Love Dare - Love is Not Rude

I've been on this dare for quite awhile now.  This seems to be the hardest to date for me which is kinda sad considering it is only Day 5!  But the truth of it is that I'm scared - I'm scared to carry out this dare, but determined not to skip over it.  So here I am stuck on Day 5. 

Why am I scared?  Well, here is a little excerpt from the Day 5 dare:

King Solomon said it well - "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife" - Proverbs 25:24. Are you unpleasant to be around in your own home? Do you even realize how unpleasant you can be to live with? Test yourself with these questions (be brutally honest):

• How does your spouse feel about the way you speak and act around them?
• How does your behavior affect your mate's sense of worth and self-esteem?
• Would your husband say you're a blessing, or that you're condescending and embarrassing?

Now, I'm under no illusions as to whether or not I need to improve in this area. I am by no means sitting here reading this thinking "Oh yeah, my husband needs to work on these things!"  Sure, he does but this is about changing me so I love him the way the Lord intended.  It's focus is not on changing him.  And I know that I've failed here.

So here I sit, praying for the courage to step up and do this day's dare.  Praying that when I do I can put aside the defensiveness and hurt that is sure to follow if my beloved gives an honest answer.  A huge part of me does not want an honest answer from him, but deep down I know that an honest answer is what I need.

Here is the Day 5 Dare:
Ask your spouse to tell you three things that cause him to be uncomfortable or irritated with you. You must do so without attacking him or justifying your behavior. This is from their perspective only.

Lord,
I ask that you give me courage to find a quiet time to sit down and sincerely ask my husband to give me an honest answer to the above question.  I pray that he'll not feel the need to sugar-coat his answer, that he'll be honest with me so that we an move forward in our marriage.  And Lord, I pray that you'll help me to really hear his answer.  To not beome defensive, to not justify my behavior or attack him with things he does.  This is not about me, this is about improving my marriage and loving my husband.  Help me to humble myself to you and to him, to put aside myself to focus on allowing you to transform me into the wife you desire me to be.  To focus on loving him.  In your preciouse name, Jesus ~Amen!

Love Dare - Love is Thoughtful

I'm now leading the Love Dare for an online group of Moms. This is really making me think even more about these (we are doing one each week) so that I have something meaningful to share with the other moms each week.

Day 4 (or this week's dare for our group) is Love is Thoughtful. One thing it mentions is how when we first met we used to honestly be able to say "I can't stop thinking about you!" because it was true. We really did think about them all day long. We thought about the wonderful times we had just spent with them and dreamed about the future times we would have together. We thought about things we could do for them to let them know how much we were thinking of them.

But then we get married, get jobs, have children and start to take one another for granted. We no longer think about that person throughout our day, let alone think about what we could do to make them happy. The times we do tend to spend our day obsessing over them is usually because we are angry/hurt about something they did or said, not because we are thinking about how much we love them and can't stand having to wait to see them again.

So this week I want to dwell on those first months when my husband and I first started dating. Not as I have in the past when I look back and wonder where the "spark" went and why we no longer have it. No, instead of looking back longing for the days of old, I am going to look back and think about what I did different then, how I thought differently than I do now. Maybe that is what is really missing now, not a "spark" but a way of thinking.

I am going to remember how my heart raced when I saw him walk into a room and ask myself why that happened then. Maybe it was because during the day leading up to that sighting I had been thinking constantly on all the wonderful qualities of this man (okay so he was a boy at the time!) that I had just started dating.

I'm going to make an effort to do two things. One, to dwell throughout my day on what a wonderful man the Lord has blessed me with and two, to rediscover what things I can do or say to be thoughtful towards this man. How can I make his day better? Not because I want him to treat me that way but because I love him and have a desire to please him.

Today's Thankful Heart - 7/8/09

No worries - I've not totally dropped the Love Dare. Things have been crazy here, but I'm still going to be posting on these. In the meantime though I figured it has been WAY too long since I've posted here.

Today I thank the Lord for:

• Being part of an amazing homeschool co-op with some wonderful families. The Lord is so much at work in this. I've been slowly getting the curriculum for my daughter (3rd grade) and my eldest son (K) for next year and I'm so excited to get started again. It is lots of work, but so worth it and rewarding!

• Kingdom Builder Books - this is a little local family owned Christian used bookstore. They are a homeschooling family and sell homeschool curriculum. I just ordered the last of my daughter's curriculum which will not be covered by the charter school (b/c the publisher is Christian). It is such a blessing that we have found this store!
  

• Have a wonderful job - everyday I'm so thankful for my new position at work. I feel so tremendously blessed. I appreciate it so much more because I've been in positions in the past years which I did not care for the work, had less than pleasant managers and/or worked horrible overtime during month and quarter ends. Now I am even so much more thankful for a job which I love to do and feel like I'm actually contributing something useful to the company, a manager who is wonderful and no more long hours which make my kids forget who I am!

• My husband - I can't leave him out. I'm daily thankful for this wonderful man the Lord has chosen to place in my life. Today I had to go into work early so he got the boys all ready by himself (he usually does most of it in the mornings anyway). Then tonight I had plans to meet with my cousin for a bit and he picked the boys up from daycare and had them fed before I got home. Even more amazing is that he does many of these things on pretty much a daily basis.
  

Love Dare - Love is not Selfish

I started this post a few days ago and have been dwelling on it even longer. Day 3 (yep, I'm working on some really loooong days here!) is Love is not Selfish.

I can't tell you how many times over the almost 14 years I've been married I've thought about how selfish my husband was (bear with me here!). And since I've come to know the Lord again, I can't count how many times I've cried out to God asking why I had to be with such a selfish man.

Well, apparently God has been answering me this whole time, the problem is until recently I was whining so loud about how selfish I thought my hubby was, I could not hear His answer. I've finally stopped to take a breath though and have started to hear Him. Know what he is saying?

He's telling me that it is not my concern as to whether or not my husband is being selfish, it is only my concern as to how selfish I'm being. Of course at first I denied any selfishness wholeheartedly. After all, I had shown Christianly love by dealing with my husband, right?

God does not seem to think so. So I've been learning little by little lately just how very selfish I really am. God keeps revealing different areas where I've labeled my selfishness with things such as "independence", "me-time", "what is best for us", and the list goes on and on.

But He was not done there. Next He started to reveal how very manipulative I am at times, especially to the one I love the most, the one I promised to share my life with for better or worse.

But Wait! There's more!

Many times when I start to catch myself doing something or saying something to subtlely (or not so subtlely at times) manipulate my husband I find out just how deep this runs. I recognize what I'm doing and decide on a different approach instead. Just as I'm congratulating myself for being so humble and wise, I feel a tap on my shoulder. God's whisper says, "Angela, my love. You are still doing it." Ouch! It seems this manipulation thing runs so deep in me that I do it without even realizing it at times. It has become second nature. I find I have to no power to stop even when I try my hardest over and over again.

The only time I start to find myself overcoming this are those times when I first notice myself doing this and I cry out to the Lord to reveal His path to me. And then as I walk down it I have to continue to cry out to Him and hold onto Him as He leads me because I've found I'm very easily distracted.

So . . . Love is not Selfish. This day's dare has taken almost 3 weeks of wrestling to get it to just begin to sink in. I've decided this one is similar to being humble. If you think you have it figured out and are living it out, you are probably the furthest from it. I'll just keep crying out and holding on!

Today's Thankful Heart - My Man

I posted on here once before about how we should brag on our men - it is good for our marriage. It helps us to focus on those qualities that made us fall in love with our spouse when we first met them. And it is good for them to hear (1st hand or from others) about how much we love, appreicate, respect and admire them.

So, I figured it was about time for me to do some more bragging on my man. I snapped the above shot today as he was pulling his bike out the garage and parking it on the side of the road. Later in the afternoon he was able to take it out for a spin for a bit. It has been awhile and I was happy that he was able to get out and enjoy himself.

I've mentioned before how good my hubby is at fixing things. He's rebuilt our laptop recently, completely rebuilt our shower and put in hardwood floors in our bathroom, among many other things. He is just amazing. He also rebuilt this bike. He bought it from his grandfather, completely tore it apart and built it back up. He is simply amazing! And pretty HOT too, if I do say so myself.

He is an amazing man, a wonderful father and a loving husband - and I'm so proud to say - He's my Man!!!! I love ya, babe!

Love Dare - Love is Kind

I've been focusing on this one quite a bit and I am ashamed to say it has taken me almost 2 weeks to start "getting" it.

I've often thought being kind meant not being the one to start an argument, to not be mean for no reason. But I was so wrong. It is so very much more than this.

One thing brought to mind was that kindness means anticipating the needs of your spouse (or someone else) and meeting them in that moment. It means thinking and acting outside of you and your needs, taking the focus off yourself. I've often thought of myself as kind, but the Lord has been revealing to me how self-focused I truly am most of the time. This has been very humbling for me.

Proverbs 31 describes a good wife as being one whose husband and children praise and bless her. "She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue." (Proverbs 31:26) That is so not me, but someone I so want to be.

There were some questions at the end of this day's challenge which I think are very important. Ones that I'm not sure I like my answers to:

1. How would your spouse describe you on the kindness meter?
2. How harsh are you?
3. How gentle & helpful?
4. Do you wait to be asked, or do you take the initiative to help?
5. Do you wait for your spouse to be kind first?

Lord,

please continue to reveal to me those areas I need to work on and please transform me to be the wife and mother you want me to be. My desire is to step into that destiny that You have for me. Please help me to do so.

AMEN

Passover 2009

Last night my house church celebrated Passover for the 2nd year together. It was an amazing night. I ended up taking all three of my children with me which made things interesting. My daughter (7 1/2 years old) did very well and was excited to be able to ask one of the questions during the meal. My boys (4 1/2 and almost 3) were a bit more difficult to manage but everyone there helped and seemed to enjoy them being there. Even when my youngest tipped his cup over on his head (luckily it was pretty much empty!) and my other son kept announcing how very hungry he was, quite loudly, multiple times.

We each had parts in the dinner. We stumbled through some of the parts, but in the end we enjoyed wonderful fellowship with one another, delicious food, some good laughs, and beautiful music and worship. But most importantly we had an amazing time of remeberance of what God has done for His people and for each of us.

So today I am thankful for an amazing God who loves his people so much that he would pursue them and rescue them as he did the Israelites from Egypt and as He did each of us through His Son, Jesus. I'm looking forward to many more years of celebrating the Passover with my brothers and sisters!