As we cross into 2015 from 2014, there are certainly thanksgiving points and testimonies from this relationship which glory only belongs to God and God alone. Indeed, as Psalm 145 says:
I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation commends your works to another;
they tell of your mighty acts.
They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
They tell of the power of your awesome works—
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
They celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
All your works praise you, Lord;
your faithful people extol you.
They tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,
so that all people may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
Our thanksgivings and testimonies are to be shared with people so that people may comprehend the glory of God and the splendor of His kingdom.
- Maturity in the midst of conflicts and tensions
Our thanksgivings and testimonies are to be shared with people so that people may comprehend the glory of God and the splendor of His kingdom. Today we would like to share how we have seen God's Hand in our relationship amidst conflicts and tensions.
Like every other couples, we are have our own fair share of conflicts and tensions. We'll each be sharing a conflict that we found most memorable
Huanyan's side of the story:
It was September 2014. Angelina had just left her job and I just changed job. It was a period of transition for both of us. At that point in time, I was heavily involved in the publication of ACTS College magazine: Lighthouse and the committee was rushing to pass the publisher all the materials for the printing of the magazine. On top of that, I was having one of my block modules with AGBC on the Pastoral Epistles. Angelina, on the other hand, was taking a break from work to recharge herself emotionally and spiritually, and she was taking the same block class as I was. During this period, the doctor had also given her some medication to re-caliberate her health (and one of the potential side effects was moodiness).
And that was when the problem began to blow up. Due to my high standard on doing exegesis, I was horribly displeased (an understatement) on the standard of work that was previously submitted by my teammates on our group assignment and spent a lot of time trying to revamp the work and doing the editing. In addition to the sleepless nights working on the assignment, I had to settle all the Lighthouse stuff as the deadline was nearing. In essence, I could not get any breather at all. As for Angelina, although she was an audit student, she was asked to contribute to some of the group work (which in my opinion was unwarranted) and she had to read up all the reference materials. And it was, to understate, a traumatising experience for her as she was just recovering from a burnout and reading up on academic materials and collating them were not exactly the most relaxing thing to do. On top of this, her medication began to wreck havoc emotionally and caused her to go into emo states inexplicably (which is amusing to me why the doctor even gave her those medication in the first place).
Then came one Wednesday. Angelina, at around 6 plus, messaged me to ask what I was doing for the night. When I told her that I needed to finish up collating the group assignment and upload the materials for Lighthouse, she stopped at there. What I did not know was that she needed someone to talk to and to my fault, I failed to recognise that need at that time and she chose not to pursue it (even when she really needed someone to talk to) as she knew that I was very stressed up that week. Yet, the unhappiness was brewing while the woodhead that I was continued to do my own things.
On Thursday night, she came late for lesson and we did not talk throughout the three hours. It was quite uneasy and unsettling and I could sense the tension even though I did not know why. And it got really distracting as I wanted to concentrate on the class instead of focusing on her emotions at that time. Then just as I thought I could talk to her after class, she rushed off without informing me that she was rushing off. And she was walking so fast that I could not catch up with her (as I was a bit sick back then and asthma was catching up with me also). But because of the lack of communications, my face was black as I did not know what I did that merited such treatment (although she told me later after she boarded the bus that she needed time alone).
I think a godly man sometimes has his moments when he needs to learn how to manage his temperament and listen to his instinct even though it seemed illogical and when it seems flustering to be in a situation where you don't even know why you are in it. Anyway, that night I listened to my instincts. On my way home, as my bus passed by City Hall, Angelina messaged me to ask where she could find food and told me that she was at City Hall MRT station doing journaling. My instincts (which I believed was guided by the Holy Spirit) then told me that I needed to alight from the bus and find her. And obeyed my instincts I did. To cut the already long story short, things came out well after that night and Angelina was feeling better and I began to have a sense on what was actually happening: regarding all the past issues that she has been through in her work compounded by the medication...
Angelina's side of the story.
That was the first month after I stopped work, and I was still pretty "shaky" and was very easily stressed. On top of, that the medication I took made me go into unexplainable bouts of immense depression. For a thinker, it was an extremely uncomfortable situation because I had absolutely no control over my emotions and try as I might, there was no way I could rationalise the extreme sadness away. In my mind, I knew that there was no reason why I should be feeling the emotions to that intensity, yet if I were to be true to my feelings, there was no way I can just ignore the depression that was over me. Thus I felt very stuck. During that period, I withdrew from everyone, including my family, and kept to myself. Huanyan was probably the only one who was more in tune with what I was feeling/going through (though that itself was probably pretty traumatic for him).
During this period, there were many times that I wished Huanyan knew what I needed/wanted without me having to say anything. I was hoping that he would know me well enough to read me like a book without me having to explicitly state what I needed from him. But clearly, he isnt God and he will only know me as much as I communicate my needs and expectations to him. It took me a few rounds of hoping that he knew what I needed/wanted and being disappointed when he did do what I had secretly hoped he would for me to learn the importance of communicating these expectations to him. Even now, I am still learning this fact.
Whenever I am down/stressed, I tend to withdraw from people and communication goes to the bare minimum. Yet my expectations of those closest to me (to know how to provide the necesary support) would increase significantly during this period. Decreased communication and increased exceptions is probably the formula for further conflicts. After a number of rounds of that (that actually took a few months), we finally learn how to mitigate it. I stated out the things that would help me in various situations in a "guide book" for Huanyan, so that whenever I regress into those emo states where there's minimal communication, he would have some idea of what he can do to help in that situation. Now I have to caveat that while it was very tempting to just list all my expectations for him, I had to hold back. I decided to pray through first before writing the list, so that whatever was finally written was not just a list of unrealistic self-centered expectations, but one that has been vetted through by God. As I prayed through, God revealed that I had many expectations that were "over-romaticised". While it was not impossible for Huanyan to do them (since he was always very willing to learn) I must definitely do my part in communicating so that he can indeed do what I "secretly hoped". Expecting him to do it without communicating what I needed/hoped for was just unloving.
And this was just one of the many examples of the tensions and conflicts. As there were no people who were close by to guide us through all these conflicts and tensions, the danger was that any of those tensions could have blown up and reached a point of no return or even create unnecessary hurt to one another. Reflecting on this particular episode, which I (Huanyan) believe was one of those mroe extreme cases thus far, I believed it could really have turned out quite badly. I could have just ignored Angelina when she texted me to ask where on earth at City Hall could she find food and could have further ignored my instincts, like I did the previous night. Yet it seemed that God's hand was leading our actions even as things began to go downhill. Hence we thank God for the maturity that we showed during these episodes and that we were able to sort out the underlying issues. These are not easy times that we go through.
Moreover, we have to thank God for these episodes themselves. Conflicts and tensions normally appear when two differing values begin to rub against one another. For couples who are either married or hoping to get married, this is an inevitable process of cleaving, where two separate entities learn to become one. But each time we get past one episode, we found ourselves gaining better understanding of one another and finding ourselves getting closer as well.
- Serving together
Being in different lifegroups in church and serving in different capacities, there are not many opportunities for us to serve together. But the one most memorable time of serving together comes during a mission trip to the land upnorth in June 2014.
Although we were together in the same team, there wasn't a lot of opportunities when we could minister together. Then on one Wednesday night, I was supposed to share a message during a prayer meet in one of the churches. After I finished sharing, Angelina (with her gift of discernment and prophecy) came up and we began to pray for the church in the different areas. As she heard from God, I took the front stage to pray those prayer points over the church, since my language proficiency was better in that setting. Reflecting on this episode, I was just amazed at how we complemented one another in serving.
There were other episodes of serving together and we shall not elaborate too much on these. We give thanks for these episodes as they showed to the two of us how God can use our lives to bless the other people around us. We started out this relationship wanting to be a blessing to the people around us and this is indeed the beginning.
And these are just some thanksgiving points for 2014. We hope to share more in the future as we continue to seek God to pray what we want to disclose here so that our readers can be blessed.
