Struggling...

House hunting is really hard. Still can't find anything that we both like in the price range we're looking for... not much we can do except to pray and wait I guess...

The only new thing we did was perhaps cooking sukiyaki for the first time. With all fresh ingredients... well, the meat isn't that fresh, it's been in the freezer for a while... we bought it on sale thinking that it's for shabu... anyway, as not fresh as they are, our sukiyaki still tasted pretty good! It's really amazing how the Japanese figured out how to cut beef for shabu... and for sukiyaki differently. Sukiyaki meat really isn't ideal for shabu... we know, cause we tried. And when prepared as sukiyaki, then everything's cool! I still don't quite understand why, but whatever, just enjoy the food! ;) Wife also gained some weight because of the sukiyaki eventhough she's sick with cold. ;)

We also saw couple of interesting documentaries over Netflix... One of them was about Les Paul, a great guitar player and the inventor electric guitar and mulit-track recording. Guy is 90 years old and can still play, wow. A lot of what Jacob is doing right now owe a lot to this guy too.... of course today, everything is digital, Les was living in analogue days...

And interstingly Les has a wife who's a singer... the Les isn't afraid of letting her being the star... their partnership was wonderful, almost perfect! But then again, they still end up seperated after all those years...

What can make a marriage work? Surely only the kind with the love that never fails... with the kind of love that's from God can truly work out. As Pastor Jim continued on with his 'worship series'..., yeah, if we don't live for God, whatever should we live for? Everything in this world is temporary, but only God's love endures forever!

Today's read was about Jacob still... about how he reconciled with his uncle and then eventually Jacob. Jacob for sure did some bad things... and other people in that story also have done some bad things too, but once again, God has demonstrated how He can use those bad things to turn things around and let them benefit from it. But the key is, the promise of 'benefit' is reserved only for those who love God. We have to cling to God as Jacob did. Isreal means "struggles with God". We'll all have our different struggles with God, God wants us to win... to be more than conquerors. Of course God doesn't want us to conquer Him, but God wants us to conquer our oldselves. Can I overcome my old self? I dunno. However, if I cling to God as Jacob did, of course the answer will be 'YES'!!! May someday God calls me 'Israel' too! ;)

(Gen 31-33 )