To Have and To Hold

A year ago on this same day, hubby and I made a lifelong promise and committment to each other... for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish (to obey in my case), until death do us part or our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

By God's grace, it has been a year of knowing each other better amidst all the ups and downs that we experienced in life. It felt like we have married for a longer time than one year... To celebrate the occasion, I cooked a simple sumptuous candlelight dinner for the evening. We figured that we would save the money dining out and have a simple but nice fare at home and since I do not work Mondays, it worked out well for me.

Menu: crackers with pink salmon cheese, doritos with beet root dip, creamy mushroom soup with toasted lebanese bread, flat mushroom with cheese, pan-fried black angus beef steak.
Dessert: wedding cake frozen from last year

The highlight was the black angus beef that we bought from the Brisbane markets 2 weeks ago. It was such a bargain, 2 pieces of quality beef 730g in total for under A$14. If we had gone fine dining it would have cost us about A$30 each to have the same cut of meat. I had fun preparing the meals and we ended up using 2x the amount of crockery and cutlery we normally would have used because I tried to create that restaurant feel - changing crockery and cutlery for every course. Hubby did all the washing up thereafter :p

We shared about the best things that happened in the past year of marriage. We are really thankful for the opportunity to attend a marriage enrichment retreat 5 months into our marriage. Much of our marriage grew in the past 6-7 months having gone through the retreat. I wondered how our marriage would have been like if we did not attend the retreat. Other best things in the past year include our cooking stints together and the times when we make up and forgive each other after a conflict or disagreement.

We spent some time praying before we had dinner... gave thanks for the past year, gave thanks for each other, thankful for growing in love and prayed that we will continue to grow, prayed for our family in Singapore... I thought it was a really humbling, simple and enjoyable night :)

Lord, we pray that You continue to teach us to love sacrificially and seeking to help each other grow in our godliness. Amen.