Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Illustrate the meaning of "It's No Use Crying over Spilt Milk" (without using the actual phrase or literal exampl (02/07/08)
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TITLE: Honor Thy Heart | Previous Challenge Entry
By Angeline oppenheimer
02/14/08 -
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He came into my life just like that. He was the Sunday School Superintendent, and I, newly transferred to the daughter church to help teach Sunday School. He had just finished his internship as a doctor, and was working in a government hospital and I was a newly certified teacher. I know it sounds like a trite doctor-teacher story in a cheap romance novel but it happens in real life.
Our daughter church was set in the heart of a village, shrouded with dense jungle undergrowth and a mud road that led up to the little church, a flimsy wooden structure, that used to be a little sundry shop. Wind, sometimes rain, flowed in and out of gaping holes in the wooden walls. Every Sunday morning, I set off early to gather the kids in the neighborhood--kids plucked out of dirt-floored dilapidated homes, kids whose parents were too busy to bother and were glad that I’ve come to relieve them, kids who came only because we served a brunch after.
No, it was not love at first sight. Actually, he was the quiet guy with wry sense of humor and infectious smile and he actually carried a Sunday School bag-- a nerd if you examine him on a social level (not exactly my type). You would never guess that on weekdays, he donned a tie and looked very professional with a white coat and a stethoscope for a necklace.
When I instituted game time after Sunday School to get to know these kids, he jumped right in. He looked like an overgrown school boy, chasing after the ball with a bunch of displaced, often times emotionally neglected kids. Week after week, he didn’t mind getting in the action--dirt, sweat, water (when we had water fights). He disarmed me. I felt drawn to his unassuming, “wearing the love of Jesus on his sleeve” kind of way.
As the kids grew to like church and the number increased by word of mouth, I was fast becoming the piped piper of Woodland Village, one of the few remaining slums in Singapore. I was also becoming aware of the growing chemistry between him and I. Unspoken but palpable and real, like sandpaper between fingers--in his wide grin, in his eyes and the way he behaved around me.
I was falling and I don’t fall easily. I waited for him to make the first move.
It never came.
On that sad evening, after he invited me to dinner, I knew something was amiss.
“I’m going to England to do some further studies,” he started awkwardly, eyes on the steering wheel.
“Ohh, I never heard you mention that before,” I was surprised, “When are you leaving?”
“In three months’ time, but I’m not going alone,” he managed to get it out.
“Who are you going with?”
“Well…actually I’m getting married, so yes….my wife.”
Wife? My head was screaming. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
“She was my girlfriend before you came into the picture. I wish you were there first. I really felt something, didn’t you? But I had to keep my commitment to her.”
Commitment? What about true love? What about giving me a chance? I wanted to go on a rampage of questions, but I had to do the honorable thing too.
My heart had stopped but I forced a smile, “Good luck. Maybe we can keep in touch…”
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I eventually got married and moved far away but I know I left my heart there in that mud playground where I encountered the love of my life. I often wonder if things would turn out differently had I been more forceful? Had we been less hung up on being honorable and listen to our hearts?
Maybe there wouldn’t be two sets of unhappy people (I hear he’s not too happy too). But you can’t go back in a time-machine to reenact the events of life, after all, a commitment is a commitment….
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