Love Dare Days 13-18

Day 13 : Love fights fair"If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand." Mark 3:25

Today’s Dare:
We had to come up with a list of rules to go by in fighting. We rarely fight. We disagree on things from time to time, but do not get all fired up at each other and yell and scream nasty things to each other. One of us trusts in the other and the decision is made as to which path in the fork needs to be taken.

DAY 14-Love takes delight"Enjoy life with the wife you love all the days of your fleeting life." Ecclesiastes 9:9

Today’s Dare:
We were to give up an activity we would normally do and spend quality time together. We set some time aside in the late evening to just sit and talk more than we normally do. I think there was a greater degree of connection between us from doing this.

DAY 15-Love is honorable"Live with your wives in an understanding way...and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life." 1 Peter 3:7

Today’s Dare:
We were to show honor and respect to each other above and beyond the normal. My wife showed more respect to me in praising me for things. I like the praising, it made me feel appreciated more; rather than the feeling of this is your duty, deal with it feeling that I had developed.
I made myself more vocal in praising my wife for the work she puts into her homemaker role. I tend to notice things but say no praises, just criticism to the kids for messing the hard work their Mom put into the day. They have taken baby steps in being a help to their Mom instead of a hinderance. Praise the Lord!

DAY 16-Love intercedes"Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers." 3 John 2

Today’s Dare:
We were instructed to pray for our spouse’s heart. I pray for my wife daily. She has a daunting task before her daily. She needs to be lifted up in prayer to deal with her household chores as well as the pressure of homeschooling three kids that can be very challenged at times to be well behaved and good listeners. God works wonders in my Sweetie Pie’s heart, the house looks great everyday by 2:30 in the afternoon, the kids are taught daily, they are not harmed in any way for their bad deeds that they carry out from time to time. Join us in praying for them as well.

DAY 17-Love promotes intimacy"He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends." Proverbs 17:9

Today’s Dare:
We were to guard each others secrets and pray for them. This was not hard, I never talk about anything intimate or private about us to the guys at work, like they talk about their stuff. That is to be between husband and wife. I often get ridiculed at work for not partaking in their degradation of wives.

DAY 18-Love seeks to understand"How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding." Proverbs 3:13

Today’s Dare:
We were to prepare a special meal for just the two of us, to get to know each other better. We have a special snack time together before bed after the kids go to bed. We discuss things then and are very well connected.

The Love dare is a great study on marriage. I realize that it is a book and do not like to read the many paragraphs that lead up to the crux of what the author is getting at, but it is a good read and is helpful in bringing to the forefront things that are needed to be worked on to strengthen marriages.

Observations of the Love Dare day 7-12

God be with you all!

Here are my observations of the Love Dare day7-12.

Day 7-Love believes the best
1 Corinthians 13:7- "Love believes all things, hopes all things."
Here we studied the concept of the appreciation room and the depreciation room. When we dated the appreciation room was visited often. We showed our appreciation a lot differently when we were dating than we do now. One thing that is a major contributor to the difference is the main drawback of homeschooling, constant kids. Another reason for the reduction of appreciation is the lack of time spent together. I teach the kids a couple of classes when I get home, I do my schoolwork online, then Sweets and the kids are watching TV. It is tough to compete with the King of Queens, Still Standing, and Everybody Loves Raymond. Toward the end of the night I get quite tired from the long day (I get up at 4:30 a.m.) So the time to be able to be appreciative is short. We are never in the depreciation room.

The dare was to list good things and another list of bad things. I had a lengthy list of good things for my Sweets.


Day 8- Love is not jealous
Song of Solomon 8:6 "Love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire."
I was extremely jealous when we first started dating. I went so far as to bristle up and threaten a couple guys who seemed interested in Sweets. Those were the days of being lost. Now, I still get a little upset at guys staring at or talking to Sweets. I am much better now though, I am confident in her love for me.
Today's dare was not much of a stretch for me. We are to be our spouses biggest fan. I already am my wife's biggest fan. I was able to crinkle up and throw away the non-existent negative list of Sweets.

Day 9-Love makes good impressions
1 Peter 5:14 "Greet one another with a kiss of love"
This was a chapter that dealt with greetings. Our greetings for one another were a lot different in the past, but just being with my wife is comforting to me, so I have not been too observant about greetings. I think that we both have been lax in our greeting of one another. We are apart a long time and we still just say hi most of the time. I just enjoy my wife's company though, we still talk some when I get home from work.
After this dare our greeting of one another has become like old times. That is very exciting.

Day 10- Love is unconditional
Romans 5:8 "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
The question is "Why do we love our spouse?"
Unconditional love was the focus here. I love my wife no matter what. She can wig out and throw stuff all over the place and I still love her more than I did the last minute. When we dated she looked very "dressed up" I loved that. Now lately, she dresses in sweats and a t-shirt and no make up, I love that too. I love the person who is my wife, not just the outer appearance, but the inner self. That is why she is "my beautiful blue-eyed bride".

Day 11-Love Cherishes
Ephesians 5:28 "Husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies."
This was about treating each other with the respect that you want from your spouse. I love my wife as a part of me. She is my everything.
The dare was to meet a need that our spouse had today. We always meet each others needs, so it wasn't too hard to do.

Day-12 Love lets the other win
Philippians 2:4 "Do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others."
Love lets the other win? My wife and I never argue, we disagree on issues, but never yell and scream and carry on. Does she ever let the other win? Not often, but the funny thing is, I present something in a disagreement and then sometimes she comes up with that idea later. That's letting the other win both ways!
Today''s dare was to pick an area and let the other win in that area. I must say I am still waiting for this to happen :-)

Love Dare from the Guys Side

God be with you all!

I will be posting here on Fridays to give you the Guys Side on my wife and my journey through the Love Dare. I really loved the movie that my sweetie pie got for us along with the Love Dare. Fireproof is really a good movie, despite the lack of big names, outside of Kirk Cameron, the story and the acting was really quite good.

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

The day one dare was to say nothing negative to Sweets at all. I rarely eversay anything negative about her, but I had to be concious of saying nothing negative about anything to her about other things. I found that I have a tough time saying nothing negative at all about anything. Now, the glass is half full instead of half empty. We are a work in progress.
"Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger." - James 1:19
Day two: Love is Kind
"Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." - Ephesians 4:32

Day two dare: In addition to saying nothing negative to your spouse again today, do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.

We did a joint effort of kindness here. We went to the "city" and purchased new furniture, our old stuff is ready to fall apart. God provided us with our tax return at just the right time. We will be able to snuggle together on the couch again. We cannot sit next to each other on our current couch.

Day three: Love is not selfish
"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor."- Romans 12:10
Questions in the body of the book I can answer for you
- Do I truly want what's best for my wife? Absolutely
- Do I want her to feel loved by me? Yes I do
- Do they believe I have their best interests in mind? I am the head of the house, my wife's interests are very important to me. We discuss things of interest on a regular basis.
- Do they see me looking out for myself first? I think of my wife and kids first at all times. If they are happy, I am happy.

Day three dare:
Whatever you put your time, energy, and money into will become more important to you. It's hard to care for something you are not investing in. Along with restraining from negative comments, buy your spouse something that says, " I was thinking of you today."
My wife is most important to me here on earth. We are looking forward to the furniture.

Day four: Love is thoughtful
"How precious also are your thoughts to me.... How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand."- Psalm 139: 17-18

I feel I am very thoughtful to my wife. She is also very thoughtful to me. We have always been very thoughtful to one another since the beginning which is October 12, 2005 which was our furst date. We had several correspondences on the computer before that. We probably would still be if it weren't for a gentle nudge to aske her out from my sweetie pie!

Day four dare:
Contact your spouse sometime during the business of the day. Have no agenda other than asking how she is doing and iuf there is anything you could do for them.

This one was easy for me. I have always called at break time to see how sweets is doing. My love for her is sincere, so obviously I am concerned for her well being.

Day five: Love is not rude
"He who blesses his friend with a loud voice in the morning, it will be reckoned a curse to him"- Proverbs 17:14
The book states these points:
1. Guard the Golden Rule. Treat your mate the same way you want to be treated. I do.
2. No double standards. Be as considerate to your spouse as you are to strangers and coworkers. I am far more considerate to my wife than I am to either of these choices. My wife is number 2, next to God.
3. Honor requests. Consider what your wife already asked you to do or not to do. If in doubt, then ask. I tend to fall short of this task at times. This one is a wirk in progress, for both of us.

Day five dare:
Ask your spouse to tell you three things that cause him or her to be uncomfortable or irritated with you. You must do so without attacking them or justifying your behavior. This is from their perspective only.

This one was a bit uncomfortable for us to do. It is hard to think of any legitimate things to bring up. Sweets does not make me irritated or uncomfortable, so all I could come up with was leaving messes on the computer desk. My wife is awesome, she doesn't irritate me, if she does; We do not hold things over and let them fester. They are taken care of and then forgotten.

The Influence of Ken

Today I post, reflecting on a man I only knew four years. My wife's grandfather Ken. He was a Christian man of many years by the time I met him. He was well into his 80's. Although he was many years my elder, and quiet for the most part, he influenced me more than anyone else to opening my heart to Jesus.

I first met Ken when he and my wife's Grandma Marion came up from the southerntier of Western New York for a visit at my wife's parents house. I was the new guy in my wife's (then girlfriend's) life, and it was the first time meeting family other than my wife's siblings or Mom and Dad. I was very nervous, to say the least.

After going out to greet them with the rest of the family and just meeting them for the very first time, I was given the opportunity to keep him from falling off the steps to the house. The very first thing he said to me after hello was when he turned his head to see why he didn't fall off the porch, he said "Wow you are a tall one aren't you?" Followed by a sincere "Thank You". This was the beginning of a mutual respect between us that lasted until his death in 2006. Ken was a great source of insight on issues that were quite cloudy to me because I was still not saved as of yet. He had a Christian perspective on things that didn't offend you like Christians can sometimes do to the lost. He had such wisdom about things in general.

The most prominant memory I have of him was when my wife and I were engaged still. We went down to stay the weekend with Ken and Marion. I was able to have alot of time to be able to just talk about stuff in general. I really enjoyed talking with him about things. I didn't really even realize until after the conversations that he sprinkled in some Biblical truths. Three days after that visit, I was saved. If you look below at my earlier post "An Autobiography of Me" you can see more on that miraculous event.

Since all of that and the death of Ken back in 2006, we have been able to go and visit a couple of times. The last time we went down to stay with grandma for the weekend, she let me see som of Ken's writings he did over the years. There were so many great writings based on various books of the Bible. It then hit me, Ken WAS the greatest influence that God had used to bring me to Him. It is great to know that my salvation and my wife's salvation are two crowns for Ken in heaven. Who knows how many more he may have. But I do know one thing for sure, Ken was the greatest influence on what I am today and what the Lord is manifesting in me. Good job Ken, good and faithful servant!

"The world keeps pulling"

Today is the Lord's day. I get up this morning after a good day of overtime work yesterday. The Lord provides opportunities for financial survival in this world. The Lord also provides us with awesome family members who the Lord puts in place to be there for help. Our dryer finally kicked the bucket, it was old and ready for retirement anyway, but my laundry helper learned a valuable lesson yet again on following instructions. She found out the hard way that dryer motors seize up when they are run for over 120 minutes continually for God only knows how long. This was a bit wearing on me, but I have come to an understanding that my laundry helper is headstrong and will not learn from me or her Mom, but will have to cope with failures of her own way to learn that we older people do know about things from experience. I have become expectant of things like this as I get older.
The Lord is always there to help us out. My wonderful wife blogged about our troubles with no dryer and Praise the Lord our sister in law and fellow blogger happened to catch on my wife's blog about our need to get a new dryer. She offered us an extra dryer that my brother in law and her had, that went with the washer that they graciously gave us a few years ago when we were in need again. That made me think about how the Lord uses everyone to help out His providence. Praise the Lord for my brother in law and sister in law!
Back to my post on the world pulling. In preparation for this switch of the dead dryer for the living dryer, I needed my three helpers to clean up the basement for an easy switcheroo, because my father in law was once again there to help hauling this dryer from my brother in law and sister in law's to the basement. I go down there, and my helpers never did help much at all. Not to mention that their version of cleaning the cat box was not correct, and when we went to get the old dryer out, our shoes became a bit messy, causing the whole house to be messy. A fire extinguisher went off clouding the basement, I fell over some stuff that my helpers didn't clean up before winter, dropping the dryer, then dropping it again because of my lack of coordination. I was definitely losing my cool. Things only spiraled down from there. I then realized how much all this was because of my laziness, my disobedience to God, my failure as the head of the house to get these tasks done with or without help from my helpers. I let myself get pulled down by the world, however it may have happened, I let the world pull me down. I always am preaching to my kids about not letting the world pull you in, and I did it myself. After a bit of kicking myself and a lot of personal prayer, I have dusted myself off and am pressing on. We all in the world are a work in progress. At this point, God has brought me down to a level of perspective that He wants me. I am a child of the King, but am a human like everyone else and am prone to failure. Also, I need Him to be my guide me in all I do, He knows all, I do not. I am to be in the world, not of the world. It is easy to get pulled in. I press on though!

An interesting study I did for my Old Testament History class

"The Making of a Nation"

After 400 years of enslavement in the land of Egypt, the cries for deliverance coming from the Israelites to God were heard. God answered the Israelites cries by bringing them out of slavery with several miracles leading up to the Exodus, and many miracles during the Exodus. God chose a leader for His people to journey out of Egypt, to the Promised Land. Moses was chosen by God to lead the Israelites. After much encouragement and counsel from God through a burning bush, Moses was ready for the task. God gave Moses instruction for His people to have a feast and spread the blood of the slaughtered lambs on their door frames, so they would be excluded from God’s ultimate plague on the Egyptians, the death of the firstborn sons. God softened Pharaoh’s heart after this and the Israelites Exodus began. Everything that God had done was to lay the foundation for the establishment of a Holy nation of Israel (Tyndale 2005).
The Lord could have led the Israelites on a much easier journey, the road would have led the Israelites into the land of the Philistines, which may have discouraged the Israelites and they could have gone back to Egypt. So the Lord chose for them to take this route which would show His love, power and strength to His people more clearly. After the Israelites had started their journey, Pharaoh decided to go after the Israelites with his army of chariots. They pursued the Israelites to the Red Sea where through Moses and his staff, God parted the Red Sea for His people to cross safely. After all the Israelites had crossed the army of chariots had made it to the Red Sea and part way across the dry bottom of the Red Sea when the water was reformed back into its place, wiping out the pursuing Egyptian charioteers. The Lord’s awesome hand had been displayed for the Israelites to see.
God through Moses led the Israelites into the desert where they came upon Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, the Lord established with His people the covenant that He had made with Abraham. He was making the Israelites a nation that is Holy and a kingdom of priests. The Israelites were to give complete obedience to the Lord and keep His covenant (Tyndale 2005). The Israelites had been through and seen many miraculous, but scary things for humans to go through; yet they complained about many things. Their reluctant obedience had brought them through everything to this point.
While on Mount Sinai, Moses received the Ten Commandments from the Lord. This was the law which Israel would use to establish a nation in the Promised Land. These were the laws that the Israelites were to live by to show the world God’s holiness through the example of His chosen people, the nation of Israel (Tyndale 2005).
The Lord instructed Moses to have His people make an offering of gold, silver and bronze, blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, goat hair, dyed ram skins, sea cow hides, acacia wood, olive oil, spices, and onyx stones, as well as other gems (Tyndale 2005). The Lord wanted the Israelites to construct a tabernacle for the Lord to dwell with them. This was a place for the priest to communicate with the Lord, known as “the holy place”. There was a curtain in the tabernacle which separated the place for the priests and a place for the Lord which was known as “The Most Holy Place” (Tyndale 2005). The tabernacle was an earthly instrument used by the Lord to establish worship of the Israelites.
The exodus was the beginning of the fulfillment of the covenant between God and Abraham. The Lord used Moses to lead His people out of captivity into the Promised Land. The Lord taught His people the way to be obedient and glorify Him with the law. The tabernacle was established for the priests to communicate with God through sacrifice and prayer. This was God’s plan of making a nation of Israel, holy and honoring to the Lord.


References
NIV Life Application Study Bible, Tyndale House Publishers Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois, 2005

"An Autobiography of Me"

I was born on July 19, 1970 to Herbert and Agnes. It was a special day for them because I was born on their 18th wedding anniversary. I had a good childhood. I grew up going to church with my Mom. I attended church school, accomplishing the sacraments of first communion, first confession, and confirmation.
I went through my life up through my 20’s believing that I could be nice to people and help them when they were in a pinch, attend Sunday Mass, say the necessary prayers and be forgiven for all my shortcomings, then go do them all over again. I blended in well with society. The majority of people around me were doing the same thing. In reality, I was a foul-mouthed young man, who was following the crowd, not really sorry for anything. I thought it was all okay to do.
In the late 1990’s, I started working at the local high paying factory. My Dad had my brother get me an application, and he made sure that his long time friend, who worked his way into being the supervisor, knew that I had applied By the year 2000, I was able to move into a different department. I befriended many there. I became friends with one man that really was different from the rest. He listened to this strange radio station I never heard of before, he read his Bible frequently in my presence, which led me to discuss Biblical things with him. I had my Catholic view and he had a Protestant view. I realized I had no clear knowledge of many Biblical events. I definitely had no idea what these words meant. After much debate with him, I realized that I shouldn’t debate with him on things that I knew nothing about. I couldn’t figure out why this guy and others I knew in my own family were always so happy; there was nothing much I could see to be happy about.
In 2001, after many different health problems, my Mom was diagnosed with liver cancer. I could see it really devastated my Mom. Though I was very scared and heartbroken, I kept up a positive attitude with her. I went to church with many prayers from me and many friends and family. My Mom continued to get worse, radiation treatments were not working. By April of 2002, my Mom became so ill that she was admitted into the hospital. The doctors did several procedures on her and she started to get a little better. Then, the call came from one of my brothers that Mom took a turn for the worse and she wanted to see Dad and all her boys. I prayed harder than I ever had the entire 50 mile journey to the hospital. I was able to spend a few last moments with Mom, and on April 17, 2002 she died. I was very upset with God for taking my Mom from me. I really didn’t want to go to church anymore, but for my Dad’s sake, I went. While at church, instead of prayers, I gave chastisement in my mind to God for not answering my prayers. Eventually, my grief and anger toward God subsided.
Something made me look up on Yahoo Personals, the profiles of single women in the area. After much looking I came across a few in my close area. After talking with them, one stood out. I became an IM and email friend with her. After much hinting and coaxing on her part, I asked her out on a date to see a movie “Sweet Home Alabama.” I eventually met her family. Her parents and grandparents intrigued me. The debates I had with my friend at work came flooding back into my mind. These people were professing Christians. I developed much respect for them. My heart softened a bit toward Christianity.
In the winter of 2003 my Dad was diagnosed with lung disease. It was not long until I started praying to God again for his well being. He was in ICU for weeks. Eventually, the doctors were doing a routine tracheotomy, when they made a mistake and nicked an artery. Because of this, my Dad died during this procedure. Once again, this devastated my family. Shortly afterward, I asked my girlfriend Jennifer, and her three kids to move in with me. We lived together for 15 months before I finally mustered the courage up to ask Jennifer to be my bride. I used our overused credit card to buy the wedding/engagement ring. I used Christmas Eve alone with her to pop the question, while putting out the presents. We set our date for November 5, 2005.
As November approached, we received a foreclosure notice in the mail along with several collection agencies attempts to get us to pay our debts. This caused me to talk us into getting another loan from a loan company that advertised in our local paper. This company turned out to be fraudulent and stole $1800 in “insurance” fees from us. This put us in a state of disarray. We could not afford to get married the way we had planned. On September 20th we discussed postponing the wedding. We were both just devastated. We talked about God again in a bad way and took this as proof that there was no God.
I was given a job that evening at work far away from my workmates. Then, a thought came to mind about that radio station that my friend listened to when I debated with him about Biblical matters. I turned to it. There was a teaching show on there “Living on the Edge” with Chip Ingram. He came on and introduced what his show was about that night. He was doing a study from the book of Job. This drew some interest for me. I heard a kind voice say “Listen, this message is for you to hear.” Then I heard another gruff voice say “No don’t listen.” This went on for a short time. I decided to listen with great interest. All the while this gruff voice became a spiritual presence and things on my machine started falling onto the ground. At the end of the teaching, Chip Ingram said “If this message sounds like something you can relate to, remember that Jesus longs for you to come to him. Pray this prayer with me, ‘Jesus, I have lived my life separated from you, please come into my heart and rescue me from this turmoil in my life. I turn from my sin and will follow you, Jesus I love you. Amen.’”
I then left my work area hastily to call Jennifer and tell her what had just happened. I could not control my emotions. I cried quite uncontrollably barely getting the words out that I just said a prayer to ask Jesus into my heart. She was so overwhelmed by this that after she calmed me down on the phone and hung up, she asked Jesus into her heart as well. The wedding, though scaled down, went on and was more enriching to both of us because God was at the center.
Since then, we have grown greatly in the Lord. All three of our kids accepted Jesus as their Savior and are currently learning how to stay on the path of righteousness. Recently, I was called into ministry and am currently attending Grand Canyon University for my Bachelor’s in Christian Studies with a focus on Ministry.
As well as being a story of my testimony, and of God’s never-ending love for me; it is also a story of God’s usage of people who don’t know Him as their Savior. He longs for them to know Him and love Him. He used my Dad, my brother, my Dad’s long- time friend, and several other people; believers and non-believers. My never-ending prayer is for them to come to know Jesus as their Savior, and know that He used them in bringing me to Jesus.