My Biggest Phan- completed vision

I’ve learned a lot about myself over the years of being a professional writer and speaker. The most important is that I still have an issue with humility, and gracious as He is, God is really happy to help me with it. My most recent lesson took place two weeks ago with my self-proclaimed biggest fan at a marriage retreat.
I had the absolute pleasure of speaking at relationship conference on Princess Cruise Lines. I only had two workshops to teach and one evening session on a seven day cruise in the Caribbean. It was heaven! At one point I sat out on my balcony, this is the best perk of being one of the keynote speakers, and just said, “Thank you God! This is awesome! I have arrived. ”
Unfortunately, Mark couldn’t be with me this trip as he was stuck in Seattle working on yet another new property. It’s a little odd being on a marriage retreat without my spouse, but he was thrilled to be building the hip hop coffee shop, and I was happy to bring along my best friend, Rie, from London instead. I admit that I was pretty delinquent in my schmoozing duties. I only attended the functions I was absolutely required to be at and spent the rest of my time sunning by the pool.
I was starting to think that life couldn’t get any better when a gal came up to me as I was heading in to dinner. In broken English she said she just had to tell me how much my book affected her life. Phan was a sweet Vietnamese woman who declared that she was my biggest fan.
“You book, it change my life. My marriage save. Thank to you!”
I was feeling rather spiritual at this moment and Rie, herself a pastor, was standing by so I said piously, “Thank God. I just put on paper what the Lord gave me to say.”
“You write with your husband? “ She asked me.
Assuming that she, like a lot of non-native speakers , mixed up her prepositions I said,
“Yes, I write about my husband. Not only about him though,” I smiled, “about us and our marriage and how good God has been to us. How long have you been married?” I asked her.
She looked at me a little funny and then said, “I marry my husband for 20 year. But I no like him until 3 year ago when I read your book.”
I had to laugh as she began to tell me her story. She, like me, got married at a fairly young age, but she did it on more of a dare. Her father told her that if she cut her hair short, no man would marry her, so after she cut it, she said yes to the first man who asked her. He’d been in the military and they’d only been dating for a few short months. In her mind, if he liked her with short hair, he was far better than her father and at least that was a move in the right direction. Of course, knowing that you can’t build a solid marriage on a haircut, I knew her story would cruise downhill at some point. She said their first couple years were okay, but the fifth year to about the seventeenth year was pretty bad.
With shoulders shaking she said to me, “The only way we together is I no have time for new man. He take a lot of work to teach. When I read you book, I see how I talk to my husband is no good. He not like me to yell at him and call him fat. You book says to be nice, and he be nice, so I try. I say to him. You belly is not so big today as yesterday and he smile at me and say my hair not so ugly today neither. “
“Well,” I said, “It sure sounds like you understood the spirit of it. Good for you! Is he here with you? I’d love to meet him!”
“He having food. He say since we nice to each other now, he okay to be fat again!”
We spent the next fifteen minutes laughing with Phan and hearing her tell me over and over again how much I changed her life, saved her marriage even helped her with her relationship with her kids and especially her in-laws.
“Wow,” I told Rie after Phan left us, “I’m feeling pretty good right now. I never thought God would use my books on marriage to so drastically affect other relationships like that. This has been such a great trip; the Lord is really blessing me.”
“She did seem pretty moved,” Rie said, “especially the comments about how your book affected her relationship with her in-laws. Maybe I didn’t read that book or maybe I skipped over that chapter.” She said. “I don’t particularly remember any of your books dealing directly with other family members. Am I missing something?”
“It’s amazing what God will use when people start opening up their hearts,” I told her. “God can start by working on one relationship and before you know it all of them are transformed.”
I was in the zone. God was using me. I knew I had a gift and it was my job to share. I was the voice of my generation. I was about to share this with Rie, when I saw Phan waving at me from across the dining room.
“Oh, that must be her husband,” Rie said, “I’ll bet she wants to introduce you.”
Sure enough, Phan was pulling a rather bewildered man behind her still hanging on to his chicken leg. Slightly out of breath from pulling this larger man through the room she said,
“Meet the lady who change our life. She write with her husband,” she looked at me with her white shiny teeth smile, “Honey,” she said, “meet Leslie Parrot.”