Day One

Day 1 - "Love is Patient"
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. - Ephesians 4:2 NIV

"Love works. It's life's most powerful motivator and has far greater depth and meaning than most people realize. It always does what is best for others and can empower us to face the greatest of problems. We are born with a life long thirst for love. Our hearts desperately need it like our lungs need oxygen. Love changes our motivation for living. Relationships become meaningful with it. No marriage is successful without it.
Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Those pillars are patience and kindness. All other characteristics of love are extensions of these two attributes. And that's where your dare will begin. With Patience." - The Love Dare

Notes for this day - Love will inspire you to be a patient person. When you are patient you are slow to anger. You choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm. No one likes to be around an impatient person. It causes you to overreact in angry, foolish, and regrettable ways. More than biting your lip, more than slapping your hand over your mouth, patience is a deep breath. It clears the air. Its a choice to control your emotions instead of letting your emotions control you. Patience helps you give your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. Few of us do patience well, and none of us do it naturally. But wise men and women will pursue it as an essential ingredient to their marriage relationship.

Today's Dare- "The first part of this dare is fairly simple. Although love is communicated in a number of ways, our words often reflect the condition of our heart. For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say nothing negative to your spouse at all. If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything. It's better to hold your tongue than to say something you'll regret."

-did anything happen today to cause anger toward your mate? Were you tempted to think disapproving thoughts and to let them come out in words?

The day is not over, but nothing has happened today to make me want to be impatient with my spouse :) I will update later...

Well tonight we got into an "upset" conversation about one of my friends who is a guy. My spouse said some things that were mean and was not really fighting fair. He was not listening and just going on about this guy that he refuses to even try to get to know. However, I decided to just let him get it all out, to be quiet and let him speak. This was hard for me because I know that he is being silly about this whole thing and the things that he is saying are not true. After he finished going on about it I was still just being quiet so then about ten minutes later I asked him for some help on filling out some papers to go see my doctor. After he helped me with that and I could see that he was calmer I asked him if we could finish our conversation and finally resolve it. And it actually happened. We talked through it much nicer the second time around and we came to an agreement. I had to keep reminding myself to be patient as we were talking. But in the end I think it worked out.