Three Short Stories

Story #1: Today I helped to proctor the TEOFL exam, which is a standardized test for people who speak English as a second language (a lot like an SAT or ACT or GRE). It's four hours, as as I was walking one of my students back to pick up his things afterward, I asked him how it went. He said, "The easiest part was the essay writing."

I couldn't help myself. I'd taught this student in two classes during the session that ended yesterday. Those classes were Reading and Writing, and Writing Skills. I said, "That's probably because you had such an AWESOME writing teacher, right?"

[he agreed with me, of course, but I laughed and told him I was kidding]

Story #2: This afternoon I was walking back up to my apartment after taking some laundry to our scary, basement laundry room. Across the privacy fence that separates my apartment building from the parking lot behind Pizza Hut, I saw a man get out of a car with his two boys and walk into Pizza Hut. As they walked, the dad put his arm around the shoulders of the maybe 10-year-old boy.

I immediately began to tear up. I'm always sentimental when it comes to family. But right now I'm a virtual tear fountain when it comes to any type of relationship, as I feel so alone out here. Anyway, I was feeling a sad and lonely and a little irritated at feeling that way when, about 2 second later, I looked over again to see (and hear, delightfully) the dad hock a big loogie and spit it on the outside wall of the restaurant on their way in.

Now I know I'm making hasty generalizations here when I say that this one action made me stop thinking about how kind and wonderful the father was, but sometimes the truth hurts. It was gross. I giggled out loud, and immediately felt a tiny bit less lonely.

Story #3:

[background info: During my last semester in Wheaton, a friend of mine bought me a gift membership to eHarmony. At first I was pretty hesitant, but you know what they say about gifts...and horses...or maybe that's gift horses? And their mouths? Whatever. Anyway, so I did it for the three months that she bought for me, and it was actually pretty fun, though (obviously) nothing significant came of it. ]

Earlier this week this same friend asked me if I had considered doing that again, now that I'm back in the US. I hadn't, but then I started thinking about it, and decided that I would like to. So I jumped online, but quickly realized it's out of my budget right now, which was disappointing. Then this morning I had another friend message me and offer to either buy me a coffee club membership (coffee is gross), a gym membership (I silently scoffed at such a waste of money), or an online dating membership.

Seriously? I was so excited! And not just at the idea of finding some tall, hot DeKalb farmer boy to sweep me off my feet. It seemed like a direct message from God. This message:

"Leslie, I know you're confused and lonely and a little bit mad at me right now. But I need you to hold

on a bit longer. I promise you'll eventually understand, and I promise that I am doing

this for your own good and for my glory. You aren't going home right now, because it won't

work into the plan. But I'm going to give you THIS, the gift of an eHarmony membership from

a friend, to remind you that I love you more than you are capable of understanding. I'm not

trying to make you miserable as a form of entertainment. I know you're hurting, and I care. It

matters to me. Please trust me, that there's purpose behind your pain. In the meantime, here.

Distract yourself with men."

I'm pretty sure God likes the idea of his daughters being distracted by men, aren't you?

Anyway, it was really encouraging to me. The End.