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.

A few weeks ago I read on her blog that the words had been taken from a greeting card she had bought long before she'd ever met the man who would become her husband. I suppose it's kinda like how I'm writing letters to you when I haven't met you yet. Don't know whether to sigh or smile...

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*