My Marriage Testimonial

I've been married to Andy for 10 years. On the left, it is the photo taken during our 10 anniversary recently.

Andy is a very wonderful husband, he always gives in to me despite sometimes i am very unreasonable and wilful. He loves me with all his heart though he can't express himself very well. Our marriage is not a bed of roses, gone through a very hard time during the first 2 yrs to adapt to the marriage life, and from the 3rd year onwards, our relationship was not very good due to my long working hours, and part-time degree course. on the 6th year of marriage, divorce began to come to my mind because of lots of conflicts and disagreements. It's also in that year, i came back to our Lord, Jesus Christ. During that period, i suffered minor depression which affected my life and my job. but, God is a good God. Despite of all that i was going through, He brought a lot of cell group friends into my life, and i got a lot of support from the cell group members. Andy began to see the joy in me, and started to follow me to church, and in end 2003, he received Christ as his savior. Praise the Lord!

Our marriage did not get better after that, partly because we are both attending different church services and cell group meetings. We were like 2 single married couples who live our life individually. As Christians, we are not supposed to go for divorce as marriage is a convenent, but deep in my heart, i struggled because i felt that Andy is not the husband that i wanted. My thinking over the years has been changing so much, and i strongly felt that Andy was not the one for me, and it is better to end our marriage earlier to continue suffered with each other. But, everytime, when i prayed, God always gave me the same word, "Today, if you hear my voice, do not hardened yr heart". May times, i wanted to give up as i felt it is really unbearable to continue the relationship.

In Sep 2004, God let both of us baptised on the same day, and because of God's calling, i decided to go for my water baptism. At that time, i did not know the purpose behind, but i understood that this is God's plan for me to restore my marriage. From the water baptism, i got to know his cell group friends, and i felt that his cell group friends have a better relationship with him than me. This is a big blow for me but it also served as a red alert for me.

I continued to seek God for an answer but i guessed the timing was not right yet, thus, God did not reveal His plans to me. However, I saw God's love to me through Andy when he gave me a valentine's present, but i threw it on the floor, and the word "Love' on the gift was cracked. Andy did not say a word, but picked it up to patch up the cracked wordings. i saw God's grace through him and decided to change.

We tried very hard to keep up our relationship, and i even changed to Chinese church service and cell group meetings in order to draw closer to him. However, as a human being, i still have negative thoughts in times that he is not the perfect one for me. Generally, our education background and thinking are very different. i'm a person who plans a lot and think a lot, but he is the easy go lucky guy, and his thoughts are very naive and simple. still struggled till a point recently that i told him straight on the face that if not for God, i would definitely divorced him. He wept that night.

The next day, while i was watching the sermon online on the topic, " the power of brokenness", i felt that God spoke direct to my heart that i'm a person with the hard shell, full of pride, proud, self-centred, not easy to get along. It's not easy to swallow the comments from God, and i cried the whole night. I always thought myself as an understanding person, a kind person.

The next morning, i apologised to Andy about what God commented about me, and how God told me the good points of him, we wept together so hard and so loud that i felt that my hard shell was being broken... i know that it's not complete yet, but i thank God for the initial hard shell to be broken, which i believe God will take away the whole hard shell that i've got, and touch me completely.

now, i understand this verse, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". All the while, i desired God to speak to my heart, because i know that for a proud person like me, i only listen to what He says, and convinced by what He said. Thus, when He commented, i break down completely because i always have the fear of the Lord.

I pray that God will continue to change me to a better person, be a God's person, and to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.