On Christmas, Marriage, Work and life Beyond.

Perhaps because this is the year-end that one gets sort of reminiscent and reflective. And even though I think its good practice, I didn't think I was going to succumb to it earlier than Christmas.

Well, this is my second Christmas since I've been back in Singapore and it doesn't look like its going to be happy and hearty as the last. This, despite that I am a 1-month newly-wed and in our 'honeymoon phase'. That must mean something right?

That festive joy seems to take an awful long time to creep in. It's Christmas eve and I'm waiting to be hit with that warm happy fuzzy feeling. Which leaves me to think that its less something that hits you and more something that starts with you.

Here is one thing that I know is keeping me from my expectant joy: I know two close and dear families who are having trouble with their marriage. These people are the folks we grow up looking toward for authority and example. I know both are struggling to keep things together, to work at loving each other still despite failures in responsibilities, loyalties and hopes. This means so much more now that I am married. I have never understood how marriages could work without God. While I love Andy very much at this point of time, what's to say that in 10 or 20 or even 5 years that we won't be struggling really hard, when the only thing that is keeping our relationship together is God? I cannot imagine any other reason for perservering if God is not my reason. And yet, even when God is the reason for working to keep marriages and families together as I am seeing in those two marriages and families, I can see, in one of them, that some may have little staying power. Hard lessons to keep in your heart so early in a marriage.

Another thing that walls the festive spirit is the fear of sickness and health. I am not sick and neither are my closest and dearest, yet. But there is the fear that time will prove me wrong. No, I do not think that anyone is ill, I just am really afraid that one day those I love will battle the fate our flesh. What brings this? Some older friends of mine have not been doing well. They are only 3-5 years older than me. One just went under the knife to remove a cancerous kidney, another's father passed away this weekend. I imagine in due time, these will be the things I'll struggle with.

Then of course there is work. I tire even of this subject since we all struggle with this thing called work. This is one area I try stay positive and not complain about because everyone already complains about it and secondly because I believe I have a lot to be thankful for. I suppose if I spent my time being thankful I would complain less; I do have a good paying job and one that I will not lose for awhile. This allows me to stay in a safe country of generally low (relative and yet rising) living costs where water is clean, medical facilities are readily available and be able to spend time and place with those I love.

But it comes at a cost that slowly drains and saps me from my dreams and hopes. One of the most hopeful things I heard at our wedding was Andy telling me that our mission would be mission. A year and a half since coming back, it is like a reality that slowly slips away, a life so far away from where I am right now. Can it be that one and a half years is all it takes to change me to fit the mold here? That instead of my life's hope to live my life to the fullest for God, that I am living my life to help other, individuals and organizationally, reach their worldly goals? Yes, this is something I find to be true even in the christian environment of our school - and only because this is the country and government under which we live.

I've said for the longest time since moving back that the transition has been smoother than expected. That doesn't mean easy or smooth but that i expected it worse. What is worse? A quick rip of the band-aid or a slow aching pain that creeps over time?

Now, looking back a lot of that pain was eased largely because I had two good reasons to be here, to school and Andy. Now that I am done with Teacher's College and Andy and I are a unit, my spirit starts to become restless and question what it is I am supposed to be doing with myself, ourselves now or till we are to move again.

Let me be honest; there are immense difficulties in me being here. The intuitions of society slowly but surely put pressure on me to conform. It's sick. If I put family and life first, I am pressured to be more committed to work. And somehow, in the rhetoric, I am told that that is what a good teacher should be. That is to make me feel I ought to put in more time and energy into all the other responsibilities above and beyond the classroom, like spending this vacation actually doing work like writing proposals. This is why Singaporeans are all overachievers, you are supposed to do more than you signed up for. And if you don't follow suit then well, you will get the the short end of the stick. Of course, I don't think I am lazy, I just think I have a very different priority in life.

With the new year fast approaching - technically speaking, this is the last day of my vacation - I dread 2008. It is such a strange thing to say since I have always lived hopefully expectant. There is some anxiousness with the new year; I know I will get more responsibilities at work that I am not keen at all to take up but there is little choice in that. I wonder how I will manage that and work on cementing our new marriage and setting up home. At the same time, we are thinking about juggling serving God and working toward missions. I think they are all possible, if work didn't seem to creep in, demanding more and more of our time and energy. I sometimes envy the lower paid industries - I could earn my keep and what I need and spend the rest of my heart tending to Kingdom business.

And that is the thing, Kingdom Business. I think that is what I was created for because that is when I really really feel most alive and living. Even being in its midst is not good enough for me, I want to be part of it. There is the talk that comes with marriages and weddings that 'now you can have a kid' or that it should be the next thing to work toward. I have not yet said to most that while it is something that we want, it isn't something that we want now. It can if it happens I suppose, but what our hearts really want is Kingdom Business. We would like to go to YWAM DTS in a few years and we should probably work toward paying off our living and tuition fees for that. It's a good thing by then, the apartment would be paid off because if I have my way, I would love to open and share the house to missionaries in Singapore, when we are away. This makes terrible planning for the financial advisor who would like to tell us that we should build our wealth for the future of our children since we would have no income. But it would be so exciting for me to live it out and see how God would provide for us then. Otherwise, life can get boring if you could plan for what is to happen. It's completely anti-intuitive, but having enough to do what I want is simply not enough to let God do what he is really good at.

Anyway, this Christmas, while it may not hold as much revelry and mayhem as I'd like, is by no means an unimportant one. I feel I am standing on a precipice and when I look back at this particular Christmas in the future, it will probably be weighted with deep meaning of lessons learnt from this point forward. In the meanwhile, I shall take comfort in this:

"Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering... Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Romans 12:1-2