The Winding Roads of Marriage

Love and respect are verbs…action words and essential actions for marriage. But love and respect are also two actions that are hard to show consistently. As my group talked about this last night, we remembered it is hard simply because we are human.

Love doesn’t prevail when we snap because the house is not tidy or dinner is not ready. It’s not so respectful to pout over a decision or engage in the “silent treatment.” But let’s face it – these things happen in marriage. And then what? Chapter One of The Love & Respect Experience reminds us that we move forward with grace – from God and from our spouse. Our verse for the week was a great reminder that we are not perfect, but we can overcome our weaknesses through grace.

“A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again.”

~ Proverbs 24:16

Life is not always going to be easy or perfect. The road is going to take a few unexpected turns. And we are going to fail. Kind words are not always going to come out of our mouths. Our actions will sometimes be less than desirable. But there is hope in knowing that we can rise again. We can move forward. Our marriage can be strengthened.

“ 'Living happily ever after’ means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life – not accepting them with resignation but dealing with them through God’s forgiveness and help and always getting back up when you fall.”

Whew! Do you find the same comfort in that as I do? We can get back up and move onward...learning along the way.

{Insert Happy Dance here...}

We also revealed our Love Dare experiences for the week. The idea behind the dare is simply to show love to your spouse in a different, unexpected way. And it is unexpected because we keep them a secret from each other…unless they read this blog. {didn’t think about that} I loved this weeks challenge because it helped us to be intentional about showing love to our spouse - even if they had messed up. They still deserve our love, much like we still deserve God's love when we mess up!!

The wives were supposed to leave love notes for their hubby’s throughout the week. Beckie and Stephanie did better than I did. They were very creative with their notes near keys that read, “You hold the key to my heart,” Hershey Kisses with a note, and a note in the sock drawer that read, “You knock my socks off.” I was sort of lame, leaving only one note for Mike, but I did score a few points for creativity. My note used Candy Hearts to say “I love you.” Cute, right?


"Hey you, Just wanted to say that I'm glad UR Mine. My Soulmate. My Hero. My life. I love you, D"

The guys were to find seven ways to show love to their wife. They brainstormed actions they could carry out that would convey the message, “I love you.” Mike knew that I love to receive cards and little love notes, so he randomly placed three cards for me to find. Aww…so sweet!

For those of you following along, the challenges chosen for this week are as follows:

The girls get to have some fun making a love box for their husband. A love box is just a small box filled with all the things (okay…some of the things) that your spouse would enjoy on one of those “rough days.” We brainstormed some ideas and I can’t wait to see how this unfolds for each of us.

The guys get to make a candygram for their wives. I call this a win-win week for the ladies!

Be sure to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on chapter one and if you took the Love Dare Challenge. We are heading into chapter two this week…all about seeing things through the lens of our spouse. Should be eye-opening (no pun intended).

How did you show love to your spouse this week?

Keepin’ it Real…D