The Years in Between: Waiting

In this episode, both Huanyan and Angelina will explore their journey from the time their paths separated till the day Huanyan decides to pop the penultimate question that falls short of a formal proposal. 

Angelina's side of the story:

As a girl who grew up watching Disney movies, being in a relationship (in the way portrayed in Disney) was something that I had dreamt of since young. I had a very idealistic view of relationship until my uni days, when I saw how the people around me got into relationships but broke up not long after. Then I realised that being in a relationship was not all that sweet and rosy. In fact there was a lot of heartaches and tough period that a couple goes through after the initial honeymoon period.  One question I asked myself then was "what would make a relationship last beyond the initial honeymoon period"?

As I looked at my parents' relationship, I realized that what keeps them together is not merely the feelings (because this phase will likely wear off after you get more familiar with each other and the stresses of managing a household sets in) but the commitment to each other to work through issues and stay through difficult times together even if your emotional tank is low. Thus the next question I asked myself was - "Will I be able to stay committed to work though issues during tough times when my emotional tank is low instead of throwing in the towel and say that we are not suited for each other?"

This I struggled for a long time because I could not see how can anyone find the strength to continuously give to a relationship when her emotional tank is constantly low. As someone who naturally avoids tensions in relationships and withdraws when I sense conflict coming in order to protect myself, there will have to be a greater reason beyond myself if I were to stay in a relationship and openly work through issues and conflicts.

Although I was apprehensive about being in a relationship because of potential tensions and hurts, deep down I still wanted to be loved and adored by someone. Despite this desire, I decided that I should focus on my studies in university before starting a relationship. Thus after graduation and when I started work in 2012, relationship was an aspect that I wanted to look into. Because I grew up in a girls school, my circle of guys were pretty small to begin with, and many of them weren't of the same faith. Furthermore, it was tough to find someone that I could truly respect and felt secure following (which was one of my criteria). To my "horror", I realised that it was even more difficult to find someone after I started work, because it took considerably more effort to interact and get to know new brothers beyond the lg. To makes things worse, my workplace had significantly more female than guys, and even then, many of the guys were already married. It didn't help that I was in a work environment with several young career-minded ladies who often joked that our department SGP stood for - Single Girls Party. 

It was a tough period of choosing to hold on to God and trusting Him for a partner. I felt that the chances of finding someone dwindling as I got more overwhelmed at work each day. I remembered constantly asking God if I will ever meet someone and if so how on earth will I meet that person when I am so overwhelmed at work. There were times when I felt lonely/sad and the desire to have someone to care for me in that special way was pretty intense. And each time it happened, I had to resolve to turn to God to meet my deepest need for love instead of wallowing in self-pity and feeling envious of those who were getting attached/married in that period. It was always a struggle, but each time as I struggle through with God and turned to His word for the assurance of His love for us, He brought me to a deeper relationship with Him and understanding of His design for a godly relationship. It was also during that period that I started praying for my future partner and the relationship (even though I had no idea of who it will be), that God will prepare us individually to be the man and woman that he has created us to be, and we will not shun this period of growth no matter how painful it may be, so that we will be prepared for this new phase, and start the relationship with God at the center.  

Through this period of struggling with singlehood, God slowly transformed my idea of what it meant to be in a relationship. The defining lessons that God taught me during the period of waiting were:

1.  For a relationship to last, it has to be one that is anchored in God. To my earlier question on how to find the strength to stay committed in the face of tough times when my own emotional tank is low, God revealed that the strength to commit and to continuing loving the person has to come from Him. Thus it is important that the couple continue to focus on growing their own relationship with God, even after they get together. Because the anchor for each individual (regardless whether you are single or attached) has to be God - He should always be our First Love and this doesn't change after you are in a relationship. I realised that this principle of putting God first in a relationship is actually no different from other aspects of our lives. It is God who will give us what we need in every aspect of our lives, including sustaining a relationship.
2. The couple is meant to complement and not outdo each other. This means that I should learn to be comfortable with my weakness because this is where my partner comes in to complement me. And at the same time, I should not fault my partner for his weakness, because this is where I can complement him with my strengths. Of course, this doesn't mean that we don't grow from our weaknesses, just that we don't have to be ashamed of them and constantly strive to get rid of them. No one is perfect (even high-achievers) and we should learn to celebrate the individual that God has uniquely created.  
3. Being in a relationship is like learning to dance as a pair. Initially when you first start to learn to dance as a pair, you tend to be clumsy and will inevitably step on each others toes. With more practice, you get the hang of the rhythm and you eventually dance gracefully as a couple. However, to get there, this requires much coordination, patience and practice. And after you have learnt Dance 101, you progress to the next level to Dance 201, 301, 401 etc. To bring this back to a relationship context, it means that even after you have learnt to work out the initial issues like what and how to communicate love/trust as a couple, new issues will arise and the couple will need to learn to work that out and establish a common understanding. This is a continual process of growing together as a couple. It would be unrealistic to expect to come to a stage where there are no more issues to work through and we "live happily ever after" on this side of heaven, since we are all sinners.

With a renewed understanding and a more realistic expectation of what it means to be in a relationship, I thought I was ready to get into one. But God asked me the ultimate question during worship service on 16 Nov 2013: Would I still choose to follow God joyfully, if i were to remain single my whole life. I struggled immensely with it because all these while I had dreamt of getting married and having my own family.  Nonetheless, with much tears, i resolved to choose to surrender my desires to God and to follow His will as He reveals, rather than to be in a relationship without God's blessings. I remembered the feeling of liberation I had after surrendering to God - no longer did I have to strive to make sure that things happened "my way", but I could trust that God, who loves me, will eventually work all things for the good of those who love Him. This may or may not eventually mean getting attached, but I decided that this will be secondary to following His will. (Of course this doesn't mean that I don't struggle any more).

Little did expect that after dying to myself and choosing to put God above my desire for a relationship, Huanyan asked me. Till that moment he asked, I had no idea that he had been interested in me.

Looking back, God's timing is never early or late - it's always perfect. It was necessary for me to struggle through with God first, so that I had a renewed mind and started the relationship without usurping God from the throne of my life. Though it was a pretty long and painful period, I was glad that I struggled through with God because this deepened my faith in Him.

May you continue to trust God (with whatever area it is), even when circumstances may seem to say otherwise. Such times of struggling with God though painful, will be very beautiful when you look back and see God's fingerprints all over.

Huanyan's side of the story:

A period of waiting was never easy. In fact, after I graduated, it took me more than three years before I get to embark on this journey towards a commited relationship to forge a lifelong partnership with another sister. As I attempted to make sense of it, that He put me through a period of waiting for a purpose. The verse from Psalm 37:7 helped to guide me to wait patiently for Him and not to fret when things seem to go the wrong way. And after looking back, I penned down these thoughts in my blog:

... But God likes to play the waiting game, with a purpose. And I must say that the waiting game is not fun to play for us initially. Yet there is reward in playing this waiting game. My trust in Him is such that I know I will turn out the winner every time I play this waiting game with Him.

It has happened so many times in my life that I have lost count of the waiting game that God plays with me. And so many times, I have to force myself to be still before Him as He does the work in my life and in the lives of the people around me, only to let me see what He has in mind for us when He unveils everything. There, we see His fingerprints in our lives and we witness how much sense it makes for us to be part of this waiting. Even recently, I see personally in my life, how waiting, despite people's urge for me to go ahead, has resulted in the most optimal result that I can possibly imagine. In this particular scenario, if I have acted any earlier, things would have turned out differently and negatively.

So, if circumstances have implied that God is making you wait, perhaps something better is coming your way.

Trust in Him, dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

And so, to continue with the story, I graduated in 2009. And moved on to YG. The LG before I left NUS looked something like this:

Well, as seen above, the LG back in the days of NUS went through many changes in faces but it ended up with me, as the lone guy, leading a gang of five sisters (it is by God's grace that no one ever tried to bully me). 

And yes, I moved to YG. Of course after I moved on to YG, my contact time with her decreased and it did not really mean much to me actually, since I was enjoying my newfound ministry, serving the people. It was during this interim years when I began to start thinking about BGR, but that was for all practical reasons. Before I carry on, I need to digress a little to give a bit of context. One must understand that I was trained back during my uni days to remain single for God until I graduate from university studies. Hence, my ministry training allowed me to become very excellent in teaching people how to remain single. This was sustainable back in my time but when I had to disciple working adults who fret about such issues, I realised that it was perhaps not the right thing to encourage people to continue remain single for God. Unfortunately, I was ill-equipped at that point to even say anything and hence for all practical reasons, I began to think deeper and explore more into this issue. It does matter since there was a period of time when I was practically hanging out every other Saturday nights with my LG and we talk so much on relationship issues, till the point that some people complained that we talked too much into such stuff. 

And yet, I never thought (in the initial years of entering YG) that I will want to get into a relationship so soon. Of course, looking back, Angelina was never even in the picture (since she was still serving in the university ministry). And during the years 2009 to 2012,  the whole experience, together with the need to disciple young working adults, helped to hone and prepare me for the decisions I was about to make in Dec 2012. 

So what are the lessons learned during these years? Reflecting back, these lessons were:

1. Be a man whom the woman I am looking for is looking for. This means that if I decide that I want a woman who knows the Word of God inside out, can talk Aristole and Augustine and Erickson and Fee alike, can sing Jay Chou music and play the guitar, can manage her own household and cook good food, then I've better be a man whom such a woman will look for. That being said, my criteria were not so complicated, which moves me to the second point.
2. Define the criteria, but don't make it so complicated till the girl has to be a pastor before I will even consider her as a future life partner. The reason is so that I know exactly what I want objectively but yet I do not end up being too self-centred to look for what I want or end up looking for a girl who is like myself. Hence, I ended up simplifying my criteria into three broad points: Spiritually mature (Kingdom-mindedness), intellectually sound (stimulates the mind) and emotionally stable. Angelina met the three criteria. On top of that, because she is someone who will seek God's will for all the major decisions she make, I was confident that she would do the same when I ask and any response she gives will be something that has been well prayed through and thought through. 
3. Man and woman are created differently and I need to accept the fact that I am created as a man by God. As a man, it means that I need to accept the God-given role of a leader and an initiator. This does not mean that I am perfect but in the context of a relationship, at least at tht beginning, I take the first step to ask the girl even though I am uncertain of the end result. This actually means that I do not need to wait till the point when I confirm Angelina will say yes before I make my move. I mention this because there was a wrong perception by people that the guy has to ensure that the girl will say yes first before approaching. I don't know where that idea comes from and I have to admit that I used to have that perception as well. And that brings my to the next point. 
4. There are risks in a relationship, and one just has to learn to deal with rejection. This is linked to the part of being a man and an initiator. To be honest, I never knew when to ask and how to ask, and I definitely had no experience in leading in such a relationship. But I just need to take the risk. This lesson was particularly important for me especially when I did not know Angelina's response towards me and I had to take the risk to ask her, bearing in mind the possibility of being rejected. 
5. Related to point 4 is that I have learned not to take life direction and God's vision for a person as the defining factor. Definitely, when we consider someone as a potential life partner, her life goals and her vision for God's kingdom do come into some form of considerations but I made the mistake of taking that one too far and I suspect people take this one way too far into the extreme. My conclusion lies from two observations: firstly, since the man is to lead in the relationship, therefore, it does suggest that the future direction of the couple is to be decided collectively as a couple but taken its lead from the man. Secondly, no two visions for God's kingdom is mutually exclusive and I believe that if God really intervenes to bring two persons together in a binding relationship, then He will help the couple to gain wisdom to know how their differing visions can converge. This helps me (to the extent of liberating) to consider a wider scope of people than I was previously prepared to do so. This was important also because at that point in time, I knew that Angelina did not know where God is bringing her towards. And I may have to wait until Jesus returns if I insist that I wait for her vision in life to be aligned with mine. Hence, this becomes an area which I had to trust God in. 
6. I realised that she doesn't have to be a leader. Perhaps due to the kind of ministry I serve in, I serve quite closely with female leaders in church. Hence, by close proximity, female leaders lie within the direct scope of vision. But it was during the years 2009-2012 that I realised that I do not need to confine myself to this group (this is not to say that female leaders in the church are not good candidates, I must qualify). 
7. There is a need to establish proper boundaries during your singlehood with other sisters so that the friendship will not be short-circuited by over-enthusiastic friends who want to help by purposely spreading hints all over the place or telling everybody about it at the undue time. This was especially true in the case with Angelina when I had to be discreet in my actions. Being in close proximity with her and being so close with her (considering that we were attending the same church) means that people will inevitably 'match' us together. It became more difficult after I became honest with my feelings towards Angelina. This was also to protect the sisters from being pressurised to say yes in the midst of heightened expectation. 

And these are some of the lessons learned which helped to shape my thoughts. It was during the period when these thoughts and lessons were beginning to take shape that Angelina entered into my life again.  It was around mid Dec 2011 if my memories did not fail me, that I found out that she was applying for a position at MOH, with a division that was located quite near to my cube. I think i was more excited that there's a fellow church mate who will be working in MOH, assuming she got the position. I also knew somehow that she will end up back in my LG, cos I remembered hearing it from somewhere that she would want to be in the same LG as me again. It was an interesting prospect since I always remembered her (at the end of my NUS days) as a prayer warrior, so it means that I could get her to lead prayer in the LG. Also, due to my previous experience, I knew that she was a discerning character, and she would definitely end up as a great support to me, the LGL, even though the LG was growing a bit big during the period of time. 

And so, she entered back into my life, as a colleague and as a LG member. There was no liking back then, and I had to fight hard to avoid my over-enthusiastic colleagues from trying to be matchmakers, especially after they knew that the both of us attend the same church and she is in my LG. Yes, I had nosy colleagues who want to be helpful to this most eligible bachelor in the division. Now looking back, I think God had other plans for me. During the years 2012 to 2013, before I took the step to ask her, I must say that she was back then a wonderful sister to be with in the LG. Before that, some pictures of the group together:

And a prayer group in MOH which we started with some other sisters (because I was at that time the only guy...again):

Perhaps, the route towards the asking started back in Dec 2012. I was at the stage when I was evaluating my own life after thinking through a lot of those issues that I listed above. I felt that at that point, God was finally calling me out of my singlehood and I was to decide to settle down. This came through one of those excruciating marathons that I ran when I heard God rebuking how I ran my life so far - as an irresponsible man who only runs for himself. It was a stinging rebuke but it brought me to some senses that perhaps it's time to stop running alone but to run with somebody.

It was not because I was feeling lonely that I decided that my season of singlehood was coming to an end. I was back then enjoying my singlehood a lot - having the freedom to do things whenever adn wherever I want and having a lot of time to spend with myself to do the things I want to do like reading and studying and meeting other people. The decision that arrived eventually was because I knew from my heart and heard from God that the season was due to close and a new season was due to begin in my life. So therefore, given all the signs and promptings, with my feelings towards Angelina becoming clearer and louder, I knew that perhaps the new season was coming close.

If you ask me why Angelina, the strengths mentioned way above would have been the initial answer. But I must say that if not for the frequent contacts that I had with her in office and in church, she would not have stood out so much compared to other sisters in church. And from the point when I realised that I had fallen for her (which was really weird to accept from the beginning since she was like a little sister last time), I really had a hard time to try to keep this not so obvious in the office, partly due to my over-enthusiastic colleagues, that I don't want unnecessary rumors to be spreading around and short-circuiting any potential progress I will have. This again ties back to the need to set proper boundaries.

I eventually asked on 30 Nov 2013, one year after finally deciding that it's her whom I will ask. I was definitely not lacking courage since I was already prepared to ask on 25 Dec 2012. But due to something which happened to me personally after that, I had to wait.

I suppose it was a tough 11 months from the time I decided to pursue to the time I managed to ask. And I must admit that there were times when I was tempted to jump the gun and not care about anything and just ask, although that would potentially go against my own principle of being accountable to the church leadership.

But, during this period of time, I was also able to step back and think through whether Angelina is the one whom I will want to pursue as a life partner. It took me all the way to Xi'an so as to get myself away from the noises to do some deep thinking. In the midst of this, I also had the opportunity to further observe how she overcame her problems at work and in ministry.

And I am glad that when God finally brought the waiting to fruition, I was ready to be the right person for the girl whom I am looking is looking.