The Paradox of Forever and the Leadership Hidden in Love
The Promise That Felt Eternal
29 October 2025. Wednesday night. 11.30 p.m.
The house is alive again. Toys on the floor, faint laughter in the kids room, a heartbeat of home I didn’t know I missed until I left it. 3 days away, and I had forgotten how noisy love can sound.
Walking Loki under the moonlight, I missed the silence of long drives alone, the stillness of an Airbnb room where I could hear my own thoughts. Yet that same silence now felt empty. I missed the voices that interrupted it. The chaos that reminded me I was still needed.
On the way back from Muar, Wenny sat beside me, scrolling for music. She found Henry Lau (헨리)’s version of A Thousand Years originally by Christina Perri. The song that once ruled weddings and hearts. She smiled as it played, hoping I would listen not just to the melody but to her.
The song has travelled through time. Released in 2011, it has now been played more than 2 billion times on Spotify, soundtracking over 40 million wedding videos worldwide. When it first came out, brides were 26 on average. 14 years later, many of those same couples are now in their 40s, rediscovering the same song through the lens of endurance instead of infatuation.
14 years ago, this song was my sister’s wedding anthem. I was 25, single, and watching love from the outside. “Heart beats fast, colours and promises”. It was the sound of forever. Now, after a decade of marriage and 4 children, I hear the same words differently. The lyrics didn’t change. I did.
Back then, A Thousand Years was a fairytale. Today, it is scripture for survival.
When Forever Meets Reality
I remember my sister’s wedding like a film that refuses to fade. The glow of candles. The trembling of vows. The song swelling at the perfect moment. For a while, time did freeze. The illusion that love could stay untouched.
A few years later, I was the one saying those words, believing forever would come as easily as that melody. But reality begins when the music fades.
Marriage didn’t fail me. It revealed me.
The man who once wanted to be a good son, good husband, and good father discovered that being all three at once meant breaking in three directions.
When choices are between right and wrong, the path is clear. When they are between right and right, you bleed quietly in the middle.
When I tried to honour my parents, I hurt my wife. When I protected my wife, I disappointed my parents. When I devoted myself to work, I missed moments with my children. When I tried to be everything, I became half of myself.
Leadership once looked like strength. Marriage taught me it begins with surrender.
I used to teach my son about trade-offs using RM10 at a convenience store. “You can buy anything,” I’d say, “but not everything.” He’d wander the aisles, torn between chocolate, toy cars, and snacks. Eventually he’d pick something, only to regret it later.
That’s when I told him, “Not everything that feels good lasts long. The same price, different value.”
Only years later did I realise I was talking to myself.
The brain’s “honeymoon chemistry,” filled with dopamine, fades after roughly 18 months. What comes next is the oxytocin stage, the real bond that carries long-term marriages through hardship. What feels less exciting becomes more meaningful. The rush fades so that roots can grow.
Life is a currency, and love is the trade-off. Every yes requires a thousand quiet no’s.
Redefining Courage and Covenant
“I have died every day waiting for you.”
In my 20s, I thought it meant longing.
In my 40s, I know it means dying to self.
The lyric “One step closer” once felt romantic. Now it feels like warfare. Because in marriage, one step closer is victory. One step further can be loss.
“Darling, don’t be afraid. I have loved you for a thousand years”. I used to imagine the darling as a woman afraid of being left. Now I see a husband telling his wife: Don’t be afraid. I am learning to love you again, even when it’s hard to love myself.
Before, love was attraction. Now, love is courage. The courage to stay when pride says leave.
Biblically, this truth redefined me: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
“Gave Himself up” includes pride, opinions, and entitlement. It means dying not once at the altar, but daily at the dinner table.
That’s what I missed as a young man watching my sister’s wedding. That love’s glow eventually becomes love’s grind, and that grind becomes the fire that refines you.
The Gottman Institute found that lasting couples maintain a 5-to-1 ratio of positive to negative interactions during conflict. For every harsh word, there must be 5 gestures of repair or humour. That is not coincidence; it is discipline.
Courage isn’t loud. It’s quiet enough to listen.
Leadership isn’t commanding. It’s kneeling.
Forever isn’t guaranteed. It’s renewed.
Marriage became my leadership school. Every fight tested empathy. Every silence tested patience. Every act of forgiveness tested humility.
For every leadership began begins at home. Every great leader must first learn to lead where no one applauds.
The Legacy of a Thousand Years
After 10 years and 4 children, I finally understand why A Thousand Years still moves me.
Time stands still, beauty in all she is. Before, beauty meant appearance. Now it means endurance. The beauty of a woman who stayed. Who carried children through sleepless nights. Who forgave when I didn’t deserve it.
I will not let anything take away what’s standing in front of me. Because what stands in front of me is more than a marriage. It is the first congregation I was ever called to lead.
Marriage, I’ve learned, is ministry disguised as daily life. It humbles you before it blesses you. It sanctifies you more than it satisfies you.
If you can learn to love through misunderstanding, you can lead through chaos.
If you can say “sorry” first at home, you can make peace anywhere else.
Every great revival starts with one household learning to forgive.
That is why the greatest form of leadership is still love. And the greatest test of love is still patience.
Harvard’s longest-running human development study found the same conclusion: after 75 years, the key to happiness and longevity was not wealth, fame, or achievement. It was love and the ability to sustain it.
I now tell younger leaders: Don’t rush to build an empire if your home is in ruins. The first person you need to lead well is the one who shares your silence.
So when I hear the song again, I no longer think of weddings or promises. I think of practice. The daily practice of choosing one step closer, one more act of patience, one more quiet death to self.
Forever is not built in a vow. It is built in repetition.
Love doesn’t stay alive because it’s perfect. It stays alive because it keeps forgiving.
The Reverse That Redefines It All
The death of love and leadership is the same:
protecting ourselves from pain instead of people from harm.
Because love, like leadership, was never meant to be safe.
It was meant to be sacrificial.
Every “thousand years” begins when we stop building walls
and start becoming shelter for others.
Legacy Continuity: Passing the Flame
When my children grow up and hear this song, I hope they don’t just remember their parents’ story. I hope they hear the lesson behind it. That love matures from emotion into covenant, and covenant matures into character.
And one day, when they walk through their own storms, I hope they’ll remember this truth. That real forever begins not with feeling right, but with choosing right again.
That’s how a thousand years become a legacy.
