The Love Dare-Day Fifteen

 Choose a way to show honor and respect to your spouse that is above your normal routine.  It may be holding the door for her.  It might be putting his clothes away for him.  It may be the way you listen and speak in your communication.  Show your mate that he or she is esteemed in your eyes.

Love is honorable-Live with your wives in an understanding way.... and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life.  There are certain words in our language that have powerful meanings. Whenever these words are used, an air of respect is associated with them.  One of these words is honor.  To honor someone means to give them respect and high esteem, to treat them as being special and of great worth.  You keep your language clean and understandable.  You are courteous and polite.  You take them seriously and give their words weight and significance.  Honoring your mate means giving him or her your full attention, not talking to them from behind a newspaper or with one eye on the television.  You give your mate's voice and opinion equal influence in your mind.  You honor what they have to say.  They matter, and you show them that in every way.  He or she is sacred to you, a person to be honored, praised and defended.  This means no other person in the whole world is supposed to enjoy this level of commitment and endearment from you.  Is that the way it is in your marriage?  Would your mate say you honor and respect them? Do you consider them set apart and highly valued?  Holy?  Love honors when it's rejected.  Love treats its beloved as special and sacred even when an ungrateful attitude is all you get in return.  You are to be devoted to one another in love.  But when your attempts at honor go unreciprocated, you are to honor just the same. That's what love dares do-to say "Of all the relationships I have, I will value ours the most.  Of all the things I am willing to sacrifice, I will sacrifice the most for you.  With all your failures, sins, mistakes, and faults-past and present- I still choose to love and honor you."  That's how you create an atmosphere for love to be rekindled.  That's how you lead your heart to truly love your mate again. And that's the beauty of honor. 


I always write about my dare the day after.  Today I am struggling within myself and struggling to let go of some past issues.  I actually re-read my own blogs to remind myself of the lessons I have learned so far in this exercise so that I could deal with my emotions and fears that I am having.  Learning to give it to God, learning to stay within myself, learning to honor, rules of healthy engagements... all of these reminders I am calling on today to help me change my behavior and patterns. The mind is a powerful tool and it can run away with the smallest detail and create the biggest scenario.  I am not going to allow this to happen today and by getting my challenge from yesterday down and moving forward into the season of Lent I know God will see me through.

Yesterday I had to honor and respect my hubby a new way and go above and beyond my normal to show him that he is highly esteemed in my eyes.  Yesterday I failed.  I thought all day about this challenge.  I read the chapter several times.  I underlined points of the chapter to focus on.  Yet, I could not come up with an "action" that I could do to go above and beyond my normal towards my hubby that would show him

Or did I fail?

We had a great evening yesterday.  We didn't go to the gym and rather than getting lost in chores around the house, the kids or other things that needed to be done we just spent time together alone when he got home from work.  We connected with each other and enjoyed our evening together.  We had a little stress over dinner but rather than letting that take over us and determine the rest of our night we both handled it pretty well and got over it together.  There was a point at one part of the night where I came to my hubby with a question over something he had done.  I tried to not sound condescending or accusatory and I think he responded well to my attempt.  So perhaps the challenge was not a failure.  Perhaps me changing the way I dealt with the stress of dinner and the question over an action was me going above and beyond to show him honor and respect. 

I think this is so hard for me not because I do honor and respect him, I really do.  But because of past situations between he and I one of the things he has said to me over and over again is that he does not feel respected.  This has always weighed so heavy on me because I do honor and respect him and it has frustrated me when he has said these things to me.  How could he not feel respected?  I feel I go above and beyond what I am supposed to do.  Then I recall something a manager once told me when I had a team of employees to supervise.  She said "Perception is 100% the truth.  If their perception is saying this, than that is THEIR truth and you have to decide if you are going to change their truth."  That always stuck with me over the years and when my hubby says things like he does not feel respected, then I tell myself that is HIS perception and it is up to ME to change it or not.

This is a challenge I will continue to work on and hopefully continue to improve in my marriage.  Because it is true.  Of all the relationships I have, I value this one the most.  Of all the things I am willing to sacrifice, I would sacrifice the most for him.  With all his failures, sins, mistakes and faults-I still choose to love and honor him.  I don't have to lead my heart to truly love my hubby... it already does.

~Mellie


***I have a couple friends who are struggling in their marriage.  I challenged them to take the Love Dare with me.  This is a 60 day love challenge based off the movie FireProof Your Marriage.  I have started this challenge in the past but not fully dove into it or completed it so I thought if I got these ladies to do it with me we could all work through it together.

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I am always looking for ways to improve my marriage, my faith and my relationship with my hubby.  I am doing this for me more so than FOR him.  It is about changing who I am and who I want to be as a wife and mother and child of God.****