told you otherwise. It’s one thing to meet some of your favorite authors (I got pictures with and autographs of Lauren Winner, Shauna Niequist, and Rachel Held Evans. #fangirl). It’s another thing to realize your voice will be heard alongside theirs, sharing space and time in real life.

Prepping to speak at Q Focus: Women & Calling last Friday involved prayer, study, journaling, yoga, prayer, red wine, outfit & accessory consulting, procrastination, and more prayer. The conversations I had with myself and with God were fraught with self-doubt, insecurity, anxiety, arrogance, confusion, and humility. And wouldn’t you know I was asked to speak about ambition.

Things I learned (some of these are things I have learned before but clearly needed a refresher course):

No matter how much you prepare, nothing can prepare you for a late-night call the night before a big “thing” letting you know your husband is in an ambulance headed to the hospital.
I am incredibly blessed by friends who say “let me know if you need anything” and really mean it.
The little things – a note in my luggage, texts and emails of encouragement from friends, a lovely meal with strangers who become friends, and brief FaceTime exchanges – mean a great deal more to me than I can express.
Honesty & vulnerability is scary, but they can break down barriers.
Female conference speakers do have to spend more time considering wardrobe options and ask about the mic. I wore a dress, which meant the wireless mic transmitter hung from the back of my neck. I also had to think about hemline length & shoes. Men always wear pants, so they don’t have to think about it.
You can never pray too much.
I am afraid of failure. I was especially afraid of failure because as an Asian American woman I often feel like one of the few non-White voices so my failure is not just mine but my community’s failure.
Despite 15 years of ministry experience and 20+ years of public speaking experience, I take note of how many speakers are non-White, and I still have to work through feeling like the token.
Conference directors having a tough time finding diverse voices should use the internet more often. At this event I found 11 female conference speakers, including three who are women of color.

Many of you dear readers have asked me if I was nervous, how I thought it went, what I wore, and in general what was it like.

I was nervous, until I actually got up on stage and started talking. For those of you who weren’t able to be there or see it live-stream (I was honestly annoyed that my husband paid to see me speak because I know there are plenty of days he can hear me for free and would rather not!), I got up on stage and tried to take a photo of the audience because the women were beautiful. It was such an incredible moment to look out at a room of women who were able to invest a day to spend with friends and strangers to faithfully seek out clarity and community. I am still thinking about how our world might change if everyone who was there in person or virtually took one more step towards God’s calling on their lives…

The talk went well, meaning it’s never as bad or as good as you might think. I did realize that I did not ask anyone beforehand to listen with the intent of giving me feedback. So, if you watched me speak, I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK! You can do it in the comments or email me at morethantea “at” gmail “dot” com.

With my daughter’s permission and approval I wore a grey and black patterned sheath dress with a black cardigan, a fun silver necklace, nothing on my wrists, stud earrings, and dark red patent pumps.

And walking into the room felt a little like what I have always imagined sorority rush might feel like (I did not rush because I had never heard of the Greek system, having been the first in my family to attend college in the U.S.). It was a bit like the 18-year-old me showed up for a few minutes – anxious, nervous, self-conscious, insecure, wondering what I was doing there. And then I found myself praying for God to bring “me” back – the 43-year-old me who can acknowledge the brokenness with a different perspective.

To my delight, and no surprise there, I found myself simultaneously sitting at Jesus’ feet and in front of an incredible audience sharing from my heart and mind what God has been teaching me all along. And that will not be taken away from me.

How is God inviting you to sit at Jesus’ feet to find your voice and calling? What are you learning about yourself in the process?

20 Things I Learned Through 20 Years of Marriage

April 24, 2013

Trust me. The math actually works out. Peter and I have been married for 20 years. Some lessons were easier than others. Some are still in process. Some require a lifetime. I’m grateful beyond words, but this is a blog so words are required.

Here are some lessons about myself and about life through marriage learned in no particular order.

I can be a selfish, whiny brat. Ask Peter.
Planning a wedding is easier than loving and honoring your spouse in sickness and till death. (And I had one heck of a wedding.)
Seek out marriage counseling early and often.
Make new friends as a couple.
Make new friends as individuals.
Fall bowling leagues actually last through spring.
I am far too practical to enjoy romance but apparently not so practical that I can’t enjoy sparkly things.
Subwoofer/laser disc/DVD/Blu Ray is a love language for some people.
I thought I married a mind reader. He did, too.
Love is a verb. It is a choice. Everyday.
I do not like “traditional” gender roles when it comes to cooking, cleaning and child rearing.
I like “traditional” gender roles when it comes to shoveling, mowing or cutting down large trees.
I do not like my husband associating with men who refer to parenting their own children as “babysitting”.
I do not like associating with women who call what the fathers of their children do as “babysitting” .
Sometimes you have to go to bed angry with each other because it’s better to go to bed with the understanding you will talk later than to argue when tired.
Men aren’t the only ones who enjoy sex, think about sex or initiate sex.
You really are marrying into a family, not marrying the individual.
Children should not be the center of your marriage.
The Church needs to talk more about healthy friendships and marriages because the world around me is still shouting louder and more effectively.
It never hurts to say, “Thank you” and “I love you” for no other reason than you mean it.

Happy 20th anniversary to me and Peter. I am so glad I laughed through “Wayne’s World.” I am sorry it took me so long to stay awake (and then thoroughly enjoy “The Holy Grail”). I don’t think I will ever stay awake through “The Purple Rose of Cairo.”

Did She Cross a Line?

May 5, 2010

If you haven’t read The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (pepy3, where are you on the waitlist?) I humbly suggest you put your name on the library waiting list, borrow a copy from one of your friends or buy one if you’re the type who likes to own books. I finished the book last month, but it’s following my soul.

It’s a story about Southern African American women who work as housekeepers, nannies and personal chefs and the Southern White women they worked for. It’s about each group of women and their communities, friendships, mothers and children, and the unspoken and explicit rules that governed their complex relationships across racial, socio-economic and even religious lines.

One thing that I’m still wondering about and thinking through is the author’s own admission that she has and had feared her narrative, particularly writing in the voice of African American women, had crossed “the line”. Clearly, the story she wanted to tell required multiple voices, but by her own admission she acknowledges that while our recent history used laws to draw the line some lines are beyond the scope of law and policy.

A few of us from book club took a field trip to see and hear Kathryn Stockett at a reading/Q and A/book signing earlier this week in Lake Forest. (A little shout-out to “M” who snagged a seat in the front, which meant she was one of the first in line to have her book signed and agreed to take additional copies belonging to Bedtime Stories members to be signed. “M” also asked a great question about the author’s own journey in understanding race and racism – much better than the question asked by the lady behind me who apparently thought there were no significant Southern voices after Eudora Welty from whom Stockett could draw inspiration from. I suppose no one has ever heard of Harper Lee or Zora Neale Hurston…) Anyway, Stockett briefly addressed the real-life complexity of the relationship between White families and their “help” as well as her personal concerns about telling a fictional story by assuming the voices of African American women.

It was slightly amusing and ironically appropriate to be sitting there in a room that was predominantly White and looked like a dress-rehearsal for a Chicos/Talbots/White|Black fashion show to hear Stockett talk about her teenage years when she, by her own admission, was naive and unaware of the rules of race and class even though she had been adhering to them in one way or another her entire life. It was just the way it was and there we were just the way it is.

But does it matter that Stockett is a Southern White woman who was raised by Demetrie, her family’s “help”, and is now telling a fictional Demetrie’s story? Were you worried as you cracked open the book or did it not even cross your mind to worry? Is there really a line and did she cross it by assuming the voices of Aibilene, Minny and Constantine? Was it too much? Or is it a line we should all be crossing?

We Have Become the Ahjummas

April 7, 2010

My girlfriend and I stood there first cutting the traditional birthday cake – the flour, sugar and egg variety – and then cutting another traditional birthday cake – the sweet rice and sugar variety, laughing and perhaps delighting in what had become of us over more than 20 years of friendship. Another friend quickly joined us to help pass out plates of cake and mujigae dduk, understanding without ever being asked that she, too, had joined us in friendship and cultural tradition.

We started out as young ladies – “ahgashi”. Two decades filled with some experience, wisdom and grace have changed us. We have become the “ahjumma” – the older women who were always by our mothers’ sides, laughing and helping them through every church and family function.

The ahjummas were always there to help cut the fruit, serve the tea and help maintain and direct the delicate balance between managed chaos and mayhem. They knew to help, knew how to cut the fruit and dduk, knew to send leftover dduk with guests and to encourage them to take some food home. The ahjummas always seemed to know when to do these things without being asked, and I remember their efficiency as well as their hearts. They did these things out of tradition and learned expectations as much as out of love and respect for their friends and families. They just knew when it was time.

And as my girlfriend and I stood with knives sticky with cake, frosting and sweetened rice we realized we knew, too. We knew that there were things in our Korean American upbringing that we had not carried on into our adulthood – things we found too Korean to be easily transferred to our American lives or too American to transfer into our Korean lives. We also knew that we would never be able to, or want to, shake the impulse to come to another girlfriend’s side. We knew that our friend needed not just girlfriends but ahjummas to step in and help her daughter’s “dol” (a child’s first birthday) move from the pasta and salad and Korean potstickers and braised short ribs to cake and dduk without a word.

My girlfriend and I stood there laughing and grateful because we knew whom we had become.

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