A couple of years ago for Valentine’s day, I bought a bag of Nestle’s chocolate Crunch hearts to give to Sam.  On Vday, I placed a few of them on the table as decoration for our dinner.  Subsequently after that, I would dispense them in random places at random times where I knew he would find it — in the pantry, on his Perspectives binder, in his car, glued to a card, etc.  It made him smile every time he found one. 

This year, I wanted to do a reprise of the “hearts surprise”, so after Vday, I got some Crunch hearts on sale.  Then I put two hearts on his nightstand.  When he came home from work and put his keys and cell phone down, he discovered them.  I heard him murmur a sound of surprise, but when he came out to me, he had a look of confusion.  With a laugh, he said, “Did you find my stash?”  Then it was my turn to return his look with confusion.  Then he stammered an “uh” as he went back into the room and then back out again.  He then revealed to me that he had bought me a bag of Crunch hearts too!!  He was planning to dispense them as surprises just as I had.  So then of course, we just laughed that we had the same idea (and that I had beat him to his brilliant idea). 

It’s been over a month since Valentine’s day, and we are still surprising each other at random times in random places.  If it’s one thing I love about our marriage, it’s that we are always surprising each other with something.  (Sometimes the surprise isn’t necessarily a nice gift — like me hiding behind the door when he comes home and jumping out with a “boo!” heehee.)  It’s not that we buy expensive things and shower each other with diamonds but just that we do little things that don’t cost us a cent (like Sam would sneak out of bed on a Saturday morning to make me hash browns).  We do it because it’s fun to make each other feel loved. 

I think that’s what God is like with us.  He gives us a glorious sunset and answers our petty prayer for a prime parking spot — little things and big things, surprises galore, simply because He so delights in making us feel loved.  The question is how often do I miss it?  and how am I seeking to ‘surprise’ Him with a demonstration of my love?

Perhaps He’d like a chocolate heart… 

Yesterday marked 730 days of marriage for us.  That’s 730 wonderful days of ongoing deep and profound intellectual, spiritual and physical conversation with my best friend. 

Sam took the day off from work, and our dear friends Haily, Cathy and Vince came over to watch our baby for us while we went out. 

Sam drove us to Old Town…where we quickly got into the historical mode by taking a ride on a wagon.

Then I lectured in the old school house about the ABCs.

Sam was a star pupil.

Then he surprised me by taking me to the Burton House for high tea!  Here are some of the desserts we had.

Us in front of the old Burton Victorian house.

He really got into character.

I tried my best.

These “dummy” ladies really scared me — so I decided to sit down and have a conversation with them.  (I thought they were gonna come to life and start talking to me for reals any second!)

After we finished our tea, we lingered on a bench for a long time — just enjoying another beautiful day in SD.

It was a nice way to spend our anniversary together.

Last note:  I found this website (from one of my readers) which lets you upload your photo into a magazine cover.  Look, we made it on Life magazine! haha.

The “Secret” is Jesus!

While studying with Cindy on Saturday, we had a tangential conversation about spicy food… and somehow we came up with this phrase.  We joked around about my using it as a title for my first book.  It’s a bit cheesey, yes, but it has such a ring of truth to it.  Marriage is meant to be spicy!!

This stands in direct contrast to the usual portrayal of marriage by the world.  Case in point:  in the movie License to Wed, an engaged couple is prohibited from having sex til their wedding.  On hearing about this, the guy’s friend says,  “No sex! I thought that was supposed to happen after the honeymoon.”  This is supposed to be funny, right?  It plays on the age-old belief that after marriage, there’s no more passion or romance — or fun.  I hate this portrayal of marriage.  Sadly, this kind of pessimistic view about marriage is prevalent in Christian circles as well.  You can even hear it from the pulpit.  How many times have I cringed to hear male pastors talk badly about their wives?  about (their) marriage?  There’s mockery and exaggeration and stereotypes galore. 

But marriage is meant to be spicy.  Think about it –marital sex is so beautiful that God dedicated a whole book about it in the Scriptures!  Marital sex is so good, King Solomon had to write about it in metaphors in order to adequately describe it.  Marriage should be synonymous to passion, romance, good, hot, satisfying sex—so good because it was so designed by God.  This is marriage!  I wish the world would portray marriage the way God envisioned it.

There are just *some* traditions that you’ve gotta toss out — literally. 

Tonight we pulled the top of our wedding cake out of the freezer — just as the old tradition says to do after a year of marriage.   Wanna see the results?

I think Sam snapped this picture of me and the cake just as I finished saying, “Ew! This is nasty.”  
The icing was strangely mushy and the flower was frozen over.

Here’s Sam saying, “Why?!!!”  Why are we doing this, again?
Isn’t that a great look on his face?  It makes me laugh!

The rest of these short video clips will give you an upclose take on what happened as we ventured into the unknown…

So what’s the verdict?  Bad cake —but definitely good, silly fun.

For Sam’s birthday a few weeks ago, I took him to the Midway Museum (a retired USS Aircraft carrier that is docked in our port).  Right beside the Midway is a 25 foot WWII commemorative statue called “Unconditional Surrender.”  It is a three-dimensional interpretation of a photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a Sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, New York City on Aug. 14, 1945, following the announcement of V-J Day.  It is awesome to behold!

We of course were very passionate about re-enacting the beautiful moment. 

Speaking of passion, Sam & I have been married for 9 months now.  Nine glorious months of unconditional surrender to one another.  That’s just enough time to have a baby — but no, we are not having one just yet.  No plans for one for at least a year or two (this is for all the inquiring minds that want to know).  However, from time to time, we do daydream about our future children.  We usually just talk about possible names for our children and how many we want to have.  Tonight, I realized something I had never really thought about before:  while most have high hopes of their children becoming doctors and engineers, I dream of our children becoming missionaries, evangelists, church planters, pioneers, pastors.  I long for them to give their whole lives to God and hold nothing back.  I know, of course, that we need to be a living example of that first, so that they may get a small taste from us of the joy of such unconditional surrender to the Father.  I am guilty of forgetting sometimes of what a joy it really is; I forget — until I surrender again and then I remember.  O, for sweet surrender and sacrifice every hour of every moment…

[warning: mushy, cloying post ahead.]

I don’t know too many couples who make note of the passing of every month of their marriage, but for some reason, Sam & I are rather eager to take advantage of every opportunity to celebrate our love.  We don’t go out on dates all that often, but the 12th of every month is always accompanied with a big splash.  Flowers, a card, lotsa hugs, lotsa kisses, affirmations, and a ‘thanks, God, for bringing us together.’  We want to keep our marriage a joy and delight to ourselves and to God by keeping the surprises coming, the love flowing and the thanksgivings offered. 

This month, Sam made me a touching card.  And with his permission, I wanted to share the sweetness here.  Anyone who wants to copy this idea must give us some royalties.   heehee.  j/k

On the front of the card, “Our journey together has been a long, blessed road…”

Marriage is an adjustment.  For some, it may be a seamless transition – as commonplace a feeling as getting on a taxi because you get on a taxi every day.  But for others, the idea of a taxi feels as foreign a concept as making a switch from driving your own sedan in Suburbia, California to the MTR (public transit system) of Hong Kong.  Sometimes the adjustment has to do with the physical day-to-day operations of how you do things.  Sometimes it’s the emotional realization of not being single and of not belonging to Mom and Dad anymore.  And sometimes it’s a psychological adjustment – a new state of being that everything and everyone confirms that you’ve entered into but you’re still scrambling because some parts of you still feel “not there yet”.  It’s not anything you can put your finger on – not like a tangible need to unpack or to reconcile some difference - but you know it’s there because you don’t feel settled.

I was preoccuppied the first three months of marriage.  I always felt like I was mentally making preparations for something.  Preparations for dinner.  Preparations for my husband’s arrival home.  Preparations for intimacy.  Preprations for guests coming over.  Cleaning the house.  Putting things into order.  The need for writing thank you cards always hanging over my head.  Somebody’s birthday.  Some kind of holiday.  Some kind of party.  Something to plan for, something to get ready for.  Perhaps I was needlessly making myself out to be busy.  But the reality was that I was unknowingly so preoccuppied.  The preparations felt necessary.  Perhaps it was because, deep down, I always felt unready for things but I very much much so wanted to be ready.

Yesterday morning I was reminded that it was Martha who was preoccuppied with making preparations while Mary chose what was better.  Mary chose the one thing needed.  I’ve been so preoccuppied this whole time that I have missed the one thing needed.  She sat at Jesus’ feet.  She looked up at Him.  She gazed with awe and wonder.  She listened intently.  She learned from Him.  Her life was changed.  Lingering joy, lingering peace, lingering hope were flushed all across her face ever after.  I’ve been missing this one thing needed.

As we are drawing near ‘five months’ of marriage and entering a whole new year, and things at last are settling down around me, it seems possible at last to make the kind of commitment that I so desperately need – to begin again to choose the better thing every single day of my married life just as I did in my single life, so that I may relish in each moment to the greatest extent of its possibilities.  If marriage has been so good even with only minimal attention to God, how much more amazing will it be with deep, deep intimacy with Him? 

I’ve been asked a few times recently if Sam & I have had our first fight yet.  It makes me laugh.  Is it actually possible for any couple to have gone from friendship to dating to marriage and not have any conflicts at all?  Any couple who claims they haven’t had any riffs make me wonder if they have ever talked about anything important at all ever.  To not have conflict because we think it’s better to let things slide even though they really do matter to us and to agree to disagree is, in reality, to agree to be separate.  You go your way.  I’ll go my way.  And very quickly, you have two separate people living two separate lives. 

Strangers.

Scurrying about life together.  Which is okay if you really were strangers, but when you’re not, you just don’t want to be.  In marriage, we don’t want to aim simply for togetherness, we aim for oneness.  And it’s in the oneness that true life really happens. 

“To agree to disagree.”  This band-aid plastered over underlying differences of opinions within the church has the same insidious affects as in a marriage.  In seeking to maintain that guise of harmonious relationship within the church, we often close ourselves off from hearing someone else’s thoughts because they differ so greatly from our own age-old beliefs, that we inadvertently choose to cut off our destiny of growing, developing and maturing as disciples of Jesus.  In agreeing to disagree too quickly, we cut off communication before it begins, and we miss out on sharpening one another as iron to iron.  We miss out on our needed glimpse into a new facet of truth that we had never fathomed before, and most of all, we miss out on connecting our hearts from one to another and becoming more unified in Jesus.  We choose to be separate from each other.  We become strangers together who are unable to build His Kingdom.  We lack unity.  And it’s in the unity that true life really happens.

I read a sermon recently which stated it like this, “Jesus was not afraid of conflict.  He turned conflicts into teaching opportunities.  When James and John asked for privileged status in the kingdom, the rest of the disciples became understandably angry. Jesus used the moment to talk about true leadership among God’s people. Conflict is our Christian tradition.  If it were not for conflict in the early church we would be missing much of the New Testament. Every time we read the letters of Paul, we can give thanks for conflict….If there had been no conflict among the early churches, Paul would not have needed to write the letters which help guide us in our faith today. Healthy conflict is a key ingredient in Christianity.”

So let’s talk.  And in the end, we may not agree on everything, but at least let’s talk it out, share our ideas, listen, consider, change and be changed so that our hearts grow closer from our communion with one another rather than growing separate because we have agreed too quickly to disagree.  

They say that marriage is a mystery.  Sex is a mystery.  And, isn’t God, too, a mystery?  When we seek greater knowledge and greater insight into these deep matters to find answers to our questions, the result is having categorical conclusions and reasonable answers.  We come up with practical formulas, techniques, how-tos.  “If you follow these six easy steps, then you will have a great marriage, great sex and a great relationship with God.”  Somehow, the pursuit of knowledge about these things deceives us to believe that they are fully knowable, completely comprehensible, and we lose sight of the fact that even the glimpse that we’ve come to understand is only a glimpse of understanding — and that as time progresses, our understanding will deepen and we will recognize all too soon that when we had thought we understood, we really knew nothing at all. 

We realize that marriage is about relationship.  Sex is about relating – one whole person with another whole person in relationship.  And God is “Person” in relationship with us.  To forget this and consider otherwise is to exchange the satisfying depth and fullness of relationship with the void of institution, biological function or religion.

Relationship is dynamic.  It’s unpredictable, intangible, ungraspable, never truly knowable — because it involves persons.  Persons always have more depth and complexities – more and more, there’s always more.  New discoveries, new thoughts, new emotions – joys and delight.  It ought to keep us suspended in wonder, awe and amazement — of thankfulness, of gratefulness, of longing to plumb the depths of this great mystery — even all the while knowing that we can never truly know.

Lord God, keep me in awe of all that you are and all that you have given me.  And may that awe overwhelm and overflow in adoration and worship. 

Marital Curses

“Now you do everything together, but just wait five years, then you will go your way and he will go his way and you will say, ‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’”  Someone actually pronounced this curse upon me – I guess she’s a little skeptical about marriage?

On Sam’s first day back at work:
CW1:  How do you like being married?
Sam:  I love it!
CW2:  Just wait a year, he’ll say something different.

Some would have it that ”newlywed” is synonymous to “naive”.  Unrealistic, idealistic.  That marriage is actually like being stuck to an old ball and chain.  That wives nag and are oppressive and husbands are lazy and incompetent.  We hear references from spouses about their spouse dripping with sarcasm, sometimes subtle, sometimes biting – striking like daggers to the heart.  Even from the pulpit, you hear jokes alluding to ‘the ol’ wife’ and you half laugh because you are trying the best you can to cover how actually appalled you are, and you’re just so glad you’re not the wife being referred to. 

Awful.  I hate it.  I hate the snide comments.   I hate the passive aggressive jabs at husbands and wives.  I hate the way marriage is pulled down to the trenches of a putrid pit like it’s the worse thing that can happen to anybody.  Even if it’s done in jest.    

Maybe I am being a naive newlywed.  Maybe I am idealistic and unrealistic.  But I want to show the world something different.  That Sam & I will always want to do everything together and that we will always speak well of marriage and well of each other – no sarcastic words exchanged in private and no passive aggressive jabs to cut each other down in public.  Strange, it seems like just being happily married (for 12 days) is like swimming upstream.  The world just doesn’t expect it.  I pray that God would use our undeterred devotion to one another over the years to turn the tide.