Love Sacrifices, Day 28

Today I am going to do something that I promised myself at the beginning of this Dare I would not do. I hope that you, my readers, understand and forgive me. This part of The Love Dare is extremely personal. I do not feel comfortable sharing publicly the details of how I handled this one. Rather than telling you my specific actions and thoughts, I am going to keep this one much more general. I am not doing this out of a desire to hide anything. Rather, I am doing this out of my love and respect for my husband. There are certain aspects of our lives that need to remain private. God knows the details, and that is what matters most!


The Scripture focus for this one is Matthew 25:35-36. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.” It’s a passage that I am very well acquainted with. It’s one that I keep in the forefront of my mind as I do work with the women’s group at my church. Jesus urges us in this passage to think of others, to realize that He is in everyone we meet and that we should treat others just as we would treat Him. I think I have done a very good job with that over the years.

Until I read this Dare, though, I didn’t realize that I have been falling short in one area: all too often I fail to treat my husband as I would treat Christ.

Because he is the one with me every day, the one who ten years ago promised to love me no matter what and reaffirmed that vow just a few weeks ago, I tend to take him for granted. Even worse, I look at the verse that says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25) and think that it is up to my husband to make sacrifice for me. I tend to want things MY way, and I don’t put much time, attention, or thought into what my husband might want.

That is not fair.

There is one particular area where I know I have been failing him. That one was really brought home when I read this portion of The Love Dare. I’ve made a commitment to think more about this particular need of his and to do more to fill it.

Love Encourages, Day 27

I am constantly amazed at how God works!! The subject of this Dare is something that my husband and I have recently dealt with—our expectations. He seems to expect me to be more like his mother while I expect him to be more like my father. Not that our parents are bad people—I am thankful for the way they molded us into the people we have become. But we are not carbon copies of them. It really isn’t fair for us to expect the other to be.


Gosh, that made sense in my head, but looks so confusing on paper!

The expectations he places on me make me feel very inadequate. As I told him the other day, “No matter what I do, you will point out the ways it could have been done better. It makes me wonder why I even bother. If I am not good enough, why am I even here?”

I assume that he feels the same way when I start to nag him about spending more time with our family. Oh, it’s not like he goes out all that time. He works 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week (a real blessing from God, giving his profession and the economy in our hometown). Tuesday night, he is Tiger Scout Den Leader for our 6 year old and he leads a Bible study at the church on Wednesdays. Other than that, he is normally at home. I get frustrated, though, when it seems that I am constantly with the kids (a frustration I assume most work-at-home and stay-at-home parents feel). He has turned one of our extra rooms into his “Man Cave” and spends a lot of evenings in there, not coming out until the kids have gone to bed. Even on nights when I plan to spend the evening working in my office, he goes into his cave. The boys are so afraid of bothering him that they come to me with all of their troubles. I don’t want to be a single parent when we are married and living in the same house!

Yet I don’t think that nagging him or cutting him off, which I know I tend to do, is really the right way to handle the situation. I can’t really say that I know what is the right way. In the Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples to “remove the plank from your own eye before you can be concerned with the speck in your brothers eye” (paraphrasing, but if you check out Matthew 7:4-5, you will see that I am pretty close). I guess that means that I need to look at the problems in my own life, the ways where I don’t measure up as a wife.

And I am not talking about where I don’t measure up to the expectations my husband has for me. In all honesty, I am not sure I can ever be everything he wishes for me to be. But I need to see where I fall short of GOD’S expectations. If I can please Him, pleasing my husband should follow naturally.

Love is Responsible, Day 26

Today’s Dare—To ask God’s forgiveness for any wrongdoing, then humbly admit that wrongdoing to your spouse.


It sounds like a difficult one, on the surface. But for me, it really wasn’t. My wrongdoing came to light a few months back, when I had to admit to my husband that I was doing a horrible job of maintaining our budget. Telling him was not easy. To be honest, I don’t know if it was more difficult to come clean or to ask his forgiveness. Perhaps if this had been the first time that I had trouble with finances things would have been different. But since it wasn’t, I kept wondering, “How can I ask him to forgive me for something that I have messed up with over and over again?”

At this end of this Dare is the question: “What does your mate need to see in order to believe that your confession was more than just words?” In my case, though I’ve not specifically asked him, I would assume that needs to see my receipts. He needs to see that I am taking responsibility for the money I spend and I am actually paying our bills with it. Not that I have just gone and bought frivolous things in the past. More that I have neglected to pay bills in a timely manner, causing late fees that were unnecessary. In order for him to believe that I am truly sorry for the things I have done and that I really want to change, he needs to see the evidence that I am trying to change.

So long as I show progress toward mending this, I pray that he will be understanding enough to not expect a complete turnaround all at once.

This Book Is Not For Sissies!!!

    The Love Dare starts off with a warning. The authors state right up front that it is not something to be taking lightly. Taking this dare is taking a chance.

    I didn't fully believe that until I got into doing it.

    This book is NOT for the faint-hearted! If you think you are perfect and that the problems in your marriage are all because of your spouse, you need this book.

    Only it is those who truly need it that will have the hardest time with it.

    Have you seen the movie Fireproof? I did, and I'll be honest about my motivation to see it: Kirk Cameron. Like many my age, he was my first celebrity crush. Of all the crushes that have come and gone sense, Kirk is the one I am not ashamed to admit to! He is funny and entertaining to watch. And from all reports, he is a good guy. Many "child stars of the 80's" have battled addictions that have taken their lives. The same can be said for Kirk. Only his addiction has not ended his life—it has enhanced it. Kirk isn't addicted to alcohol or drugs or women. His addiction is to Christ. Man, that is one I wish more in Hollywood would catch!

    But I digress. When I heard that a movie with a Christian message was about to be released, I was intrigued. When I heard that Kirk Cameron would be staring in the movie, I knew I needed to see it. The more I heard about the film, the more anxious I became. I figured it would be a good movie to see with my husband.

    I did not figure it would change my life.

    Through the movie, Kirk's character grows up and learns how to save his marriage. He does this with the aid of a gift from his father—a book called The Love Dare. After seeing the film, I wanted to get my hands on a copy of that book. My husband and I had been married for nearly nine years when the movie came out. Were they nine good years? Yeah, I guess. Could they have been better? Definitely! I thought the book would be a great way of making our next years together happier, more full, and much better than the first few.

    Apparently, I was not the only one who wanted the help of this book, as Stephen and Alex Kendrick, the men behind the movie, wrote The Love Dare and made it available to the public.

    I bought the book and began working through the 40 day journey. My thought was that my husband and I could both do this, and that he would see how impossible life is with a pig-headed husband such as he is and would make changes in his heart. Those changes he would make, I knew, would make our marriage oh so much stronger.

    I DID NOT expect to read the book and find out that I was the pig-headed spouse who needed to make changes! It made me uncomfortable enough that I put the book aside and didn't finish.

    Nearly a year later, I picked it up again. I decided to blog about my journey through The Love Dare. Things got tough again. I could feel myself changing and see how our marriage was evolving as a result. But I got to a point where it was painful, almost physically so, to keep up with the blog. Did I really want my personal thoughts, feelings, and failures to be made public on the web? So I kept up with it in private.

    I've worked through a lot of those struggles. While I still don't feel comfortable sharing every little thing, I think it is best to share some. I'm typing up my hand-written journals and posting them once again to my blog. My hope is that this helps other wives and husbands see the issues in their own marriages and in their own hearts, and find hope for change. Has reading this book made me a perfect wife? Um, not. Not even close. I have a long way to go yet, and I know it. I've started working on The Power of a Praying Wife so that I can better hear what God is telling me needs to change in my life. Do I still think my husband needs to change? YES! But I have also realized that I cannot force those changes. The best that I can do is change me and pray that God shows him what needs to change.

    And pray that God teaches me how to live with the things I want my husband to change that God thinks are perfect as they are!

Love Vs. Lust

The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. I John 2:17

    Somehow, I skipped over this day when reading The Love Dare earlier this year. Lust is nothing something that I have a problem with. My husband has had a problem with it (see this post for more on that), but I've never fallen into a lustful situation. I've always thought of lust as a sexual thing. It's more than just looking at a celebrity and commenting on his attractiveness. It's thinking about that celeb so much that you want the one you are with to be more like that person. I've never done that. Sure, I've stayed up to watch Michael Phelps swim in the Olympics and I've made a point to watch NCIS: Los Angeles because Chris O'Donnell stars in it. But that doesn't mean that I want my husband to be like them. In fact, there are a lot of things in their lives that I would not want to see in my husband's life. The only comparison I feel comfortable making between these men and my husband is this one: I want my husband to be as dedicated to his family as Chris O'Donnell is said to be.

    The Love Dare, though, defines lust a little differently. It is more than just drooling over a good looking man or woman. Lust is "a misguided thirst for satisfaction that only God can fulfill" (page 117). Wow. Put that way, I can see that I am so very wrong. Lust is definitely something that I have a problem with.

    God has recently brought to my attention an addiction that I have to food. I can see where that addiction can be considered as a form of lust. It sure is a way for me to find satisfaction. Not that I have found satisfaction through food….

    This morning, I can also see where this lust for food is harming my marriage. It's not something I feel at all comfortable talking to my husband about. This is a pretty big issue for me. Not being able to discuss a big issue with my husband puts up a wall in our marriage. It's like there is this whole part of me that he knows nothing about. How can I expect us to be close if there is a part of myself that I am holding back from him?