Tell Me Who You Love, And I Will Tell You Who You Are

Thanks Jamie. Found the story that pastor was reading two weeks ago in church. Nearly thought I'll have to write it out myself.

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn’t, the girl with the rose.

His interest in her he had begun 13 months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf, he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner’s name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort, he located her address. She now lived in NY City.

He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day, he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month, the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.

When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting — 7 pm at the Grand Central station in New York. ‘‘You will recognize me,’’ she wrote, ‘‘by the red rose I will be wearing on my lapel.’’ So, at 7 pm, he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he’d never seen. We will let Mr Blanchard tell you what happened: A young woman was coming towards me, her figure long and slim. Her blond hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive.

I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. ‘‘Going my way, sailor?’’ she murmured. Almost uncontrollably, I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had greying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes.

The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible; her grey eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her.

This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke, I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. ‘‘I am John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner.’’

The woman’s face broadened into a tolerant smile. ‘‘I don’t know what this is about, son,’’ she answered, ‘‘but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!’’

It’s not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell’s wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive.

Tell me who you love, and I will tell you who you are.



That explains my obsession with the marginalized. The poor. The handicapped. The unattractive. The depressed. The lonely. In many ways I pity the rich, the powerful, the popular, the ignorant-happy, the beautiful. The eye of the needle isn't really that big you know. Neither does popularity, beauty and ignorance get any of these beneficiaries asking about the purpose of their life, until they lose it.

And you were someone who cried for a good half-hour on your bed after reading about the Mumbai bombings. Someone who wanted to wipe the tears from the eyes of others, so they'll never have to go through what you did. Someone who had a dream (literally) to go to the Middle-East to bring the Gospel to the final frontier of the 10/40 window, even if it meant poverty and death.

Maybe that's why I chose to put the study of "Geopolitics in the Middle-East" with MINDEF as the first choice for my internship project. I'll just hope Adam and Xiao Jun spark revival in Japan soon as they touchdown. If not I'll have to make use of my half-past-six Japanese language. Let's just see where God wants me to go. And who He'll want me to go with. I'm hoping it's you.