Catsup vs. Ketchup?

My wife and I have been married more than four decades, and we dated about four years before that. After we had been out on several dates, my future spouse invited me to have dinner with her parents. I remember being nervous and wanting to make a good impression. I probably should admit I was sure she was the one for me after our first date.

Anyway, while at her parents’ house, we ate dinner in their kitchen. I don’t remember what main course was served, but ketchup was the condiment offered. Growing up, my mom always bought and provided Heinz 57 ketchup. I knew it and liked it. Anyway, the ketchup bottle came out, and it was Heinz 57, so I used some with my meal.

Afterward, my future wife and I were sitting in her parents' living room, which is actually where I’m sitting as I write this. I don’t remember whether we were talking or I might have been helping her with her college math class. Anyway, she asked me if I liked dinner. I replied that dinner was good, but she might want to mention something to her mom because the ketchup didn’t taste right.

I later found out they had combined part of an older bottle of a generic brand of ketchup with the portion of Heinz 57 to consolidate bottles. Somehow, my future father-in-law, knowing that I liked Heinz 57, thought he had pulled something over on me with the mixed ketchup.  After he found out I could tell it wasn’t Heinz 57 (at least not completely), he couldn’t rub it in that one couldn’t tell the differences in ketchup taste.

To this day, and since he has passed, I’ll never know for sure whether the combination of ketchups was a test of my ability to discern between brands or an interesting happenstance that I unwittingly took part in. Whichever it was, I think I earned some respect for eating the dinner offered to me without complaint and only later volunteering my ketchup observations when asked.

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” - Deuteronomy 5:16 ESV

 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” - Ephesians 6:1-4

My future father-in-law, on the day I asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage, didn’t hesitate and asked me if I had seen her room (it was messy) and if I knew to give her space in the morning (she is not a morning person). After dating for several years, the respect that I had shown him and the relationship I had developed with his daughter moved him to be as concerned for my future happiness as for his daughter. To this day, I’m still touched by that remembrance.

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” - Galatians 5:16-26

I am so blessed because I grew up in a loving family and married into a loving family. I pray we have continued that heritage with our son and his family.