I'm starting to feel the thorns in the bed of roses. I am not complaining; in fact, I am grateful that this comes in early. We need to cross this if we want to bring our relationship to the next level.

I visited her church today. Though the time was short, SK's mentor, Doris, prayed for us after SK introduced me. Then we met her friends - Elaine, Jo and MS - for lunch. However, deeply affected by what happened yesterday, I wasn't in a sociable mood, thereby leaving a very bad first impression. My moods lightened up a bit during lunch, but it wasn't enough to revert me to my normal self... :(

While we are not in the resolve-conflicts stage, our emotions are traversing the emotion spectrum wildly these days. SK told me that she was switching between happiness, exasperation, and indifference when we went out. Whereas I am switching my feelings for her between no-holds-barred and guard-my-heart modes. I know I am emotionally needy, and for that matter, I actually hate that part of me; when I least want it to come out, my emotional beast comes and makes everyone unhappy.

SK has been extremely patient with me. She has endured, and still is, parts of me that are under-developed. She cares enough for me to endure those parts, and not give up trying to make our relationship work. Though she recognizes our character differences, she believes that our relationship will work out if it is God-intended. Personally, she wants our relationship to work out too. However, she is choosing the harder way in handling our relationship; she wants to seriously think through whether she can accept the imperfect me for the rest of her life¹. She wants to be sure that she can accept my idiosyncrasies. She says she would rather be tired going through this thinking process now than to be tired for the rest of her life regretting for not considering carefully.

There are so many parts of me which are so unlovable, yet SK is still actively seeking God on our relationship, and is willing to try accepting me. I have to grow up from the immature just-do-what-I-want me. I could only draw strength from God to change. Though she shouldn't be my reason for changing myself, I would still very much want to change myself so that she doesn't have to see the worst part of me anymore. She is the most important person to me now...

¹ Whereas for me, I'm choosing the simpler and idealistic "accept her as who she is unconditionally" way.