I am Officially in a Long Distance Marriage

April 30, 2014 · By ·

This is the first time I am addressing a topic on my blog that I often try to avoid.

I don’t think I am in a position to advise people how to maintain a good marriage. I may have been married for 10 years, but sharing tips about how to maintain a good marriage is just too contrived for me. Besides, the rule of thumb for a blogger, don’t write about something that you don’t know much about.

I used to think that I wanted to keep that part of my life private from this blog, and have avoided discussing about my marriage in this space. But I think its time to break my silence about it.

I am officially in a long distance marriage, after sending hb to the airport this morning.

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Life from today consist of pretty much just Kyle and I, with my extended family. And communication with Daddy will be limited to Skpe, FaceTime and What’s App daily, with the occasional family time 2-3 days a month.

 

What transpired?

A few days before hb shared that he will be going to Philippines for an interview. I had a dream that confirmed that we will be separated for a season, I woke up from the dream in the wee hours of the night and sobbed. Amid the tears, I knew this was God’s way of preparing me for the changes ahead, and I said, “If this is your will God, I will accept it.”

A few days after when hb broke the news that a business associate called him up and asked him to go to Philippines for an interview, I vehemently disagreed and told him “No…you can’t leave the country to work and leave us, what will happen to our marriage?” He obviously didn’t have the answer to my question and went for ahead to travel to Philippines for the interview.

Fast forward a week later, he signed the offer letter and he quit his job in Singapore. He shared with me how the whole process had no hiccups. The offer was way above what he initially expected and most importantly, during his days leading up to the interview and after, he had numerous confirmation from God that this was the path that He wanted him to take.

With a dream confirming this ‘separation’ and more confirmations from his end, we both were able to decide together that going to Philippines for work was indeed God’s will for him.

Morever, since July 2013 last year, spending only the weekends together was ‘boot camp’ of sorts to prepare us for the real thing, to face the real challenge of having a long distance marriage.

Why didn’t we go with him? There are several reasons why K and I are not going with him, and don’t plan to in the long haul. Even if this overseas job stint may be for 2-3 years or more, we are planning to stick with the existing arrangements.

Sure, I got my fair share of advice from well-meaning friends and family. But we have come to a point that we are certain that this is God’s will for this season of change ahead of us. I have experienced enough to vouch that indeed, God’s thoughts and His ways are not the same as our ways (Isaiah 55:8)

 

Two Halves Making a Whole?

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In every marriage, a husband and a wife is often dependent on one another emotionally, that I believe the old adage about ‘Two halves making a whole’ is coined in perspective of that. So often people get into relationships or marriages hoping to find their ‘other half’.

With this same dependence on their spouse, in considering a long distance relationship, comes the insecurities of “What if he/she finds someone else?” or “What if after these few years, we realize that we don’t need one another.”

I think that it is not healthy to look outside yourself to find someone who can validate you, find worth or depend on emotionally. How strong can a marriage be when one party has differing expectations of the other, or the other person could feel ‘drained’ by the dependence?

Nonetheless, I do agree that it will be hard to maintain a long-distance marriage and have this lack of ‘father’s physical influence’ in my child’s life for a time.

Hug 1A kiss from daddy before K left for school

I admit that it has been hard making this change, for all 3 of us. Being the only one left to ‘hold the fort’ here in Singapore, I can choose to let this problem take me down, resent it and then feel sorry for myself, and then dwindle into a pit of self-pity.

And how would the world see me? “Oh it must be so hard to be apart from your hb, be prepared that things might happen” or “Oh your son so poor thing, don’t have his father with him” or the well meaning advise, “Watch him carefully, if he cheats on you, walk out on him…”

This change may have potential problems, but I see them as a perspective-lifters.

Besides, if ever hb decide to cheat. It’s between him and his personal accountability to God.

 

Perpective Lifters

I have come to realized that I don’t lead a conventional life.

What normal things that most receive easily, often I have had to sit back and watch as “others may, and you may not”. Some people will say that our lives are a consequence of the decisions that we make. I agree that consequence play a part but I think there is a bigger picture in it all.

Is there anything in our lives that God don’t know about? He already know what decisions we will make and have planned it all in the life story that He has written for us.

Lack is a good thing. I perceive this lack as a LADDER. A ladder to enable me to climb up and see my life from God’s perspective.

Why? Lack are opportunities to latch onto God for unashamed dependence. I have learnt that self-sufficiency is a myth perpetuated by pride and temporary success. Happy families, health, wealth, or even life can disappear overnight.

In case, you have an impression that I am a very strong individual. Trust me I am not, I often tell God that I can’t.

The only thing that I have learnt to be strong in, is the awareness of my inadequacy, which I believe is a rich blessing, that trains me to rely whole-heartedly on Him. I rejoice in this insufficiency, knowing that His power in my life is made perfect in weakness.

So life really have not ended for me, instead, life as I know it, has only just begun.

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—–

This song really says it all for me;

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Why I don’t celebrate Good Friday or Easter

April 21, 2014 · By ·

I didn’t go to church this Sunday.

Well, if you have read my previous posts about church. You would recall that I shared on this blog before that I don’t attend church, and I am still not attending church.

This weekend, most Christians celebrated Easter Sunday where most churches recognize it as the day that Christ was risen. Churches usually get extra crowded on this day, apart from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day services and the watch night service the day before the New Year.

I always wondered why.

Being a non-church goer, special occasions set in traditions by the church doesn’t motivate me to go to church either.

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I never liked to be fed information by religious institutions and then believe for the sake of what a church pastor or leader proclaims, or common practices in Christian traditions. I always like to find out truth for myself.

I have always been really curious about why eggs and Bunnies are celebrated visuals used during Easter, and why the word Easter? Before finding out the roots to ‘Easter’, I have done some research through this post about Christmas, and this Christian celebration sounded suspiciously like it was from the same roots.

So neither I am keen to buy easter eggs for K from the supermarket and be all enthusiastic about Easter egg hunts organized by the churches.

Many believe it is harmless, it’s all in good fun? How do you explain to a child, when he/she asks when we have eggs or visuals of bunnies during Easter. The closest lie I can think of is, ‘”Eggs signify birth, its like a new birth of Jesus” and uh.. “Bunny signify fruitfulness, Jesus died so that we can be blessed abundantly…”

Sounds pretty convincing doesn’t it?

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I don’t like to perpetuate nonsense to children. Especially religious claptrap, or false information (in this case, paganistic practices) masquerading as Christian tradition.

 

Good Friday to Easter Sunday? 

Jesus resurrection has nothing to do with eggs or bunnies, and Good Friday or even Sunday.  The question I have is, how do you fit three days, three nights on a Friday to a Sunday?

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” – Matthew 12:40

So Good Friday and Easter Sunday works out to only 3 days and 2 nights, so what are we missing here? The only thing that can explain this contradiction is that Friday-Sunday timing is not biblical.

So oops…the church have not been getting this right all along.

It just seems a little more suspicious now when I share this possibility that the person from the past or some religious institution conveniently used this Friday-Sunday timelines to bring in paganistic Easter on the Sunday.

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So then, after saying so much, is this week being Ressurrection week even biblical? It is.

This month is the first month of the Hebrew Calendar, the month of Nissan. Jesus was buried on Nisan 14, either on AD 30 or 33, which works out to Wednesday – Saturday (Sabbath).

Saturday afternoon Resurrection of Christ is supposedly found in Matthew 28:1, 5-6. The text reads: “In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the tomb. . . And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (KJV).

 

Passover this Week

The Jewish people celebrate Passover as a remembrance of how God redeemed the Jewish nation from slavery in Ancient Egypt, that was ruled by the Pharaohs. The original celebration centered around the Passover lamb, which was sacrificed and its blood put over the doorposts as a sign of faith, so that the Lord passed over the houses of the Jews during the last plague poured out on the Egyptians – the killing of every firstborn.

The Passover lamb has been eliminated from the Passover festival. However what matters here, is the significance that Passover has for Christians. The New Testament says that Jesus is our sacrificial Lamb. The Passover lamb was to be a ‘male without defect’, which was the same description given to Jesus.

Much of the symbolism of Jesus’ last Passover week is lost to us due to ignorance of the customs during that time. Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem five days before the lamb was killed in the temple as the Passover sacrifice for the sins of the people of Israel. Five days before the lamb was to be sacrificed, it was chosen. Therefore, Jesus entered Jerusalem on lamb selection day as the lamb of God to be sacrifice for the sins of the world.

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Passover starts on the 15th Day in Nisan and ends 7 days thereafter. It started Monday April 14 and will be ending on April 22.

So it will just be Passover week that I will celebrate from henceforth.

 

Still Not Attending Church

As for not attending church.

Don’t try it, unless you have made a commitment to search out the bible daily and spend time dedicated to reading the bible and prayer daily.

Don’t even consider, if Christianity is limited to Sundays only, and special occasions like Easter, Christmas or the New Year. Just stick with attending church weekly, as I believe you will still benefit from some preaching of the Word of God.

It is still a personal choice for me and my faith is still going strong despite finding out all these untruths from Christian traditions and churches.

I don’t wish to blindly believe what traditions or what pastors tell me, I want to find out the truth from the bible myself and search it out. Faith is not a walk between me and the leaders of the church, it is between God and I.

I want to be like the 1st century Christians in Thessalonica;

These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so – Acts 17:11

And I take this very seriously;

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My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. – Hosea 4:6 

This is no laughing matter for me. As I sure don’t want God to reject me or forget my children.

 

P.S. I am aware that I got some Christians irate for publishing the last post about not attending church the last time. Christians were concerned that I was turning people away from attending churches by reading a post like that.

Well, the modern church these days are not exacty role models of what the bible deemed a fellowship of believers to be. I have learnt that the truth offends, and I don’t mind being that person to say it, whether people like to hear it or not.

For non-Christians reading this, I do encourage you to search the Christian bible if you are curious and also do ask God if He is real.

The church route may not work for everyone. It didn’t for me, at least for a while.

Update Sept 2014 – I have since found a local church and have been regularly attending weekly and appreciating the fellowship of the small congregation from this new church. To read about my journey searching for a church, go to this post.

 

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7 and 17 : My ‘Gifted’ Numbers as a Mom

March 17, 2014 · By ·

7 years. Breaking it down to absolutes, it has has been 84 months or 2555 days or 61,320 hours.

That’s how long I have been a mom. It’s no mean feat, coming from someone who didn’t expect a child 7 years + 36 weeks ago, and didn’t intend to have one. I surprised my close friends and family when I gave up my career, pursued a post-grad studies in Early Childhood and then started a part time work option. All of that so as to dedicate more time to take care of this little guy.

I would have probably laughed out loud in your face, if you have told me 8 years ago, that the day I become a mom I will be doing exactly what I did a year after I gave birth to him.

Life have never been the same ever since this guy came into my life. As this little guy is the key factor for all the life-changing experiences I have encountered in life the last 7 years.

I desired to have another child sometime ago, but I soon came to realized that K will likely be the ONLY child that God plans for me to have.

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The Numbers 7 and 17

7 and 17 are very interesting numbers for us. These are the numbers that often pop up in my life in the strangest of places.

Last December during our short trip to Hong Kong, the number 7 or 17 appeared so many times, until I could not ignore it. From tables in restaurants, seats to ticket numbers, numbers that I could never have been able to select for myself.

Kyle and I are both born on the 17th day of the month, his being in March, while mine is in September.

17 is also the last of the 7 prime numbers of indivisible numbers of 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17.

If you have read the bible before, about 1 in 5 bible scriptures contain a number. So do numbers in the bible contain any significance? I believe so.

Gematria is the technique of using the numeric values of Hebrew and Greek letters to find a hidden or symbolic meaning to the corresponding word. It has its roots in interpreting Hebrew scriptures in order to seek out hidden meaning and has been adopted by both Christians and the occult. Some Christians maintain that gematria has real meaning in scripture, while others warn of its mystical roots.

Taking the number meanings in Jewish or English Gemetria, Rachel equals to the number 117 while for K (with his names) equals to the number 775. There you see the numbers 7 and 17 in our Names Gemetria.

If you take note of what numbers that you often chanced upon, you might realised that you have special number/s too. Using the Gemetria Calculator, try not to get distracted by results the strange words that people search out with the same number Gemetria as your name 😛

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What does the number 7 and 17 symbolize? 

7 symbolizes completeness and spiritual perfection, while the 17 symbolizes “overcoming in enemy” and complete victory in Biblical numbers.

Not that I am implying that K and I are spiritually perfect. Rather, what I believe is that completeness and spiritual perfection can only be found in our life in Christ.

From the bible, this is where the number 7 and 17 are found;

“By the 7th day, God completed His word” (Genesis 2:2) The Bible’s Old Testament ‘Feast of Booths’ was complete after 7 days (Leviticus 23:24).

There were 7 pairs of each animal taken into Noah’s ark (Genesis 7:2).  And God began to flood the earth on the 17th day of the 2nd Hebrew month, and Noah’s Ark and its 8 passengers (1 + 7 = 8 !) rested on the mountains of Mount Ararat on the 17th day of the 7th month. (There’s 7 and 17 again!).

In the book of Revelation, which I believe is not just symbolic, we can find 7 churches (a depiction of the modern church as well). In this same book, the Judgement of the earth is completed with 7 seals, 7 trumpets and 7 bowls of wrath.

From the creation of Adam and Eve, there has been approximately six millennia on the earth; and the 7th millennium will see Christ’s rule on earth, and complete earth’s history.

Jesus Christ gained a complete victory over death and the grave, when God resurrected Him near sunset on Nisan 17 (Saturday, April 8, 30 A.D).

Kylephoto3 In the book of 1 Corinthians in the bible, the 17th mention of the word “LOVE” comes when the apostle Paul states that it is the GREATEST gift of all (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Which incidentally ties together with theme of this post. The LOVE a mom has for her child/children, the LOVE that God has for us and it is LOVE that inspired the beginnings of this blog.

 

How did a 7-years-of-being-a-mom post turned out to be a post on biblical numbers?

This significance of biblical numbers are just one of the many ways that God demonstrates that His presence is always here with K and I.

I often like to say that K’s birth is an accident, since I didn’t plan for it. But after learning about the significance of these biblical numbers, God has showed me that our very existence did not come by accident.

God has planned exactly when He wanted K to be conceived, and I have been specially hand-picked by God to be the mom that God wanted K to have.

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So when anyone asks me what are my special numbers? I will either say 17 or 7, as ever so often, God pulls out a 17 or a 7 out of His hat, and throws it my way to remind me that He LOVES us and is always here with us.

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His LOVE is REAL!

These photos were all taken in the month of March 2014. This March has proven to be a very special month, not only for me, but also for K.

The weekend before his birthday, K experienced something very special that proved to him that God is very real in his life and that He listens to his prayers.

See that duo in the picture above, of a stunted Iron Man and a Captain America figurine without his shield?

Hb got K the Limited Edition Iron Man figurine from a 7-Eleven store. He surprised K with the box on Saturday afternoon, and when hb got it he didn’t know what character will be in the box. The little boy prayed that he will get an Iron Man or Captain America.

K had a 14% chance that he would get either characters, and was totally thrilled when he opened the box and found that it was an Iron Man figurine.

Then that very afternoon, when he went to the mall with hb for a games arcade treat, he met a cleaner uncle in the toilet, who said, “小弟弟，这个给你” (Translated – “Little Boy, this is for you”), and the uncle passed the Captain America with the missing shield to K.  It turned out that some child, left the figurine on a table in the food court and never returned to look for it.

What are the chances that Cleaner Uncle was able to meet K on the same day and then decided that he was the boy to pass the figurine to? I would think extremely remote!

When you know God personally, He becomes so real in your life, that coincidences become commonplace. So much so, that I would think that these experiences and numbers are God-incidences and not just mere coincidences. Through this, God has also shown me that He has a great sense of humor 😉

I thank God for the 7 years that He has gifted to me with this little boy and I look forward to the many many sets of 7 years ahead as K’s mom. No matter what life may bring, I know I will be able to take it with hope and courage as I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!

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What’s your number? Try to pay attention to some numbers that have very special significance, or seem to jump out at you in many many places. You just might be able to discover the number that God has for you. You can check out this site to find out the Jewish Gemetria numbers for your name, and read here for your biblical meaning of your number.  

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