Love Dare Day 33: April 22, 2020
What is Day 33 about:
The differences between Jessica and I are more than or similarities, but that is the strength in our relationship. This chapter talks about how the differences in our spouse are not a weakness, but the strength God intentionally put in our marriage.
What do I think about the material:
We could not be more of an unlikely couple. When Jess and I met, I was a 30 year-old single dad coming off of an ugly divorce. She was a 22 year-old single mom struggling with balancing her youth and being a new mother. I was reclusive and focused on the challenges of my daily life and she loved to have a good time and not much of a care in the world.
I will save our love story for another day, but during our pre-marital counseling, our pastor questioned several times on whether or not we wanted to merge our chaotic lives together. Even though from the outside we looked all over the place, where we met was at the heart of it all.
This chapter talks about how our differences in marriage was on purpose. When my strength may be in the details, Jess does phenomenal at making it all happen. I can keep the inner home at peace where she knows how to ensure we have great friends.
Where she is weak, I am strong and where I am weak, she is strong.
However, there is one problem. We are humans and sometimes, I don’t like her strengths. When you put two different human beings in a room together they have two choices. They either accept each other’s oddities, or not. Not accepting them creates friction and conflict.
This, in my opinion, is the hardest part in a marriage. If God put us together because of our differences, won’t there naturally be friction? The answer is absolutely, but what we do with that friction matters. Are we annoyed or do we accept? Is our jealously of their strength hurting our pride and our marriage?
After almost 9 years of marriage, I must say this is a daily challenge. There are days when my reclusive self does not want to have a game night. Even though I know the fellowship with people will benefit me, I don’t care. Sometimes I am annoyed we have to have people over.
It is my choice to be annoyed, or I can choose to let her strength improve our lives. I don’t always choose the latter. Bottom line, we must accept that neither one of us are good alone. We are to be each other’s helpmate and not competition.
My task and how did I perform the task:
Today’s challenge was to make sure we understand the strengths in our spouse. If we have a big decision coming up, make sure we include them in that decision. It also says to let them know that we value their input and ask for forgiveness if we have devalued their opinion in the past.
I read my chapter every day before the day really gets going. So I had this on my mind when Jess, Emily, and I made a Walmart run. At one point Jess was a little bit ahead of Emily and I and she asked when why I wasn’t making the decisions on outfits for the kids.
I explained to her that shopping was not something I was good at. Her response, “Oh, so Mom is in charge?” I replied that neither one of us are completely in charge. That when Mom is good at certain things, she takes the lead, but when I am good at certain things I take the lead.
This may have gone over her head, but I felt good about it. That was not how I accomplished my dare though. We go on a daily walk together and I brought the subject up during our trip.
Jessica’s reaction:
Her reaction actually surprised me. The note I made three years ago was that Jess absolutely knew that she was an intricate part of my success as a husband and father. Today, however, on our walk she said, “I guess sometimes.” She further explained that it is more apparent when I follow her lead in certain aspects of my personal life.
For example, she has a phenomenal morning routine and is killing it each day. She has inspired me to do the same. It has now been over a month with us both on a great morning routine. Shen knows this is because of her encouragement.
My lesson from her reaction is that I need to be more vocal when I have inspiration because of her actions.
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