Day 1: Love is Patient

DARE: Demonstrate patience and say nothing negative to your spouse at all today! If the temptation arises, don't say anything, and hold your tongue.

So, I read Day 1 yesterday, and as the day went on, I knew I needed to do Day 1 again. Patience is something we joke about day by day, but I think I finally realized something today. LOVE IS PATIENT. Anything I quote or say in this blog is going to be straight out of the book, so I will go ahead and reference that, but it says LOVE is built on two pillars of PATIENCE and KINDNESS. Really? Two simple words I've heard my whole life, but patient and be nice. I find that I can be both of these to total strangers, to my employees (at times - hehe to those reading this), but find it extremely hard to be patient to Cory?!

The one thing that stood out abruptly in my first day's dare was "Patience helps you give your spouse permission to be human. Patience understands that everyone fails." Wow! Basically, I need to listen to the words of this book, and Dr. Quiett who told me to quit thinking that my husband will be perfect. Think of all the things he is patient with me about? God is the only one in this world who will not harm me or forsake me. Everyone else, including me, is human, therefore will make mistakes against each other. So TODAY my goal is to be more patient. Believe me, Cory has patience 100 times what I have when it comes to him.

So..that's that...today is patience. I can't get the marriage I want by getting all heated inside. I thirst for love; we all thirst for love. And with it, it changes our motivation for living. The book says to not overreact in angry, foolish, and regrettable ways. Patience can stop people in their tracks. So, I'm going to think of like this...my husband is a good, godly man who unfortunately can't read my mind and do everything I want him to do. I need to be more patient and understanding of this. He is man, and I am woman. We ARE DIFFERENT!

Practical: I had to just leave this morning. He is off all week, and I'm sad to say that I am slammed at work. He has gotten to go visit with his family yesterday and today, and I wished I was caught up enough to go visit with them too. I know I know, family first, but I do have responsibilities at work too. Me, being a planner, wanted to plan the day step by step, but he being a partial procrastinator does thing a little different. So, I told him and my little girl good bye, and fully expect them to make it through the day without my planning! RIGHT?!

If you haven't read anything else, this was my confirmation that I am doing this dare because God commanded me too. The last sentence of DAY 1 said "Think of this as a marathon, not a sprint. But it's a race worth running." For those who know me...this speaks volumes!