Fireproofing our Marriage... The Love Dare Day # 1

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

So a good friend of mine called yesterday to catch up. She is the 26 year old owner of Special Delivery Prenatal Imaging in Myrtle Beach. I cannot imagine how stressful her life is knowing that she owns a VERY expensive 3D ultra sound machine that shows parents-to-be what their little bundle of joy will look like before they actually make a grand entrance into this world! Anyway, she sounded extremely happy yesterday and I asked her what was different. We began discussing how her business was growing and never had she imagined it would be like this, especially for her, she said "Do you remember how lazy I was when we were younger?" She attributes her happy demeanor to her re-found relationship with Christ and how HE has provided for her even when she didn't think HE was there. She told me about a movie, Fireproof, that got the ball moving for her. The movie is based on a book called "The Love Dare", which is a Christian 40 day devotional for married couples. My friend isn't married, but she said that she just applied the book to every relationship she had; her relationship with her mother, that also works with her, relationships with physicians that referred patients to her business, those patients, and friends. Pretty much everyone she knew! She said that half way through the book people began noticing a 'change' in her. She didn't really have to talk me into getting the book. I was already sold.

For awhile now I have been promising God that I will have a better relationship with Him. I pray every night, but that's the extent of it. I always make excuses for myself as to why we haven't found a good church to go to in Salt Lake City. My greatest is "(Insert name here, usually Mom,) It's not the way it is back East here. They don't have "normal" churches here. They don't believe the same thing Justin and I believe. They believe part of what Baptist,Catholics, and other religions that we are use to do, but that's it! Although, there is a Baptist church down the road from our house, it's not a Baptist preacher that preaches there. It's just different here." Okay, back on track. So yesterday I put on my oh! So comfy Tom's and walked to Barnes and Nobles, purchased "The Love Dare", came home read the first day's entry, read my Bible, and really thought about how I was going to practice PATIENCE ~ The first 'dare' in the book. I had planned not to tell Justin what I was doing, but when he came home from work yesterday he saw my Bible, a book, and a highlighter on our coffee table and asked what was wrong. I think he thought I may have gotten into a heated discussion with a "door knocker" and was trying to prove a point. Again, my plan was not to tell him, but since he found this out of the ordinary for me I decided we should do this together. He read, or actually, I read the first days entry to him as we sat on the couch together. Normally, we would have just turned on the TV and sat in silence, but it was so wonderful for us to actually spend a little while discussing what we had read and how excited we were to begin our 40 day journey TOGETHER ~ as a happily married couple! Afterwards, we went to Blockbuster to rent the movie. Justin normally falls asleep during any movie I pick, but he stayed awake the entire time, even though the acting was not that of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

Please know that our 3 month marriage is not on the brink of extinction and we are still very much in our honeymoon phase, but how wonderful would it be to make our next 60+ years together our honeymoon phase?! Why should we have to wait until our marriage falls apart to do something about it? Why couldn't we start "fireproofing" our marriage now to ensure that it never gets to that point? So, that's what we plan to do!

I dare all those married, engaged, and single people out there to try it!


xoxo