He Is

Old notes taken mostly from my personal time with God. We're moving house again, so, I guess we're back to being, literally, pilgrims on the Rough Roads of Planet Earth. (Photo taken on a road to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, North Auckland, NZ, Dec 2009.)

Friday, November 4, 2011

An Email to my Son

Dated 19th Sept 2011

Photobucket
Washington, DC skyline, Sept. 2007.

Lately, I wrote my son an email and I have totally forgotten about it until I got his reply yesterday. I wrote it even weeks before his last visit to us here, but we probably didn't even have time to talk that much to be able to talk about that email. In fact, I think he spent most of his meals with friends outside rather than with us when he was here? He has become so busy since his college days that sometimes my husband gets frustrated that he doesn't reply to emails. Actually, he does, but he takes time. I just want to blog this particular email I sent him because I think it is important and would be meaningful, at least to me, later on in life. Of course, the other reason I want to blog this email is because he replied positively to it. Well, actually, this is not really the whole email, just an excerpt of it:

(Dated Aug. 14, 2011)

I hope and pray you are enjoying your job and life in DC in general.

Keep your room / house clean and learn to make home-cooked healthy

meals. Take care of your health. Keeping your house clean is also good

exercise and it keeps the dust, mites and cockroaches away, making

your immediate environment healthy as well. You can never run away

from the basic skills of cooking, laundry and keeping house clean for

the rest of your life, and you will make a better person and also a

better father and husband later on in life by acquiring these basic

skills soonest. Being a good person yourself is the first step in

having a happy family life and you have very little time left to

prepare for that. Just some practical advice from your mom.



I also hope you give yourself and ____ more time to really know each

other, and to mature, before you decide on settling down. I still hope

you would wait until you are over 25 years old. Marriage is a

life-time thing, don't take it lightly. It takes at least two years in

a relationship to really get to know a person, and you also need time

to let yourself mature. When I was your age I wished I had older

people to advice me or at least talk with, concerning these things.

But I didn't. My own parents were too far away and didn't really care

to give me practical advice. I don't want you to be in the same

situation. As I have told you in the past, marriage can be a life-time

of bliss or a life-time of misery. It's either way. And God has very

strong words regarding marriage: "I hate divorce." So, don't take it

lightly. Marriage is mostly loving expressed in hard work. So, if you

are not willing to work hard, and I mean, physical hard work, it will

be very difficult to make it work. And God's command is first to the

husband: "Husbands, love your wives." And then second only to the

wife: "Wives, submit to your husbands." The initiative comes from the

husband. You have to love your wife first, then she submits, and the

more you love her, the more she submits. And the more she submits the

more you will love her. But if there is no initiation of gestures of

love, the marriage comes to a stand still and breaks down. You have to

keep that in mind. As head of the family, just as Christ is head of

the church, you have to love first and the love cycle starts and keeps

going. That's why the Bible says, "We love because He first loved us."

We can't love others without having experienced the love of God. And

just as Jesus laid down his life for the church, the husband is

supposed to lay down his life for his wife. It's a tall order. So, you

would want to make sure the woman you will lay your life down for is

really worth it. Pray for God to guide you, that you would marry the

right partner. "Laying down your life" doesn't necessarily mean

physical death, but rather, sacrificing in myriad ways for your wife,

and later on, your children. Being married and having a family, as I

said, is mostly loving, expressed in hard work. So, think before you

leap, and more importantly, prepare before you leap. Make sure you can

take the hard work part of it, too, not just the bliss. That's why I

encourage you to practice the basic life skills while you are still

single so that it's second to your nature already when you enter into

marriage. That makes the adjustment period - which makes or breaks a

marriage - so much easier.



You wonder why I'm writing you these things. Well, this could be a tad

too late but still, not as late as one or two years from now. Life is

not just about career and hobbies. Eventually, everyone has to get

real and face the crunch of marriage and family. Make use of what

little time you have left to prepare for that. Don't take the

essentials for granted. They should be second-nature to you by now,

just like brushing teeth. :)



love, mom


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The Many Versions of Love Stories 1. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, kiss and marry. They live happily ever after. 2. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, kiss and marry. The marriage sours, they part, and live happily ever after. 3. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, kiss and marry. Then boy finds out it's more fun to be girl... or girl finds out it's more fun to be boy, they part, change sexes and live happily ever after. 4.Finally, boy or girl meets God. It's love at first sight... The roads went rough, the tides rose high, the strong winds blew and the quake shook the ground... but they truly live happily ever after, forever and ever. 5. Try God's love... it's always happy forever after, and the story never ends. :-D