Love Dare Day #1

Alright, so I will be honest with you. I am scared to start this challenge. I need to let you know that I am 31 (at least for a few more days) years old and I have started lots of bible studies lots...but I have yet to EVER finish a single one of them! Hope over at pinkadoodledo knows this all too well. Also my friend Ashley, who is completing her Love Dare challenge can write her thoughts so evenly and plainly getting every point to be made and wrapping it all up in a great paragraph at the end...mine will be NOTHING like that. I am fly by the seat of my feelings and talk raw and open. Please also don't ever look for my post to be without spelling errors (I am a horrible speller) the type where spell check doesn't even pick up on the error, and grammar...well you can just toss that right out the window!

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O.K. with that being said and all my disclaimers out in the open, please pray for me through this and all the ladies that are doing it. I am not taking this challenge lightly at all. So here we go.

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Right off the bat I dis-agree with a statement in the book, it states "Few of us do patients well, and none of us do it naturally." My sister is a naturally patient person, she has been this way since she was a child. It is something the Holy Spirit breathed into her spirit from day one. She is very slow to anger...very very slow. Her patients is a gift from God. Me? 360 degrees in the other direction running no less!
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In regards to my marriage, I have learned over the years, many many years that I often get a better result by keeping my BIG MOUTH SHUT! In fact, by not saying anything, Joel hears me loud and clear. I am not talking about the silent treatment, out of "teaching" him a lesson. I am talking about, shutting my mouth and letting God talk to Joel one on one. If I would say all I wanted to say in that very moment as I often do the whole thing back fires and blows up in my face! Big time. Then I am left back-peddling and have a bigger mess on my hands than I started with.

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"Patients is where love meets wisdom" BAM! This is a thought provoking statement. If you practice and execute patients out of love are you not wiser for it? Heck yeah, I am. I am a big fan of choice...I am taken aback by how most every situation we face is by some choice we made and then that choice leads us down road A or road B. In a heated moment it really is a split decision choice as to how I will handle the rest of my"road".

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"Patients allows your spouse permission to be human". This is something I need practiced on me more than I need to practice. The example of the keys being locked in the car has happened to me...Joel gets mad, I feel stupid...but I am just human. I will make LOTS and LOTS of mistakes over and over again. Do I allow Joel to be human? When he gets upset with me for locking my keys in the car, do I then get mad at him for getting mad at me? He is just human and made a "choice" to get mad. What would happen if I didn't break into tears, and not say "like I did it on purpose" what if I showed him patients even when he lacked his. I wonder what his reaction would be?

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Dare: Resolve to demonstrate patients and not say anything negative at all.
Well, I will need to wait for the opportunity to arise, however I mainly try not to say anything negative or anything that will squelch Joel's spirit. I do fail, and usually it's quite miserably too. So I will let you know tomorrow how I did and if an opportunity if any did or did not arise!