Dearest,

I visited Yean on Sunday for the last time before she flew off to Scotland. As I left her house, we hugged, and she said, "Remember, early August!"

I was slow on the uptake and went, "Huh?" before it clicked and I realised she was again referring to scheduling our wedding during her summer hols.

As I walked out to my car, she called after me, "When you ask God, you must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind, and will not receive what he asks for!" -- quoting James 1:6-7. I thought, amazed, How much faith she has! Even more than I do!

I was so, so blessed by her words. And given new courage to hope and wait again...

Dearest,

Feeling a bit pensive today. Had dinner with Yean (Jin was there too)... Yean is leaving on Friday. I will miss her so.

Out of the blue, Yean said, "When you get married, schedule it for my summer hols, okay? I'll come back and be your bridesmaid." I was so touched. Then she added, "Just don't make me wear pink." I told her she can probably wear any colour she wants, except black!

Talking about our wedding is bittersweet. I've been feeling pangs lately when reading about happy couples...

So we're 88 days out (not that anyone is counting) and full-scale into preparations for the big day. I'm so pumped. The thought of being Justin's wife makes me grin ear to ear, and it's ridiculous, but I'll happily endure it. I keep on thinking that I couldn't be more sure about this, and then we go through a moment when he encourages me, or shows me grace when I'm stressed out, or simply makes me laugh til I have tears coming out of my eyes -- and amazingly, I'm even more convinced that this is everything I wanted and then some. I seriously didn't know it could be like this. I am fully myself, and fully loved.
—Stacey Rich

We took the two of them out for lunch today. When I had a few seconds alone with Brooke, I hugged her and whispered, "Thank you for marrying our son."

I don't know if she realized that she blushed, but she did. Maybe she doesn't know quite how much we adore her, how much we believe that she is the perfect girl for Scott, how grateful we are that they found each other.

"It's gone so fast," she said. "And yet it seems like we've known each other forever. We're very, very happy..."
—Katy Raymond

I know it's cliche and whatever. But the years with Heather have been the best of my life. I feel like I've been shaken and put back on track. It's pretty rare that one gets a second chance in life and rarer still that one can do so without major concessions.

Say we could create what we thought would be our perfect partner. My partner creation would fall short of Heather in so many ways. I've been surprised, warmed and loved like never before in my life. I'm the luckiest man in the world. I don't really care if that sounds trite or cheesy, because at the end of the day, when the house is quiet, I look across the pillows at her face and see the future. I felt that way five years ago and it has only grown since.

When she rests her head against my chest and I put my arms around her, I知 home.
—Jon Armstrong

Dearest,

Last week my counsellors asked me which area is it I find most critical in my life and want to work on first. I told them that I want to learn to be happy with myself, to love & accept myself and not live under a cloud of guilt and failure and self-condemnation any longer.

I feel that this is so important, especially since I'm preparing to meet you... I want to come to you whole -- or as whole as I can possibly be while still remaining a broken and fallible human being. I know I must learn to love myself, or I may never be able to fully accept and believe that you could love me. Heck, I must learn to love myself, or I will never be able to fully accept and believe that God could love me!

It's going to be a process of healing and changing old, flawed perceptions, I know. I'm coming to see that everything in life is a process and a journey. How intensely frustrating -- I want to be able to get 'there', fast! To me, it's always been the destination that's important, not the journey. Now I've gotta rewire my thinking. Sheesh.

But I liked the theme of a friend's wedding this month: "Two hearts, one journey". So maybe I'm starting to embrace the concept, eh? *grin*

Dearest,

Tonight I was re-reading my earliest letters to you, and I think I used to be so much more positive and joyful back then. Lately I've been more pensive... but also, I think, sharing more deeply about my thoughts and feelings.

I also noticed that I've repeated myself in a few of the letters. Well, they were written over a period of time, and I keep forgetting what I have and haven't told you, so, sorry lah, just skim over the recurring bits, will ya? ;)

It strikes me that I'm no longer the same bubbly girl who started off writing these letters to you. It's been more than three years since I wrote the first letter, and so many things have happened, things that have shaped my thinking, my perceptions, my dreams & desires, my fears and doubts. I've changed. I would like to think I've changed for the better, but I'm not entirely sure. I just know that I'm different.

If it weren't for these letters and for my blog, I probably wouldn't even notice the changes. Change is such an insidious thing. It creeps up on us slowly, and we don't realise its subtle influence as it carves away at us day by day. Then one day we wake up and it hits us that, hey, something is very different! How did I get this way?! -- and the cumulative effect of change abruptly becomes very visible to our newly-opened eyes.

Oh well, at least I have not been stagnant, as I had half-feared. So many times during these past few years I've felt caught in a never-ending cycle of sameness and felt like I was doomed to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, that nothing would ever change no matter how hard I tried to improve. I guess this is a good reminder that the baby steps do matter, even if they are almost unnoticeable at any given moment. Perhaps in another one or two years' time I'll look back again and marvel that yes, I have changed for the better, in more ways than I ever believed I would.

I hope so not just for my own sake, but for yours too! Coz you're the one who's going to be living with me, you know :P

Dearest,

At a friend's wedding last year, these words accompanied the video presentation flashing photos from scenes of the bride's life:

I carried a picture of you ever since I was young and believed in fairy tales. I carried a picture of you through all the times love let me down and through all the times I thought that I would never meet you in this life.

I carried a picture of you, not in my pocket but in my heart. I didn't know what you would look like, but I knew what it would feel like to finally know you and be with you, safe and protected and accepted like I'd finally found my home.

I ached inside when I saw those words displayed on the screen, because that's what I've been doing all this while: carrying a picture of you in my heart, not knowing what you'll look like but knowing how I will feel when I can finally know you and be with you.

And I just do not know if it will ever happen.

Some days, yes, I think I may never meet you in this life. It wouldn't be so bad if God would just tell me once and for all that, "No, this is not for you," and then I could stop waiting and hoping and longing. Or if He would tell me, "Yes, your time will come," then I could stop fearing that it may never come, that my hopes are doomed to be futile.

I've lived through much uncertainty this year with regards to my career, and I've learnt to hate the not knowing. I've finally decided what I'm going to do next -- get my Masters, find a lecturing job in one of the colleges -- and the relief, I tell you, is unbelievable. Instead of dealing with constant internal turmoil, I'm now settled and at peace.

When I was wrestling with the teaching thing, whether to go into govt service and teach in high school, I used to wonder if I hadn't met you yet because you were out there (teaching in one of the schools), while I was resisting going into teaching... ergo our paths couldn't cross. I used to wonder if I was not meeting you because I was not in the place where God wanted me to be, because I was being stubborn and difficult and so afraid to step out of my comfort zone and leave all that is familiar and dear to me.

I don't know if this even makes sense to you, or whether it only makes sense to me with my convoluted reasoning. It seems strange to think this way and yet, at the same time, to believe that God can bring you into my life no matter where I am or what I'm doing, that I don't have to go out of my way to look for you because God knows the right time & place for us to meet.

Now that I've decided not to go into govt service but to pursue my Masters and lecture in a college, I still wonder if you will be at my next workplace. I try not to think about it too much or to look out for you, because I don't want to always be focusing on the 'what if's and miss out on living life in the present. But of late it is becoming harder and harder to repel the flashes of fear that say: What if he really never comes? What if he doesn't exist?

I complain to God, "You Yourself said that 'hope deferred maketh the heart sick', so why do You keep deferring my hope?!" ...He hasn't answered me yet. *rolls eyes*

Dearest,

Recently, I was reading about a couple I know who had decided to write their own wedding vows because "the traditional vows were impersonal and boring". To each his own, I guess.

Personally, I would want to say the traditional vows because there's something reassuring and comforting about repeating the familiar words we have heard so many times before. There's something powerful in repeating vows that reverberate through the ages and have been said by so many before us. It reminds me that we are not alone in pledging our troth to each other, and that if they could stay committed and make their marriage work, we too -- with God's help, of course -- will be able to build a joyful, rich, and meaningful marriage.

I'd like to think that, after we're married, whenever we attend a wedding in future and hear the bride & bridegroom recite their vows, in our heart we'll renew the vows we've made to each other as we silently recite the familiar words along with the bridal couple.

Anyway, I can't think of any other better way to pledge my life to you than to promise to love, honour and cherish you from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. That really encompasses everything anyone could ever think of, I'm sure.

Funnily enough, I've never been big on tradition, and often like to do things in my own original way; but this is one of the times when I actually want to be like everybody else, and do things the conventional way. (Gasp!) I really hope you'll feel the same, coz otherwise I forsee some FIREWORKS leading up to the wedding!!! LOL

Dearest,

Sometimes I feel that the people who have found someone to love -- someone who loves them in return -- don't appreciate the miracle & great blessing they have been given. So many times, when asked when the 'big day' will be, I've heard them say, "Oh, a long way off. I don't want to get married till I'm 30," or some other such thing.

"There's no hurry," another person said.

It's so unfair that here I am, yearning to be your wife, but for some reason unable to meet you yet -- and there they are, already with the person they believe is their 'other half', yet not evincing any desire to step into holy matrimony. It makes me want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them, hard.

Don't they realise how incredible and wonderful and rare it is to have found this person and to be able to be with him or her?!?

I don't advocate rushing into marriage, but if a couple has been together for more than two years, their careers are stable, and they are sure about each other being the one they each want to spend the rest of their lives with... what are they waiting for? Why keep putting it off?

Life is so short and unpredictable; I could get into a car accident on the highway tomorrow, and be gone, just like that. Finding the right person to marry is already so hard, and to add to that, we don't know how much time we'll have with our partners -- God willing, it'll be many long & fruitful years, enough time to raise children together, dance at their weddings, and cradle grandchildren in our arms -- but there's no guarantee. I feel we should grab hold of the blessings we've been given and make the most of them.

Because blessings are unpredictable too. They're something God, in His love, chooses to give, and they only come according to His timing. After waiting so long for God's timing to be ripe in the matter of you & I, I realise how precious it is to have found someone to love, who loves me in return. I hope that when we finally meet and get together, I'll never take for granted the fact that I have you. That I'll always treasure you and thank God for you.

And yes -- let's not wait too long to get married!!!