THE WEEKLY SMILE is a challenge I have not participated in for quite a while. I came across it this week and something just grabbed m,e and said, “You must do this.” So here I am smiling with Trent this week.

Here are a list of the rules. You can click the link above to see who else smiled with Trent and what they all had to smile about.

1. Don’t make your smile about something mean or hateful. Keep negativity out of it.
2. Don’t make your smile discriminate against anyone for race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual preference, primary language, disability, illness, etc. You know the routine.
3. Try to keep violence out of it. If some selfless hero helps some people during a time of violence, sure, use that. If a family member received an honor for a wartime action, OK. Celebrating a person is fine, just don’t glorify the actual violence.
4. Keep politics out of it. Your uncle won an election? That’s something to smile about! You met a high profile politician? Sure, that is too. You want to have a political rant? Please do it elsewhere.
5. Careful with religion. You might smile about a religious service or something else that had a deep meaning to you, but don’t condemn other people’s religion or try to convert everyone. Keep it your personal experience.
6. Most people reading are adults. We can handle most of what you want to write. But please, if you wouldn’t want your 12 year old son or daughter reading it, you might not want to post it. Try for PG-13 instead of XX

Here is my smile for the week:

My family always makes me smile. We are a funny group of people. My son says often that the whole family is fluent in two languages: English and sarcasm. That would mean my daughter-in-law is fluent in five languages now (she’s a smarty).

Joe and Kristine are newleyweds, married in January. I was so privileged to go and be a part of their wedding in The Philippines. When they got married both of them knew that the start of their marriage was going to take work. Both of them have contracts in different parts South Korea which require them to live separately until they can find work in the same area. While that seemed difficult they both felt it was workable and something inside them told them it was necessary.

Of course, what no one knew was that they were going to return to a country going into lock down. Joe and Kristine were kept apart for over a month after they returned to South Korea by the travel bans opposed.

They are able to travel to each other on weekends now which both of them are very glad of. Joe and I were talking about the timing of their wedding the other night. How providential it all was. Had they married the weekend before their chosen date, most of the guests would have been hindered from coming by the Taal Volcano.

Had they gotten married even a week later we all might have gotten stuck in The Philippines or turned away at the airport as The Philippines began to turn away travelers from mainland Asia the very day Joe and Kristine left to go back to South Korea. Had they waited until their current work contracts expired and they could move closer to each other the wedding may not have happened at all as many wedding plans have now been kiboshed indefinitely by our world wide pandemic. The divine providence behind their choices makes me smile big! Big! BIG!!