Love Dare - Love is not Irritable

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.  ~ Proverbs 16:32

This dare has really spoken to me today.  This relates to not only my marriage, but my entire family.  I want to be less irritable with my husband and my children.  I want to do less yelling and more loving of my family, showing them grace and letting God's love flow through me to them.

According to the Love Dare book, there are two contributing reasons to irritability.  The first is stress.  While I do have this in my life, it is not to the extent that I've had in the past.  So you would expect my irritability with my family would have lessened over the past year.  But this does not seem to be the case.

The second reason was selfishness.  This is usually due to lust (being ungrateful for what you have and burning with desire for things you don't have), bitterness, greed and pride.  Ouch!  I think this is where my irritability stems from, pride probably being the biggest culprit.

In Matthew 12:34 Jesus says "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."  If this is true (and since it is God's words, it is) then what is in my heart is not good.

So, the question is how to change this.  I need my heart so filled with God's love that it overflows into all areas of my life.  The key is love.  As my heart is filled with God's love the selfishness and therefore the irritability will fade from my life.

Recently I came across a suggestion to find 40 verses in the Bible about anger.  To write them down and then read them at least 2 times a day aloud for 40 days.  By the end of that time the verses would begin to be written on your heart and at times when irritability begins to rise you will be able to use these verses.  I really like this idea and have begun a search for my 40 verses.

However, last night as I thought on this more I realized that while these verses are the Words of God and therefore, full of power, they would only help to keep down the irritability and anger in my heart.  They would in a way just be a mask or a reactive solution to the root cause.  Memorizing these verses are definitely good, but I felt there needed to be more.

I need to fill my heart with God's love so there is no room for the selfishness that breeds irritability and anger instead of just learning how to fight these emotions/reactions.  How do I do this? 

It came to me that this is why I've been studying David and his heart for God.  The way to fill my heart with God's love is to pursue His heart and His emotions.  To understand His love for me.  So I decided in addition, to these 40 verses dealing with anger, I'm going to search Scriptures for 40 verses regarding God's unfailing and passionate love for me and I will read those 2 times a day as well. 

I believe if I begin to start and end my days with verses about how much the Lord loves me even in my weakest moments, this may finally really sink into my mind and heart.  At that point I won't be able to help but return the same love to the Lord.  As His love fills my heart and life I will find more patience and peace with my family - those I love the most.

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.

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!

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

Love is Patient

So, I've been meditating on this one for quite some time now. So much for getting through one dare every three days!

But I think the important thing is to keep up going through the dares and making sure they are sinking in. Doing something for only one day or even just for the 40 days will not improve my marriage if I don't learn something lasting from it.

The book has some really good information about how love is patient. I won't share all of that here though. You can read the book yourself easily enough. I want to share here my thoughts.

First, the more I think about this, the more I realize that my dear husband probably has to practice patience with me more often than I do with him. That is not good. Ideally as a believer in Christ I should be the more patient one. Hmm, something to definitely ponder and ask the Lord to help me with!

Second, this needs to be learned not only in relation to my husband but also with my children. And with everyone I come into contact with. Whether it is that annoying person at work who can easily get my blood to boiling or that person who cut me off in traffic today. Not only should I excercise patience with them, but that will improve my marriage as well. The more patient I am with others in my life the more pleasant of a person I will be for my dear husband to be around. There is nothing worse than to spend time with someone who is always complaining about everything and snapping at everyone.

And the last thought to share tonight is that patience is not about just biting your tongue. That might be how it starts out in the beginning - biting your tongue and asking the Lord to help you. But in the end that is just bottling up your annoyance and frustrations. True patience is an inner calm when thing are not so calm around you. That is my goal. To be able to draw on an inner calm (that is the work of the Holy Spirit by the way!) so I'm not just "biting my tongue" but so I am truly exhibiting patience from the inside out.

Love Dare - Introduction

Last night I read the Introduction to the Love Dare book and did some journaling. Today as I reflected over these things I decided there are some questions I need to ask myself.

In the introduction the authors state that God created marriage to be a beautiful and priceless gift which He uses to help us:

• eliminate lonliness
• multiply our effectiveness
• establish families
• raise children
• enjoy life
• bless us with relational intimacy

In addition they talk about how marriage "shows us our own need to grow and deal with our own issues and self centeredness through the help of a lifelong partner." They then go on to say that the world tells us to follow our hearts, but we should instead be leading our hearts. If we are not leading it then someone or something else will lead it.

"The truth is, love is a decision, not just a feeling. It is selfless, sacrificial and transformational."

As I reflected on these things, and prepared myself to begin this Love Dare again, I thought it wise to do some self-reflection. To ask myself the following quesitons and rate myself in my marriage on each of these items. I'm not going to share my "ratings" here with you (that is for my personal journal - and to be honest I've not fully determined my ratings yet!). However, I am going to share the questions with you here and encourage you to ask yourself the same things.

I agree with what the authors are saying above about marriage and must honestly ask myself if these purposes for marriage are being accomplished in my life and if not, what do I need to do to change that? And I need to ask myself, am I willing to admit that I need to change - as opposed to assuming my husband needs to change. And finally, am I willing to allow God to change me?

1. Does my marriage elminate lonliness in my life? In my husband's life?

2. Does my marriage multiply the effectiveness of myself and my husband?

3. Is my marriage establishing a family?

4. Is my marriage allowing my husband and I to raise our children they way we want to?

5. Does my marriage help both of us to enjoy life?

6. Has our marriage blessed us with relational intimacy?

7. Has my marriage caused me to identify my own need to grow and deal with my own issues and self-centeredness? Have I even begun to make changes to do so?

8. Do I allow my husband to help me with identifying these things in my life and with making the changes?

9. Do I see my husband as my lifelong partner? Do I treat him as such? Does he see himself as my lifelong partner? Does he see me as his?

10. Do I follow my heart or do I lead it? If I follow it, what or who does lead it?

11. Is love a feeling or decision for me?

12. Is my love selfless? sacrificial? transformational?

Love Dare - Getting Started

I've recently went through the Love Dare with a group of other women. While doing this I decided this "dare" can have benefits in my life far surpassing just my marriage, although that is the most important. I've decided to go back through the book and the dares myself, but at a slower pace in order to let each dare really sink in and become a part of my life. I think this may end up being a 120 day dare. I've also decided this is something I want to revisit at least once a year.

As I go back through this book, I've decided to blog what I learn here. I plan to be very transparent as long as it does not disrespect my dear husband or our marriage in anyway. I've also decided to start a journal to my beloved which I pray someday I am able to give to him. For now, I'm just writing in it what I'm learning through these dares and expressing my love and appreciation for him.

I hope you'll consider joining me in this journey and please feel free to leave any comments you may have. My ultimate goal is to learn what true unconditional love is as the Lord reveals things to me through these dares.

Today's Thankful Heart - Feb 8th

I have not been online much lately, but I figured it was about time for me to check back in. I'm hoping to be writing quite a bit more, definitely on this blog in the upcoming weeks. I am beginning the "Love Dare" tomorrow along with a group of women with whom I've become very close.

I'm excited about this, but also a bit nervous. I do love my husband very much and think he is definitely worth this challenge - but what if I fail? I have an issue with failure. I tend to not try something if I think I may fail. Not a good way to live your life, really. Kind of boring at times.

So, I probably will fail at times going through this next 40 days, BUT I believe the Lord is going to teach me a lot through it and as I already said - my hubby is definitely worth it!

So, today I'm thankful for the Lord's mercy when we fail, His strength to carry us through and His love in all of it.