83. 10th Anniversary

This coming Thursday, Jennifer and I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of our marriage. I used to think “time flies” was a cliche reserved for older folks but as of now I seriously feel this is true. I still feel like I’m in my 20s but here I am almost reaching 40s and our marriage is already 10 years old.

As I look back our marriage, there were some regrets. One of them is not going out enough, not exploring enough places before we had kids. Only if we learned the importance of spending money on experience, not stuff, we would’ve definitely explored more places.

But we have no regret of serving God together. Most of our vacations in the early years of our marriage went to ministry-related trips and events. While doing that, we’ve met amazing people and had a chance to impact and influence many people.

When we had our two kids, our marriage dynamic completely shifted. It is very natural that both parents focus more on their kids during this period and we weren’t the exception. We became busy taking care of our kids and without knowing we were sacrificing the time need to build our marriage at the expense of our kids. This continued until I realized that the best parenting is happily married parents. I felt the need to reset the priorities again.

So I’ve set two goals for our family: First is for us to enjoy each other’s presence even when our kids grow up and leave home. Second is for our kids to love spending time with us even after they had moved out when they have the choice not to.

To fulfill the first goal, we’ve started having regular time alone without kids. We have date night every week (though sometimes we fail) and we also have a quick one-night getaway every anniversary. Since this one is pretty special, we will be going on a 5 days trip (Wed-Sun). We will be staying in Mexico, Cancun which has been one of my wife’s bucket lists for a while. I believe that leaders are only as strong as their marriage. Please pray for us to have a safe trip and honest but life-giving conversations during this trip. In case you are wondering, our kids will be well cared for by my parents ^^