The Love Dare Challenge: Days 11-15

Here we go...entering the third week of participating in the Love Dare Challenge along with Moogie Mama. Have you missed out on the journey so far? You can catch up here:
- Joining the Challenge
- Days 1-5
- Days 6-10

All caught up? Okay, then I am ready to get started on the next week if you are!

Monday (day 11) - Love cherishes. Wow, you NEED to read this day (click on day 11 and it will take you to the page from the book). What an amazing comparison that puts into perspective how we should choose to view marriage. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to hurt myself yet when I hurt my husband that is exactly what I am doing. Today's dare: What need does your spouse have that you could meet today? My husband is working a 12 hour shift, stopping home long enough to change clothes and then is heading off to a meeting that will last 2 hours. I think that when he gets home he could probably use (and will greatly appreciate!) a warm meal and a chance to relax. Simple but something that sometimes doesn't happen when he isn't here at dinnertime. This really reminds me to look at his day and think about what I would want from him if it was me in his place.

Tuesday (day 12) - Love lets the other win. Today's topic really hits on the fact that often we are so bent on being right or getting things our way that we totally plow over our spouse and cause unnecessary arguments to continue on much longer than needed. I know that I am guilty of standing firm on something just because it is what I want without even stopping for a moment to consider what my husband wants. I love the line from this day that says, "...you are choosing to give strong consideration to their preferences as a way of valuing them." The dare: Demonstrate love by willingly choosing to give in to an area of disagreement between you and your spouse. Now I could not think of anything off the top of my head that was a continued disagreement. I spent a day praying that God would reveal that area to me. I even asked my husband...who also couldn't think of a specific area. So my dare to myself is to be aware of this during future disagreements and to choose to give in.

Wednesday (day 13) - Love fights fair. I strongly recommend that you read this day and get some great ideas on "we" and "me" boundaries to set before arguments break out between you and your spouse. I know that we have established some from that very list - divorce is not even allowed in our vocabulary because it isn't an option for either of us and using it during a disagreement is both hurtful and destructive. Today's dare is to talk with your spouse about establishing healthy rules of engagement. While we have done this before, I definitely think a refresher doesn't hurt. Things are always changing and growing within our relationship and it is good to reevaluate areas that may be in need of tuning up.

Thursday (day 14) - Love takes delight. Today I am supposed to purposefully neglect an activity I would normally do to spend quality time with my spouse. I am actually going to apply this to tomorrow. I would normally go yard-selling (I don't even know if that is a word!) with some of my friends for most of the morning but I am going to skip it to take advantage of my husband's day off. He is working a lot of overtime right now and I know it is important to make the most of the time we do have together. I am also choosing not telling him that I would have liked to have gone because he would feel bad that I was missing it and insist I go. In the past I would have been a martyr as I sacrificed my own desires for his...I am learning that that kind of defeats the purpose! See, I am learning:)

Friday (day 15) - Love is honorable. The challenge is to choose a way to show my husband honor and respect that is above my normal routine. Tomorrow he is working 10 hours of overtime and so I decided to make his lunch for him. I usually try to have leftovers from dinner to make it easy for him to through together a lunch but that doesn't always happen. I know that it would give him one less thing to worry about if I got his lunch together for work so that is something I did for him tonight and he was very grateful.

Want to join us in The Love Dare Challenge? It's not too late, there are still 25 more days to go. Come over and link up at me at Moogie Mama:

 Also linking up over at Heart and Soul Pursuits:

The Love Dare Challenge: Days 1-5

Sitting here on Sunday night getting myself ready to start The Love Dare tomorrow (see this post if you missed what that's all about). Excited to see what the challenges will be and knowing that God can and will bless our marriage if I choose to focus on Him as I change my heart for my husband. I told my husband today that he better be prepared because starting tomorrow I was going to "love his socks off." Of course being a man, his eyebrows shot-up and I can only imagine what he was beginning to draw up in his own mind of just what exactly I meant by that. I gently let him down in telling him that this wasn't a sex thing but assured him that he would be pleased nonetheless. So goodnight for now, I'll report back tomorrow.

Monday (day 1) - Ah...starting out with patience. This books means business! Today's challenge is to remain patient and say nothing negative to your spouse. I have to say it wasn't all that hard. First of all, my husband worked night shift last night so he slept most the day. And secondly, while I can get snippy and cranky I don't usually have a problem with being negative towards him (at least I don't think so, he may have something different to say!). But I did make a big effort to watch what I said and how I said it. I decided to practice patience on the children as well since that is where it is typically more of a struggle. I really noticed a difference until the last hour or so before their bedtime and then I began to wear down. In realizing that, I am going to make more of an effort to make nighttime a smoother transition especially when Jeremy is working and I am handling all 3 kids myself.

Tuesday (day 2) - Today calls for me to practice kindness by not only avoiding saying anything negative, but by doing at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness. My husband worked night shift again but this was going to be the start of his time off so he was planning to get up and watch the kids at 9 so I could go have coffee at a friends house. My act of kindness was to have coffee made and ready when he woke up. I also told him I would take the two older boys so he jut had the munchkin who would most likely nap while I was gone. You know what he said? "You sure are nice!" He noticed! It felt good to do something nice for him and have it noticed.
In the interest of full disclosure I didn't do so hot in the no negative talk. We got in a stupid tiff later in the day and I definitely did not stay patient. So hard when I get emotional! But something I really want to keep working on.

Wednesday (day 3) - What's the plan for today? Along with restraining from negative comments, buy your spouse something that says, "I was thinking of you today." I wasn't sure if this would work out because I wasn't planning on going anywhere today. But this afternoon a perfect opportunity presented itself when my husband and my two younger sons all fell asleep. Nathan and I ran to Starbucks and came back to surprise daddy with his favorite drink. This was a bonus I think because Nathan was pretty excited to be on in getting something for daddy.
I still am struggling with negativity. Again, I am not saying mean or rude things to him, but it is more of an attitude thing. When I get tired or cranky I feel myself getting short and snippy. I think that counts as negative and so I see that as a continued struggle. Maybe by day 40 I will be able to report progress in that area!

Thursday (day 4) - Love is thoughtful. On that note today's challenge is to contact your spouse during the day for no other reason than to ask how they are doing or ask if there is anything they need. I choose to do this with a text message since my husband was working overtime today and wouldn't have been able to answer if I called. We normally talk everyday on his lunch break but on this day they were having lunch catered so I texted him to tell him to enjoy his lunch and not worry about calling. I also asked him if there was anything he needed me to get done for him before he got home.  He never did respond and when he got home he said that he had misread it and didn't realize I was asking a question. It was a great reminder of how easy it is to misunderstand each other and as a result to miss out on the opportunity to bless our spouse or be blessed by our spouse.

Friday (day 5) - I can't believe we are on the fifth day of this challenge! That means I will be sharing this with you all tomorrow. Let's see what is in store for us today. Love is not rude - Ask your spouse to tell you three things that cause him or her to be uncomfortable or irritated with you. You must do so without attacking them or justifying your behavior. That's a doozy! Boy do I struggle to take criticism in a gracious manner. I am glad that I had all day to pray on this one while he was at work. I focused on asking God to let me be gracious in receiving whatever he has to say and that I truly am able to take it to heart.
I really tried to go into this one with an open mind but unfortunately my husband wasn't quite as open to the whole thing. He felt like this was a great way to get a fight going and in turn called this whole project stupid. Needless to say, we DID end up fighting and at this moment I am not sure if I am going to keep up with the rest of the challenge. I am going to take the rest of the weekend to pray on it.

Wrap-Up: There you have it, the good, the bad and the ugly of week one of The Love Dare. I think this is an amazing concept and can totally see it's worth. I am struggling to see if this is worthwhile if only one person in the relationship is doing it. I guess that would come down to wanting to do it to better yourself. I want to make it clear that while this project hasn't ended well so far for me, it isn't because my marriage is bad or in trouble. I am not even doing this for that reason to begin with. I believe that marriage takes an ongoing effort and I am just really wanting to do my part to be a better wife.


Linking up over at Moogie Mama. Want to join us? (I promise, it's not as scary as it looks:)