No matter where we are, no matter who we know...we are never done learning. Life is always giving us opportunities to gain more knowledge & learn more & more. With any relationship, the more time you spend with the person, the more you learn about them. Do I know everything there is to know about my fiance, Narayan Prasad Sharma? No. Does he know everything there is to know about me? Absolutely not. Each day we continue to learn new things about one another & long after we're married, we'll still be learning. I was reminded of this yesterday when a man came into my work to withdrawal money from his account. The man requested $250.00, $30.00 of it to be in $1.00 bills. Now, if you are American, you probably have some guesses as to what he was going to do with those dollar bills but he claimed they were going to be used to purchase Mountain Dew's from the vending machine at his work. Whether or not the man was lying, I'll never know but that is beside the point. As I thought about Mountain Dew, I thought "Wow, I can't even drink 1, much less to think about drinking 30 of them!" I was taken back to my time a few months ago when I was in Nepal. N.P. & I traveled to meet his friend T.R. When we reached Chitwan, we stopped into a cafe to eat some Momo (a Tibetan Dumpling). N.P. asked if I would like a "coke". I replied that I would. When he returned, he had a Mountain Dew in his hand for me. He let me know that they were out of cokes. I politely thanked him, opened the Mountain Dew & slowly drank it. Only after I returned home to the U.S. did I share with him that of all the sodas I dislike the most, Mountain Dew is the one I least like. On my first night in Nepal, I was all psyched & ready for some good Nepali food. Nope. We went to the Bakery Cafe where N.P. decided to order a Chicken Burger & Pizza. WHAT? American food? Not what I had hoped for. As N.P. asked what kind of pizza I wanted, I pointed out that I don't like veggies on pizza but I could pick things off that I might not like. What kind of pizza did he order? A supreme - full of vegetables. Immediately, I began removing onions, peppers & chunks of tomatoes. N.P. felt horrible. He somehow missed my saying that I did not like veggies on pizza. Such was a time of learning for him though. He was discovering that while I may be pretty diverse with my taste buds, I can also be a bit picky. Not only do I not like veggies on pizza, I do not like cooked tomatoes. I also do not like onions unless they are sauteed so softly that there is absolutely no crunch to them & go nearly unnoticeable to me. Though I do not like these things, I WILL eat them in Nepali foods. He took mental notes of all of this. Unfortunately, I had never had Sugarcane or Sugarcane Juice prior to my time there. As we were returning from a long day (I had spoken to a class for 1 hour that morning & we then spent time walking & then stopping for lunch), we were walking up the road when we came across a lady on the side of the road making juice. N.P. asked me if I liked Sugarcane Juice. I informed him I had never had it & did not want any. When he saw the lady had pineapples, he asked if I liked Pineapple Juice. I let him know that I do - I love it. He requested that she make me some Pineapple Juice but she was unable to do so; she could only make Sugarcane Juice. After specifically stating that I was not interested in trying it, he bought me an entire glass of Sugarcane Juice - some of the worst stuff I've ever put in my mouth. I did not like it AT ALL! Trying to get it all down was hard work as I wanted to just dump it out on the ground. N.P. did not learn just how much I disliked it until a while later when I informed him that he better never make me drink that stuff again. He learned that I have a LONG way to go before I am able to cook a Nepali Meal & make it taste decent. He learned that I am not the American Girl coming to his country expecting the finer things in life. I learned that even though he hates cauliflower, he is kind enough to buy it, prepare it & even eat some of it simply because it's one of my favorite Nepali dishes. I learned that washing clothes by hand can be somewhat enjoyable if you have someone you love beside you & you laugh a lot while you are doing the washing. I learned that N.P. will never be drinking his coffee or tea black - he's got to have at least 2 spoons of sugar in a cup. I learned that despite the fact he does not think he cooks well, he does. I learned that he is even better than who I thought he was. I learned that he does not think a sari (Nepali/Indian dress) suits me well. I learned that he wants to please everyone; make everybody happy. I learned that though I may think the money should not be spent, there will be times when N.P. simply wants to do something special for me & I need to allow him to do so & just show gratitude. I learned that even though he is getting older & can't do what he may have been able to do in the past, he's still going to go play volleyball even when I warn him that he's going to again be experiencing pain later because he will hurt his knee. I learned that he does not like rain, cloudy days or cold weather. If the sun is not shining, he is thinking he doesn't like the day.While some of these things are humorous & some are not, these are all things that we would never know if we did not spend time with one another, talk with one another, listen to each other. Our relationship will grow deeper as we learn these things about one another. Not only do we just learn but we apply that which we learn & we do our best to remember & to also seek ways to improve upon the areas in which we may falter or fail. The same is true in our relationship with Jesus. If we fail to pray, if we fail to read His Word, if we fail to meditate upon it - how can we know Him? How can we know His likes/dislikes? How can we know what He loves? As I seek to know my fiance more & more, my prayer is that I would even more so, seek to know my Heavenly Father more day by day. May God grant me a teachable spirit in which each moment is one where the Lord may teach me something new.
