"The Love Dare" Day 2 and 3

Day 2: Love is Kind

"Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Eph 4:32

This was the key verse for today's lesson and I feel it needs no real explanation.  Instead with the help of this book I would like to define what kindness is.  "Kindness is love in action.  If patience is how love reacts in order to minimize a negative circumstance, kindness is how love acts to maximize a positive circumstance.

What does this mean to me?  To me, it says that both patience and kindness are needed to have true unconditional love.  Patience is being put in a situation and deciding how to react to it in a positive way.  Kindness is actually acting to make the positive situation come to being.  You can no have kindness without patience.

The book goes on to break kindness down into four different areas.  Gentleness, Helpfulness, Willingness, and Initiative.

Gentleness is saying what needs to be said no matter how hard it is, in a calm and loving way.

Helpfulness means putting your needs wants and desires aside to help your spouse when needed.  There may be times when you think your stuff is more important but showing kindness and unconditional love means telling your spouse what you were doing but offering to take a break and help them.  This one is hard for all of us but a little goes a long way.  If you help your spouse and they see on a regular basis what you are doing for them, they may be more willing to return the favor.

Willingness goes right along with helping your spouse.  If you do decide to put your things aside to help them, do it with a positive attitude and a willing heart.  Nothing is worse than getting the help you need but hearing negative comments the whole time.  Kindness is being able to be flexible.  To compromise.

Initiative means thinking ahead, not waiting to be asked, just doing what needs to be done.  In the book it talked about being the first to greet when someone gets home from work.  This hit close to home for me.  I stay at home and take care of our house and family while Chris works.  We get so set in our ways that its easy to forget how much a "Hello, how was your day" means to our spouse.  Initiative means being the firs to say hello, smile, and forgive firsts.  If both of you are sitting around waiting on the other one to say I'm sorry, it may never happen.  Being kind means not waiting on the other person.  It means putting your ego, pride, and emotions aside and deciding that your going to make the situation better. Wow!! That is a hard pill to take at times.

The dare for day 2 was to show a random act of kindness to your spouse.  To do something that they weren't expecting to make them feel better.  As I said earlier Chris works hard so that I can stay at home. I can not tell him enough how much this means to me.  As a way to show kindness to him and to tell him how thankful I am for all he does I decided that he deserved a nice back rub.  His job is physically and mentally demanding so this was a nice way to help him relax.  I can't speak for him but I know that it made me feel better to be able to show him what he means to me, even if it was just with a short back rub!

I challenge you to no only show kindness to your spouse/significant other, but also try just smiling at a stranger or saying a simple "hello, I hope you have a great day. " You never know what that person is going through and it may be just what they need to hear to get through the day!

Day 3: Love is Not Selfish

This lesson was pretty short but in no way less important.  Love is not only about one person.  It takes two to have a true loving relationship.  Many times you will have to set yourself aside to focus on the other person.  Love is about being able to do this with skills learned in day one and two.

By nature we are selfish and this can often times cause problems in a relationship.  I am as guilty as the next guy of doing what I want before doing what my husband or son wants and needs.  But in order to truly love my husband I owe him more.  I can no promise to him to always put him first, I am human, but I can promise to make more of an effort.

The things you do to show that you are thinking about your spouse can be as big as moving away from your family for his job to as little as buying his favorite drink at the store instead of yours.

I am going to share a personal experience and a way that I think both Chris and I put each other first in our marriage.

We had been married about 3 years when Chris came home one day saying he wanted to move to Texas for school.  We were at the time living in Arkansas and had all of our family and friends around us.  We were trying to raise our 3 year old son and were enjoying all the help we were getting.  At first I was like, NO WAY! I'm not leaving my family and friends just so you can go to school, you don't even know if you will like it.  We know no one there, we have no house, no job, why would be pick up and move.  After much soul searching and talking it out with Chris we decided that it was the best thing for our family.  We were taking a step in faith that God would provide everything we needed.

We visited the school and loved what we saw, that same weekend Chris applied for and got a job at DFW airport and we found a very nice apartment.  All in one weekend trip! We were moving to Texas.  It wasn't so much to go to school but to build our lives together.  We felt like we were not growing as a couple being so close to the things of our past.  This was a huge selfless act on both of our parts.  I'm not saying it was easy, I cried for almost a year after we moved here and went through a serious time of depression but looking back, Chris was right.  It was the best thing we could have ever done for our family.  Sometimes being selfless means trusting your spouse and stepping out in faith.

The challenge today was to buy your spouse something that says "I was thinking of you today"

I am not able to drive so I had to get a little creative with this one.  I ended up going online and getting Chris a t-shirt he said he had been wanting for a very long time.  I sent him an e-mail telling him I had bought it and that I was thinking about him.  I'm not sure, but I think it made him happy.  He said again how long he had been wanting it.

As I have done in previous days, I am going to challenge you.  I challenge you to find something while you are out today that tells that special someone you were thinking about them and you appreciate them.  You don't have to spend much, it could be as simple as their favorite candy bar.

If you have taken on any of my challenges please comment and let me know how it went!