Day 8: You Can't Be Jealous of Their Success

Ok so the actual Love Dare title is Love is Not Jealous but this sounded so much more in your face. The very idea is that we are often jealous of our spouse's hobbies, success at work, or maybe even the way the kids listen to them. Come on, admit it. You really never actually wanted to say "Wait til your father gets home", right? You really just want the kids to show you the same respect they do him. Or maybe he is getting praise and promotions at work while you're the one cleaning up dog poop and kid vomit and you're wondering when you are going to get a shower. Who's there to tell YOU "good job, well done"?

Guess what? True love isn't about being jealous of what they have or who they are. It's about being his biggest cheerleader. Yes I  have as hard of a time with this as the next person. I mean after all, I don't get an award for having dinner on the table every night.

It's not about me. I have a hard time swallowing that. I think it stems from childhood where I have always had to speak up in order to be heard and not ignored. In reality, sometimes we have to take a step back and let them have their moment to shine so that we can get rid of the selfishness and the resentment.

Today's challenge: Focus on your hubby's success, say a prayer for their continued health and take a match to that list of negative things you wrote yesterday. Make sure you do this in a bowl or near the sink or something. You want the list to burn, not the curtains.

Day 7: Love Believes the Bestest

I was going to post this really cool picture, or at least go hunt for one because you know all awesome blogs need pictures, right? Then I realized that all of the thoughts boiling over in my head would be strangely disconnected to the passion that I wanted to put into this post. So I decided to forgo the picture. I will admit that it's taken me a while to get to day 7 and I suppose that God had a purpose in all of this. You see, this past weekend was a particularly unpleasant one. What made it even worse is that we just "celebrated" our 15th wedding anniversary. I thought things were so much better between us and then kaboom, everything blew up. Apparently I still have the "same old problems" that I've had for a while now. So instead of sweet talk this weekend there was arguing.

What does all of this have to do with Love Believes the Best? Well if I had actually read this on the actual 7th day from starting the Love Dare then I would have ended up not seeing what God needed me to see. I won't go into the gory details, let's just say that I truly understand that nothing is going to change without me changing my attitude about being a grownup.

Today is all about the positive and negative aspects of our spouse. For those in the pit, where I am, all we can see are the negative things about our marriage. You know, all those things that sit in the back of our mind waiting for a fight to happen so that we can throw them in our spouse's face? Yep that negativity. Not only do I know the pit well, after this weekend I know that my husband is in the same pit.
The positive area is located more in my memory. The memories of how it used to be, of all the great things he did or said to me when we were first together. These include the glimpses I see of that person when he's with the kids.

The challenge: Make a list of the positive reasons you fell in love. Make another list of all the negative things in your dark little pit. Pick one thing off the good list and pray/meditate on it.

My heart aches for the person I long to be and the husband I wish him to still be. So I will press onward in this journey to learn to love again.