Beauty & the Beast: The Proposal (Chapter 14)

PRAYER REQUEST: Andrew and Connor both were successfully moved to the new building. Praise God! Please continue to pray for them though as they are both still seriously ill. Connor's body is still not grafting the new bone marrow and it must happen within the next 7 days and Andrew's lungs, kidneys and liver are not in good shape. Please see Joe's blog for Andrew HERE and Steph's blog for Connor HERE for more detailed prayer requests and updates.
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Okay, so this is just about the last of this series. You can find any chapters you missed in the Beauty & the Beast tab above. 

This was it. After three years of prayer, two rejections, and over one year of dating/courtship in the words of Nacho Libre – it was time to get down to the “nitty-gritty”. It was time to propose. I was now 26 years old but more than that I had waited long enough and I could not wait any longer, *because when you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody – you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. (* from When Harry met Sally)

The only problem was I knew I was playing way out of my league. I mean to put it in baseball terms Kim was like a Hall-of-Famer in the Majors and I was the right fielder for the local little-league team. For a “guy like me” to end up with a “girl like her” would be unprecedented. I know (or perhaps “hope”) some of you out there are probably thinking I’m being too hard on myself but allow me to explain the reasons for my insecurities. As you can see from this picture (first shown in Chapter 3) I was your classic geek-boy. My geekiness was so profound that I feel compelled to stop and write a poem about it…

BIG GLASSES

small eyes

Socially inept.

Hair uNkEmPT.

skinny and cute.

virtual mute.

I am…

GEEK-BOY.

Kim, on the other hand, was the exact opposite - she was the epitome of "cool". Here's a picture to illustrate my point. That's Kim on the far right at Prom I believe, or perhaps it was Homecoming. Regardless, it’s pretty obvious that she hung with the “IN” crowd. I mean look at all her friends. It looks like they walked right off the set of Beverly Hills 90210.

But to really prove how cool Kim was let’s take a closer look at her date. I won’t lie. At the risk of sounding creepy, this guy had the whole package – he’s objectively “tall, dark and handsome”.

I don’t know his name but he looks like a “Chaz” to me. Wouldn’t you agree? His last name was probably “Winthrop the Third”. So just for fun let’s call him “Chaz Winthrop III”. (By the way, if you happen to be reading this blog Chaz, please step forward and give us your real identity. And if you are now bald, fat and ugly please provide me a picture – not so I can post it but so that my continued insecurities might be assuaged.) Anyways, I bring all this up, not because I’m trying to rip on Chaz (I’m sure he’s a great guy) but to give photographic evidence that Kim was so cool she had the coolest guy in school asking her to the prom.

Now here’s a picture of me on prom night (on the right).That’s right. I was hanging out with my younger sister on prom night. I can't say which one and I had to edit the pic because even to this day they have trouble being associated with me. But I can't blame them. I mean look at me. I was a bit challenged in the looks department. I look like I fell off the UGLY tree and hit every branch on the way down. So for all you visual learners out there, it’s quite apparent that Chaz had the “whole package” while yours truly had a “hole in my package” and all the good looks apparently fell out. That said, I would like to point out that I've noticed that BIG glasses are making their way back into fashion these days. So based on this picture I am either 5 years too late on that or 25 years too early.

As if guys like Chaz didn’t make me insecure enough, I somehow found out when we were dating that Kim was a model. Few people know this because she’s embarrassed about it but it’s true. (By the way, she’s going to kill me for telling you all this – so let’s keep it our little secret…okay?) Growing up in Wheaton, IL someone that worked for David C. Cook took notice of her and her beautiful face started popping up all over Bible Discoveries Sunday School booklets like the one below. This wasn’t just a one-time deal. She was in numerous publications and it extended even into her high school years. 

Before I go any further I think we need to pause and reflect on this fact for a moment. I want to proclaim in the most public way possible that I, Peter the geek-boy, am married to a model. I mean if the internet was not created for such important and necessary communications as this than seriously what other redeeming quality does it have? Now I know we’ve seen a lot of miracles these past few months with Kim’s cancer and all but seriously – if you don’t believe in God after seeing how this geek-boy was able to convince this model to marry him – then I’m not sure what else I can say to you. That’s a flat-out miracle!

So what would make a guy like me even fathom the possibility of a girl like her? What could the “Anti-Chaz” offer a woman who was beautiful enough to be a model and yet strong enough to kick cancer’s butt?

One word…faith -- lots and lots of faith. Perhaps it was a dumb faith – but still it was faith. Faith in a faithful God and the belief that He could change the heart of such a woman. And so in faith I prayed. I prayed that God would help her to see what I saw many years earlier. I prayed the Lord would show her that we were made for one another and were destined to spend the rest of our lives together.

That said, just because I had faith didn’t mean I was going to expect Kim to just fall on my lap. I had to come up with a plan. I mean faith is everything but when a geek-boy is about to ask a model to marry him he better pull out all the stops. I had to come up with a proposal in which she could not say “no”. I was going to make it virtually impossible for her to do this. And so over many months I carefully planned what I would do and how I would do it. By December of 2000 I was ready. The plan was about to be executed and all those years of waiting, praying and hoping were about to be realized.

It was a normal workday. Kim worked in the city and so did I and I knew what train she took every day to head back to her home and so I decided I would intercept her at the train station and surprise her with an early “Christmas dinner” in the city. It was about 5pm and the stage was set – I cut out of work a few minutes early and raced to the Metra station and nervously waited at a spot I knew she would eventually pass. I didn’t realize how difficult this would be. The evening rush sees thousands of commuters walking through this large train station and I had to quickly survey all these passing faces rushing to get on their train. She wasn’t looking for me and so I had to find her. Five minutes passed – and then ten. Did I miss her? Did she leave earlier? The perfect plan was about to blow up before it even started…. 

(Sorry I have to cut it here – this post is getting too long and since no one leaves comments on these I’m not even sure how many people read it. That said, post an encouraging comment and I just might finish the whole series this week. ;)