Who Am I?

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth

Would care to know my name

Would care to feel my hurt

Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star

Would choose to light the way

For my ever wandering heart

Not because of who I am

But because of what You've done

Not because of what I've done

But because of who You are

I am a flower quickly fading

Here today and gone tomorrow

A wave tossed in the ocean

Vapor in the wind

Still You hear me when I'm calling

Lord, You catch me when I'm falling

And You've told me who I am

I am Yours, I am Yours

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin

Would look on me with love and watch me rise again

Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea

Would call out through the rain

And calm the storm in me

Not because of who I am

But because of what You've done

Not because of what I've done

But because of who You are

[Who Am I, by Casting Crowns]

Sumptuous Breakfast

Busyness makes it very challenging to hear from God. If you really want to hear the still, small voice of God, you will have to be still. Find a cave, like Elijah found[1], where you can simply be still.

You need extended periods of quiet to seek God, to be free of distractions and interruptions. If not, you are missing His best for you.

I [Joyce Meyer] have to get alone with God; sometimes I have two or three days alone with Him. I [JM] cannot fulfill my calling without that time with Him. To bring a word to this nation and to the world, I need to hear from God. If I am not alone to give Him first place in my life, I cannot hear from God or be led by the Holy Ghost. I have to have time to give the Lord my undivided attention.

When you are alone with God, don't think about your problems. Sit down, get quiet, and answer God's question when He asks you, "What are you doing here?"[2]
Tell Him you want to know what He has for your life.
Ask Him to tell you what He wants you to do.
Ask Him to tell you what He doesn't want you to do.

Present yourself to God and listen. You are honoring Him by going to Him. You will get an answer from Him. If you don't hear Him speak during your time alone with Him, keep a reining ear toward His throne, and in the following days look for ways He answers you.

Sometimes we try too hard to hear from God. We actually want to hear so badly we get tense about it; we let it make us anxious and almost fearful that He may not speak or we may not hear. This could be one of the reasons we often hear later after we had a time of seeking Him. Later when we are relaxed, just going about our ordinary business, and He is able to speak because then we can hear.

God's greatest desire for His children is that they experience His best in their lives. He wants to have close fellowship with us and be invited into every area of our lives. He wants to speak to us and lead us in all our decisions by His spirit.

It is God's will that we hear clearly from Him. He does not want us living in confusion and fear. We are to be decisive, secure and free. He wants each of us to fulfill our destiny and to walk in the fullness of His plan for us. Listen, that is the first step towards hearing. Turn your ear toward Him and be still.

He will speak to you to tell you He loves you. He cares about your life and what you need. God wants to meet your needs and do more than you could ever think or imagine in order to bless you abundantly.
Ephesians 3:20 ...to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine...
Hebrews 13:5 ...God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

The depth of our personal relationship with God is based upon intimate communication with Him. He speaks to us so that we are guided, refreshed, restored, and renewed regularly.
Romans 14:17 ...the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
[As we hear from the God and walk in line with His word to us, we give Him the throne of our hearts and His kingdom is established in our lives. We will then enjoy the fruits of the kingdom, which is righteousness, peace and joy!]

You can hear from God, it is part of your inheritance[3] - don't ever believe otherwise!

Extracted from "How to Hear from God; Learn to Know His voice and Make Right Decisions" by Joyce Meyer, bestselling author of "Battlefield of the Mind"
Bracketed words and footnotes :blogger's own

[1] The cave can be your own room early in the morning or late at night when no one is awake to disturb you.
[2] See 1Kings 19:9b
[3] If you have accepted Jesus into your life.

Pst: I woke up at 5am today and this is a summary of the gems I got! You can get it too!

Personal testimony: This morning when I woke up with my eyes still closed, I felt very tired and my mind said, "Cannot. Today too tired already cannot wake up so early." But I had to go to the loo so while sitting on the toilet bowl, I told God," God if it's you who woke me up, then please give me a sign."

I actually felt the heaviness physically get lifted off me! So I thought, "That's the sign. Even though I asked God for 530am last night, if He says 5am then so be it."

At the beginning I just tried to be still and quiet to hear Him speak to Him. He didn't actually say anything but there was this very comfortable presence I felt in my heart. As I started reading, was still feeling sleepy and a few times closed my eyes.

Actually my eyes were as big as saucers but my mind was still trying to go back to sleep. When I closed my eyes, it wasn't the nodding off to sleep kind but the close for 5 secs ro rest kind. By about 530am voila! My mind and my body was awake to really spend time going in depth into my study material!

Jia you everyone who's trying to wake up early too! Lao gong woke up at 7am! Yay we can start worship early today!

Follow-Up on Saturday

Guess what time I woke up today? Give you a clue. I usually wake up at 11am. Serious.

Ok another clue. I woke up at 1030am yesterday.

So what time did I wake up today? It's 9am now.

I woke up at 6am today!!! Wa!!! Today is the 1st time I look at lao gong sleep instead of the other way round. I can't remember the last time I looked at him sleep le cos he always wakes up before me. And I finally understand what he means when he says he just likes looking at me sleep. Haha

God has been doing something really wonderful ever since I recieved a touch from Him on Saturday after the crying incident. He spoke to me about my lost passion for Him and how I haven't really been living for Him the way I did when I first found Him. So I've been praying for a rekindling of that passion and love for Him. The love that could make me read His Word till late and night and wake up early in the morning to spend time with Him again.

Then on Sunday onwards, I started waking up at weird times. I set my alarm at 9am to wake up in time for service at 1115am but I woke up at 8am which was a surprise. I wondered whether it was God waking me up to spend time with Him so I did the 'lazy wife's excuse' trick.

I asked lao gong to wake up and told myself,"If he wakes up, then I'll also wake up and spend time with God. If he doesn't, then I shall go back to bed and enjoy my sleep with hubbi." Haha and yes he didn't wake up so I slept again and woke up at 1035am to our horror. We were going to be so so late for church. And we were supposed to meet Yining at 1020am. We still needed to let the dogs out, feed them not to mention wash up get changed etc.

I thought to myself, "See! If only you woke up at 8am!" Then we tried to get a cab but to no avail. Can I mention here that God usually answers my prayer requests for cabs. When I'm in an emergency, there will be a cab at my doorstep. When we didn't know whether we should take a cab and asked God for signs, He would give us very clear signals. There was once I asked God to give me a mercs cab if He felt that I should take a cab home rather than public transport. The next minute, i saw a mercs cab coming towards us.

Then I realised I preferred the new Comfort Sonata cab cos the rides were smoother and much more comfortable. So when I saw the mercs cab, I quickly told God, "Sorry I forgot I prefer Sonatas. Please give me a Sonata." And the next minute a Sonata cab came towards us and it was for hire.

From then onwards everytime I prayed for a Sonata we got it. Until recently when I stopped hearing from God.

Instead of Sonatas, I got those black cab, old kind. No label, (don't even know whether it was City Cab or Comfort) kind which still operated on manual operator radio calls where you can hear the static and everything that goes on between the operator and the driver. And the leather seat was torn! Not that I'm picky but no one would mind a luxurious ride especially when you know your God is a God of abundance. [img extraced from http://www.streetdirectory.com/]

Yup so on Sunday, the day we woke up super late, we didn't get a cab. Which was very out of the norm cos usually God sends us cabs when we pray for them. We waited for close to 15mins and even had to walk away from the comfort of the bus shelter to the cross junction in the hope of a better chance to get a cab.

And guess what? Shortly after we walked away from the bus shelter, someone in a Sonata cab alighted there and another person, who came much later than us got the cab at the shelter.

So lao gong said,
"God must have really not wanted to answer our prayers for our cab that the cab got to stop right at the place we just walked away from!"

Me: "But this time I started praying for the cab even before we left the house!"

Usually I just pray on the spot when we start looking for a cab.

Lao gong: "But this time it's too ridiculous. We have been late for church 3 times in a row and this time it's too ridiculous. God must be speaking to us."

Me: "But our God is a gracious and forgiving God. Ok I repent now. "Sorry God I know it's our fault for waking up late. I promise to be committed to being on time and not give excuses anymore from next week onwards."

Within the next minute, a silver cab came towards us! And it's the Sonata kind. I've never taken a Silver Sonata before. I don't even know whether it's called Sonata but it had the same elliptical shape. And for those who delight in trying all the different kinds of cabs, you'll know how it feels to get a new cab.I was so excited! God is really a gracious and forgiving God!

Then at night when we were having a nice quiet dinner at Jack's Place, the very carnal me started to wonder, "These few weeks we have been spending alot on food. Last week we spent $70 on Shashlik, the day before we had a feast at the restaurants at Serangoon Garden and today we're having osyters and steaks again."

Then the faithful spirit man in me said, "Don't worry. God is a God of abundance and He will provide abundantly for you if you put your trust in Him."

The waiter placed the half dozen oysters we ordered on the table. Would there be an extra oyster? I thought quite unlikely since it's so easy to count half a dozen, Instintively, half a dozen is two pairs of 3s and the chefs count dozens everyday. Moreover oysters are expensive, it's not like vegetables so the chefs probably wouldn't be so careless when dishing out oysters.

I sneaked a look at the table and thought I saw a 4 on one side and a 3 on the other. Then I counted 7. I couldn't believe my eyes and asked lao gong, "Lao gong do we have 7 oysters? The chef gave us an extra?" [img extracted from forums.egullet.org]

And yes it was 7! The excitment isn't in getting an extra oyster for what you paid but it was as though God was indeed reassuring me that He was a God of abundance. When I went home, I told meimei about it and we couldn't stop giggling over it.

Ok back to the waking up stories. Saturdays when I cried and cried, lao gong confessed to God that it was his fault for not making the commitment to pray with me every day, and for pampering me so much that he always allows me to sleep till we don't have time to pray and worship together. Lao gong then made a commitment to wake me up earlier to pray and worship together, in addition to our separate QT with Papa.

Monday I opened my eyes at 8am. Again. And wondered whether it was God who woke me up. Actually the answer was pretty obvious. God was answering the prayer I prayed so hungrily and desperately on Saturday. But lazy old me decided to nua and dived back into bed before the Holy Spirit can persuade me further.

Actually at 8am I was pretty well rested already. It was just the love for sleep that made me go back to bed. Then at 10am when lao gong woke me up, I felt so super tired. Finally I dragged myself, with lao gong half carrying me out of bed at 1020am to do our morning QT together.

When God woke me up, the anointing was there and if I had really woken up, I wouldn't have felt tired. But because I gave in to sleep again, instead of having a good restful sleep, I felt even more tired and woke up with a slight headache.

Then last night as I was spending time on my own with God, and feeling very sleepy because I had woken up half an hour earlier than usual in the morn, I told God I really wanted to spend good quality time with Him like in the beginning when I first knew Him and was really hungry to know Him better.

As I made that prayer and that silent re-commitment to Him, my spirit started to feel more refreshed. The tiredness lifted from me and I was able to enjoy spending time with Him and dwelling upon His word. That communion felt so good that this morning when I got woken up at 6am, I decided that's it! I choose God over sleep.

And know what? The devil tried one last attempt to hinder me. I felt the slight headache again. But the still small voice deep in my spirit man said, "You will find rest in God. If you truly commune with Him, the headache will go away."

So we (me and the Holy Spirit) won the war and I have been up since 6am till now. I managed to spend 2 hours in the word, pray in an unhindered manner (cos it was still early and I still have alot of time to do my work later on) and update my blog!

Wow God is really faithful and He will answer our prayers if we really want to pursue Him. I want to have the burning consuming fire for Him again. To want to be so close to Him and delight in Him. It's so much better than the TV cos it's not a life of fantasy acted out by others but it's my own personal reality and when I am close to God, I can lead a victorious life, unhindered by worries and fears. A life walked in the super wise and perfect will of God that leads to abundant joy, success, prosperity, and vision!

Home cell hasn't been really fruitful recently and this morning, God led me to pray for a new vision for us. I still haven't gotten the vision yet but I believe the vision is coming soon if we continue to dwell in God's presence and commit our ears to hearing from Him and our time to fellowshiping with Him. Yeah so exciting! Haha!

Ministry @ home

Yesterday I had a bad case of nerves. For the first time after years of giving tuition, I suddenly had a case of 'I hate my job' nerves. On the outside, I was teaching the students calmly. More calm than usual. The lesson dragged on for an extra 45mins, and I didn't seem to mind at all. But in my head I was screaming. At why I didn't seem to teach as energetically and as enthusiastically. I was just going through the motion. And everytime a student has a question, I heave a big silent moan.

It was like going through a very slow dying process and I felt like i was being strangled. I wanted to yell and burst into tears but of course I didn't do that. I simply msged lao gong to tell him how I felt. It was worse than what I'm describing now. I just felt so wicked and so hateful.

Thank God lao gong quickly rushed back home to attend to me. He sensed that I was under a spiritual attack cos a few days ago when he was praying, the LORD led him to pray against spiritual attacks on the family.

Anyway he rushed home and took out his guitar and sat beside me while waiting for me to finish my lesson.

After lesson, he said, "Come let's worship together." I didn't feel like singing or praising God at all! But I knew that was the best thing to do so I followed him into the room. As he started playing the guitar, he told me to speak in tongues. He must have sensed my reluctance to do anything remotely spiritual at that moment so as he strummed, he went into tongues himself and started prophesying about the importance of tongues.

It worked and I went into tongues but I was still feeling lousy. Lao gong then started leading me to sing the worship song 'I will run to you'. As I struggled to sing, I realised that I was angry at God. Very angry. I was angry at why He took away my passion for my job and why He took away my love for the children. But as lao gong made me sing, I realised deep down I missed Him. And i wanted Him to come minister to me and though I was angry and didn't want Him to come, I really wanted to be with Him. And I started crying and crying and crying. Lao gong continued to minister with the song and I only managed to sing the 1st line cos after that I was just crying and crying. In between those tears, I said to God, "Why? Why did you give me the passion for tuition and then take it away?" I've always felt that to have passion for life, one needs to have passion for the job that they're doing. We spend most of our waking hours working, so if we don't have passion for our job, how are we going to be happy? How are we to be servants and ministers of God when we can't even thrive in the marketplace? I didn't want to be a Sunday christian and be in God's presence only on Sundays but I wanted to be someone who's always in the presence of God. If I don't feel a fire for my job, how can I say that God is in my life? And as I ranted and raved away, this was His silent response.

"You have answered your own question. You lived for your job, not for me. The fire in you depended primarily on your passion for your job, not me."

And I finally understood. I had indeed depended on my passion for my job to be the fuel and drive of my everyday life. And that had taken away my passion for God. Tuition had come into my life from a pursuit of God and His will for my life. But somewhere along the line, I had become so immersed at trying to be good at what I do that I had stepped across the line and the passion had switched over. For a long long time, the passion was on being good at teaching, not on chasing after God and His will for my life.

Two things can happen when God gives us a gift.
1) Instead of enjoying the gift and trusting in His provision, we worry about losing the gift. What came from faith leads us into a loss of faith. Fear and worry defintely does not come from faith and it saps our energy and natural gifting, making us dry and depressed.

2) Instead of thanking God for the gift, we enjoy and dwell into the gift so much that we forgot the Person we had initally been chasing before this gift came into the picture and took our attention away. The enjoyment and bliss of the gift had left us so focused on it that we gradually turn our eyes away from the actual Gift.

He was indeed the light of my life and my everything. I had allowed worldy distractions to come into my life and turned my eyes away from Him. I had depended on my own strength too much. Though I pray for my tuition everyday, and commit my work to Him, the reliance was more on myself than on Him. I didn't trust Him enough to be positive or wait for Him to direct me.

Finally the tears subsided and lao gong started to pray for me. He prophesied that I had allowed unconstructive comments and situations to get to me and the accumulation of it had caused my morale and drive to go down. Though I may have had comments that weren't always positive, God was encouraging me and telling me that He felt I had done a good job and will continue to do more.

As lao gong prayed for me, I started crying again.

Later on as I was doing some work related to tuition, I felt that something was different. I felt energetic again and much more cheerful. Something had definitely been released in the afternoon. Lao gong says that I have to keep on releasing my hurts and disappointments so that they wouldn't accumulate and get me down again like this.

That was my own personal encounter with God at home. I pray that He will continue to rekindle my passion for Him once again, and be even more passionate about pursuing Him every single day of my life. Today I realised another benefit of having a marriage that is under the authority and protection of God. I have my own personal counselor and minister at home to constantly pray with me and for me and help me overcome trials and tests. Hee Jesus you are so good. Lao gong you are so good =)

Lao Gong...

The way you wake up early to mop the floor,
so that I can sit there and play with the dogs.

The way you pester me to wake up at 9am,
to worship Jesus and spend time with you,
but ask me to go back to sleep at seeing my sleepy eyes.

The way you demand me to rest,
because you want me to enjoy life.

The way you faithfully wipe the dogs' paws everytime they go out,
because you know I hate to do it.

The way you cook for me,
because you want me to have good meals,
even though you're tired from a day's work.

The way you paint my nails and cut my toenails,
because you want to pamper me.

The way you save on Timberlands,
just so that you can buy me more Aldos.

The delight on your face when I join you in your ministries,
or in your fishing trips,
because you can't get enough of me just as I can't get enough of you.

The way you desire me to wait by the side while you play soccer,
because my presence matters so much to you.

The way you crack lame jokes and make fun of me,
because you want to see me laugh and make me happy.

The way you relentlessly lecture me,
because you want me to learn and be more godly.

The way you want to put baby plans on hold,
even though you love them so,
because you want us to have more time on our own.

The way you lift me up when I throw a tantrum,
the way you smile at me when I have sauce at the corner of my mouth,
the way you fall asleep while patting me to sleep,
the way you kneel down in public to stick plasters on my blistered feet,
the way you lovingly prepare the food to make it tasty.

The way you say sorry to me when you realise your mistakes,
the way you pray with me to help me release my hurts and fears,
the way you encourage me to do God's work,
all because you love God,
because you love me,
and you want to show me how much God loves me.

Thank you lao gong. I love you.
Thank you Jesus. You're the best matchmaker, the best marriage counsellor and the best Teacher.

Lao Gong

Cooking........................Worshiping..............................

Lao gong

Playing with me....

Church gym + Nails Update

Today lao gong went to the new gym opened by our church to do a video for publicity and he told me it's verrrrryy nice. Hmm hope I'll get motivated to exercise now with a beautiful gym in our neighbourhood. Haha i seem to be totally opposite from my hubbi in terms of fitness. Tomorrow he's going to wake up at 7am to go to the sports council gym (not the church one cos they don't have enough free weights for him) and he promises to be back before I wake up so that I can see him the moment I open my eyes. So I decided not to sleep too early in case I open my eyes before he comes back.

Here's my nails update =)

French mani with metallic turquoise as the base.

My ex-student who's also one of our adopted children gave me this as part of my wedding present. So beautiful right this colour...thank you mel!

Black base with duo toned flower on the thumb.

The other fingers only have polka-dots because we were rushing for some appointment and lao gong didn't have time to draw flowers for the other nails. Looks quite retro though...

Latest french pedi with orangey gold base and glitter tips

Actually lao gong applied the magenta colour, the one that he applied during the last set of pedi. Then I reminded him that the most recent pedi he did was also in that colour so he applied another colour to mix with the magenta and created a new colour! Erm but i forgot what other colour he added to turn it into this. Anyway, moral of the story is lao gong is creative! Hehe thank you lao gong!

Siaoz...

That's the name of our church cell. The name speaks volumes. We laugh at silly things and serious things and we're very loud because we all like to talk at the same time and poke fun at each other. Ok my lao gong is one of the loudest cos he's a joker who likes the crack the lamiest joke of the month.

Yet we also support one another through trials. We share with each other our ups and downs. We pray for each other's downs and we squeal over each other's ups.

Steamboat at Bugis

We eat like a bunch of crazy fellas. Most of our bonding sessions include food hunts all over Singapore, from Pasir Panjang's duck rice to Serene Centre's ice cream to chinatown's chinese pastries right back to Zi Char near church.

Hog's Breath @ Holland V

However, as of 1 July 2007, we're splitting. Not because we don't love each other but because we've stayed too long together and it is unhealthy for a cell to remain too long in their comfort zone. When it's too big, newcomers find it intimidating and difficult to assimilate and it would be selfish of us to remain stuck to each other and being happy in our own world.

We will be having combined worship for the first 3 months and only split for cell discussion. Thereafter, we'll have a genuine split and offically separate into 2 smaller groups. As I write, or type, I'm starting to realise for the first time that we're really splitting!!! I'm tempted to feel sad but then again it's my choice whether to take this change positively or negatively. Yup so I shall focus more on the good changes this split can bring about.

This post is dedicated to my dear siaoz cell. Even though we have only joined you all quite recently, you have brought lots of laughter and joy to our lives. Because of you, we've settled so quickly into Living Sanctuary and friday evenings are always filled with laughter, good times of worship and sharing and .....food. You wrote our wedding cards, folded them and stuck stamps onto them. You ran around helping us with last minute errands to give us a beautiful church wedding, you accompanied us when we served endless cups of tea to relatives and you willingly took on the mess during the wedding dinner when the tables got mixed up. You sat away from your favourite pals because you wanted to help fill the missing seats at the tables and save us the cost of an additional table. We feel loved and accepted in LSBC because you have been such good cellmates. Siaoz cell, you are the best cell!!!

A new perspective

Last night I recieved a call from my mum about a 9 year old relative who needs to go for an operation that will cost a minimum of 10k and asked whether I could help contribute. I was pretty disturbed by the call bcos I didn't know how to broach the subject with lao gong as this was the first time such an issue arose ever since we got married.

Later in the evening, I approached lao gong who then told me to find out more from my mum first. About why the operation is neccessary and so on. Subsequently I told lao gong what my mum had elaborated to me. He kept quiet. The silence was killing me. Then I had the urge to put forth to him the reasons why we should give. But instead of letting my tongue run loose this time, I had an impression that I should just keep quiet and "leave the decision to the man." If he wants to know my opinion, he would ask me. It wasn't the first time I have impressions like this but usually I'm too strong-willed to be able to quieten my heart and seek the Holy Spirit's counsel.

Immediately after I decided to heed the advice of the impression, lao gong said, "What do you think?"

I was like Wow! Felt like IMMEDIATE answered prayers. Then I told him about how I felt and he asked me how much I wanted to give. When I told him the amount I had in mind, lao gong stared at me for a moment.

I was like oh no did I go too far?

Then he said, "So little?!"

I was like huh??? I explained that I felt it was unfair for me to ask for too much as that would be unfair to him since our money belongs to both of us and not just me. To make the long story short, the amount lao gong quoted was 5 times what I had in mind. I was quite flabbergasted. In the end we decided to ask my mum to find out how much more they need so that we would be using the money God entrusted us with wisely.

I learnt a big lesson. In the past, there were many occasions when I had preconcieved ideas about lao gong's attitude towards certain issues. As a result, I assumed certain negative reactions from him and reacted in a defensive way and strove to drive home my point to him, in other words to "have my way."

Yesterday was one of "those days". As usual, I had some preconcieved notions about how he would react to the matter at hand. But instead of taking the assertive and defensive stance, I decided to let God take control and trust that if it is right for us to give, God will speak to lao gong. And I know lao gong will obey. So it wasn't really that my character had changed in the sense that I no longer made assumptions. But what changed was the for the first time, in a situation where I had very strong opinions about something, I let God take control. And it not only gave me a new perspective of my lao gong, it also helped to change my character without me having to strive.

After I witnessed for myself how well things turn out when I let God in, I have a lesser urge to judge situations and think that i have to step in and take control. What I'm saying is that sometimes, it's very hard for us to change our character just because God says that such and such attitude is wrong. But when we submit to God and do it out of obedience, He will help mold our character and we very naturally change. Means that instead of working too much on our character, if we focus on building an intimate relationship with Him, our character will just change so naturally because we have seen how He works, when we allow Him to.

Can you imagine what would happen if I had been assertive and defensive? I think this would have happened.

When I told lao gong about the matter, I would immediately put across to him the message that we should contribute and if he doesn't, I'm going to get mad at him. This doesn't give him a chance to evaluate the situation and assess whether we should give. If he agrees to give, it wouldn't be out of him wanting to give, but out of him wanting to placate me.

Lao gong may also feel hurt about why I seem to care so much about my relatives and not consider the fact that it is unfair for me to expect him to give when it's not his own family and he hasn't even seen the relative before (it's a distant relative). He may also respond defensively and think, "Why should we give just because you think so." He would also point out to me that it is wrong for me to try to dominate again. Since I really wanted to help contribute and had already prepared my defense long beforehand, instead of immediately admitting my mistake (for not submitting), I would continue to argue and defend myself, and this probably would have escalated into a big fight.

Now because I gave him space to think and did not pressurise him into doing things my way, lao gong gives willingly and we have grown even closer. I have a better perspective and understanding of my husband and I see how very very wise God is. He had foreseen all this beforehand that's why He says that

Ephesians 5:24
...wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

I am also able to trust in God more, because I've seen how He works in my life, when I allow Him to. Hope my testimony encourages you to let go of all your burdens and cares to God, and allow Him to take control of you. I trust that those who do that will enjoy not just a joyful and fruitful life, but also one that's full of excitement at the discovery of new relavations every day =)