Identity Crisis

I LOVE MARRIAGE LIFE!

HA!

I mean despite the fights, the hectic schedules we both had or whose turn to take the dog out's conversation, I actually love marriage life. I love the companionship and friendship that my husband and I have the most, even though my husband is a "non talker" kinda guy, but he is cool. I cannot stand a very talkative man anyway, it is too annoying for me. 

I know I am too young to give marriage advice or to even talk about how to make your marriage work and I am not here for any of that, because I believe that everyone's marriage life is different.

I JUST WANNA TALK!

First years of my marriage I found myself lost, because my husband is the only man that I've dated who is younger than me (gasp) and we've only dated for one year (with him being on deployment). It was a fast, fun and crazy love. So, when we got married, it was actually our real date. We found things that surprised us in a good and bad way, we sees things differently and there are questions of "Am I doing the right thing" or "What was I thinking" moments.

I also find an identity crisis! HELP!

OK, my husband is a white man, I am Asian. We have different background of cultures, foods, habit, family upbringing, etc. The great thing is that my husband is in the military, which means he LOVES to learn about other culture, eat different foods (he eats more spicy/hot foods than me and I am Manadonese, we eat extremely spicy/hot foods), eager to visit different places, longing to live in a different places - which is why we move a lot and loving it!. I mean, we are young, we should move around and enjoy life to the fullest. 

But, I found myself doing things that I hate, but I do it anyway to make my husband happy. At least that's what I thought, but then I realized that there are so many things that my husband introduced to me that I used to think I hate it. I guess he brings out the potential, the goodness out of me. I do not  like trying something new (unless it is food lol), my husband is adventurous. I hate hikes, due to its intense hills, sunburn and bugs. But, guess what? I am loving it now. I hate hardcore music and one day my husband took me to "Sleeping Giant" concert and I love it now. I still do not like extreme roller coaster, no matter how much my husband loves it. I still do not wanna touch a snake, no matter what my husband think of a snake. I still hate cherries, my husband loves it (I do love cherry fruit, I do not like them on my drink/cake). I learn some "geeky" stuff, since my husband is one of them, I love some, understand some, hate some, don't understand a lot. LOL!

My point is that in the beginning of our marriage, I am still trying to adjust the two worlds. I had to brave myself up to try the things that is foreign for me or weird or sounds discomfort. There are things that I finally love, there things that I still hate. You don't have to like all of your husband's hobbies, habits or friends lol, but you learned to let go, compromised, acceptance, sacrifice and get your own bargain..uh huh ladies..you do A for him, which means he will do B for you. It works both ways to be happy ;)

So, remember, just because you are in a relationship, it does not mean you have to be boring. What I meant by "boring" is that you do not wanna do something new because you had one bad experience or because of your insecurity. Try it first, if you do not like it then tell him/her, but you might be surprised of your new found love. 

Do not do it in the name of "trying to fit in" or to look/sound cool on Facebook! Do it because you want to try it. Do it because you like the challenge. Do it because you want to find out what you have been missed all this time. Do it because you are curious!.

On the other hand, do not lose your identity either. God creates us unique in our own way, you do not have to be someone else to make him/her happy. Don't do something just because you want them to be happy and losing yourself in the process. Yes, we must sacrifice a lot of things in a relationship, but it does not mean you "killed" yourself. Stay true to who you are as a person and find what truly makes you happy. 

There are things that we do that I hate, there are things that he hates, but along the way, we started to find out what works-what does not work, what needs time, how we do it, how we say it/introduce it to our spouse, when we do it and how to understand that sometimes not everything that we love would works for the other person. Instead of pushing him to love your hobby that he hates, why not doing things that you both love?.

Sacrifice is needed but remember of who you are as person. Do not lose your identity! Be happy, be proud and celebrate yourself. On the other hand, open up and live a little..try new things, even things that you are afraid of or hate, you might love it, you might not, but hey..you have tried!

Do not limit yourself or your family! A lot of kids do not try new things because the parents are "boring" , doing the same thing over and over again. You might not like it, but your spouse might like it and your kids might love it too, but they will never know it because you might limit the fun meters. Sometimes you just need to let go and not being too afraid of everything. If you are a control freak, like myself, then it is time to learn that you can't control everything. If they (spouse/kids) wanna do something, let them try it and if you wanna do something new, do it! :)

-Live Life To The Fullest-

Me and my man on my B'day!

xoxo,

Lindsay

Guard Your Heart

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Why is it that God must remind us to guard our heart? I think it is because the heart is the soul, the center and the essential part of our well being as a human. A heart is the most important organ in our body, without it, there is no life.

When our heart is broken, there is no more happiness. It drained our spirit to the last drop, it is like we are alive but dead on the inside. This is why we must guard our heart to protect our own self, to prevent the death of the soul while the body is still alive. It will affect the body over time, but it is not the life anyone would want to live.

How do we guard the heart?

"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7)

There are a lot of things in life that still remain a mystery for me, such as how certain things falls into place the way they are and it makes the world a better place, and there are certain things that I do not get on justice, fairness and things beyond my own brain could process. Scientists had been a great help for average people like me to understand why things are the way they are now, how it works, and the purposes of them all. But, as genius as any scientist might get, there are still a lot of things that even the smartest man on earth could not answer, still in doubt or still doing their own research.

The limitation of our brain, body and soul on a lot of things under earth, makes us feel powerless (sometimes) and some other times, we should be thankful that we are not god and have to deal with all this craziness and needs around the world and beyond. God must be a brilliant inventor, scientist, engineer, etc, among other things that He is. This is why this verse in Philippians 4:7 is so powerful for our own sake. God knows that we will never be able to understand everything under heaven. Heck, we do not even understand why certain thing happen to us or what our own brain look like, or what the inside of our eyes look like, LOL. If we don't even know what our own body look like on the inside, how could we ever be able to understand other things that is not ours?. 

So, please keep this verse in mind, that God's peace will lead, transform, and guard our hearts beyond our own ability and understanding to do so ourselves.

Why do we need to guard the heart?

There are a lot of broken hearts in this earth and it is enslaved our lives like no other. The broken hearts that caused by someone they trust, love, respect and they crossed the line, broke the hearts into pieces. There are a lot of children who cry every night because of what their parents are doing to them, physically-verbally-mentally abuse. There are a lot of spouses who are dealing with their own nightmares of being married to a monster and they could not find a way out, their hearts are broken, their commitment has turned into hell. There are a lot of women who still hold some grudges over some cheating scene that happened years ago, but it was so deep in their heart, it leaves scars, bleeding and that bleeding heart has become a wall for them to move on and learn to live a loving life again. There are a lot of men who still think that their fathers are responsible for their crappy lives at this present life, and the sad story around the world continues like a never ending chain. 

We live in a broken world!

Once someone violated us, that tend to leave a mark or a scar in our hearts. Some people get over it sooner than others, some takes time, some takes some encouragement and many are still trapped in their own misery. The bleeding hearts are the hardest case of any hearts disease, because it is craved on their brain, soul and it transform their life, some even let it define themselves as a human being. This is why we MUST guard our heart from being broken.

What can we do?

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The Armor of God

 ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

(Ephesians 6:10-17)

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"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." 

(Proverbs 3:5). 

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That is one of my favorite verse, because I know without God's wisdom, counsel and lead, I will not be able to know which one is good for me and which one is bad for me. 

So, the key is to depend on God, completely. Understand what He thinks is good for us through his word in the Bible. Pray and seek counsel from wise people that will tell you what you need to do or choose. People that will tell you what you need to hear not what you want to hear.

BUT, as much as we love God and His words, as much as we love our parents or any wise people in our lives for their golden advice, at the end of the day, it is us who make the final decision. This is the crucial part : you will be the decision maker and the one who will also live the life based on your own decision, so make sure you understand what you put yourself into before you make any rush decision. 

Remember that not everything is what it seemed like. God sees heart when we see their appearance, which could lead us to make stupid mistake because we have been fooled by our own desire, lust and selfishness. Sometimes, we do not know how big of an impact our decision is all about until it is over in a very bad way and everyone that we love is involving in our brokenness.

Here is a common example, the divorce parents are often have suffering children. The suffering children will have trouble identifying love and trust because they do not have that at home. Their love life often suffer because they are too afraid to go through the same path their parents had chosen. Some of them see sex as something to satisfy their own needs and that is all in that. No wonder, we live in a broken world, it is a chain reaction from one stupid decision to another, impact A to B to Z, then their legacy moves on.

Blaming the "broken home" might not always be the case, because at the end of the day, it is an individual case. I am a child of a divorce parents and so did my mom, but when I got married, I understand that things are not as easy as it looked like. Blaming others for our own decision is sad, childish and bad. Take courage and be responsible of your own choice!

To illustrate the broken heart, I think this song by Christina Perri will do it lol. I love her stuff and yes some of her songs are very sad, but very true in life as well. Jar of heart speaks to me and it is sadly a common everyday love stories around the world lol. But hey, trust me, broken heart is not fun, it is incredibly hard to deal and then try to fix a broken heart. So it is better to prevent it from happening. Anyway, here you go, listen to this song. It is a result of a broken heart.

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If you are currently living and dying because someone broke your heart, may it be your parents, siblings, family, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, spouses, priests, boss/coworkers, ex husband/wife, children, etc. Please understand that your life is NOT over yet. It is better to let those jerks go from your heart because they do not deserve your best in the future. The process of letting go and letting God deal with that is not an easy process but it will do wonders for your own good, healing and future. Ask God to not only heal your heart but also to replace it with a brand new heart. Give him the broken pieces and let Him repair it.

Remember that it is never too late to end a relationship that brings nothing to you but tears of sadness, abusive languages that makes you feel bad about yourself and any other form of abuse does not worth your time. Leave him or her!

Before you make any decision, really think about it. Many times, God already speaks to you inside your inner soul. There is a voice that keep reminding you that it is not right. You might hear some words of advice from other people, but like I said, at the end of the day, you will make the decision. Think clearly, live your life, deal with the consequences. Stop playing the blaming games, self pity, misery loves company, and the worst of them all is the VICTIM game.

Get up, get out and get help! You are stronger than you think and you deserve more in life. Cry for a night or two, throw everything that will remind you of that person, avoid the same path you picked, learn from mistake, regret is sometimes needed in order for us to not making the same mistake twice because it hurts badly. Live your drama free life. Don't you want that? :)

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
    and saves the crushed in spirit."

(Psalm 34:18)

Love and prayers,

xoxo,

Lindsay

BE YOURSELF

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We heard this saying "JUST BE YOURSELF" over and over again. From elderly to kids saying this statement to each other with a proud smile and hope for a better future.

My question is "Is it true?"

To be honest, there will always be someone or something who inspired us to be who we are today. May it be a family member, friends, public figure, martyrs, celebrity or even a stranger on the street. There is always another ideas, style, fashion sense, thoughts that inspired us to follow their footsteps, be like them, or at least trying to be like them.

So, is the statement "BE YOURSELF" really works the way it is or is it the end of our journey to finally figure out what we want, who we are and what we want others to see us (with the help of other people that we admire in some sense.) So, be yourself is a self discovery or is it there from the beginning and work its way up to who we are as a person today.

For me, be yourself slogan could make someone walking to a better self or the other way around. See, it is important to be yourself in a sense of do what you think is right for you, good for you without making other people suffer (even though through the process some people will or might get hurt).

What I meant is that you can be what you want yourself to be, but what are the boundaries? Law, morality, religion, limitation? We will never be able to extend our "be yourself" to the extent. Why? because we are not alone in this world. Even if A want to go around the world naked, society wont allow that, you know what I mean?

There is always someone or something who inspired us or limit us or slow us down to be the SELF that we want us to be.

Fashion, hmmm ladies, how many of you don't really enjoy walking in high heels but do that anyway in the name of trend, fashionable and makes you feel sexier or taller? LOL.

Men, how many of you wished you could grow your beard and don't have to shower all day? many. But hey the wife/gf wont allow that.

Children, how many of you don't wanna go to school and just wanna play that video games all day long and be the mighty king who killed the dragon? after all, you love yourself and wanna be yourself, right? You get my point :)

Here is my own opinion. "BE YOURSELF" is a very positive statement to build your confidence, to boost your dream, to make you feel better about yourself, to make you let go of your failure. BE YOURSELF could be dangerous as well when used to glorify yourself in a destructive way. There is a boundary in loving yourself. You have to take care of yourself as a part of being true to yourself and love yourself therefore you become who you are at your best. Now, that is be yourself to me!

Enjoy God's gift to you : LIFE. 

You are all you've got, now take good care of it and loving the result. Trying to be your best is the key of success in "Be Yourself" campaign. You don't have to be like someone else to be your best. You can have someone as your inspiration, but she or he is not you. Be creative with what you have.

Be yourself is all about trying to do the best you can. When you do your best and you still don't see the result..then TRY AGAIN. But, appreciate yourself for trying and do not try to measure it with someone else's success and timing. We have our own ideas, timing, creativity and way to make it happen.

Be proud of who you are, be yourself is about trying to extend all the qualities that is in you and use it for a better purpose in life. When you hate yourself for not being as "beautiful", or as "rich" or as whatever as others, you are abusing yourself.

The older you get, the wiser you should be and the more you understand what you want in life. Go get it without standing behind someone else's shadow. Let them be who they are and let you be yourself doing things you love and are good at and be happy!

Give yourself a tap on the back now..good job!

xoxo

Lindsay

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