Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Love Dare and How I Am Changing It

Have you seen the movie Fireproof? If you have, you will totally understand this post. If you haven't, follow along and hopefully your curiosity will be peaked.

As I've said before, the acting in this movie is so "after school special", even if it does have Kirk Cameron (remember Growing Pains?). After you get past the bad acting, you start getting sucked in. The premise of the movie is a husband and wife on the verge of divorce. The man's father gives him a book called "The Love Dare", which is a book of 40 days of showing love to the other person, based on scripture. Steve and I watched it together a few weeks ago, and it is still on my mind.

Over at Write from Karen
, she is sponsoring her own Love Dare Challenge. I was intrigued from the minute she posted last week that she was going to do this.

As I started thinking on Sunday night about doing this with Steve (without his knowledge),
I was thinking over our current life situation. It led me straight to I Corinthians 13. You all know it, the "love" passage. But as I was contemplating the start of this challenge, I realized that having PATIENCE with my husband is not a challenge for me, but having patience with my boys is a struggle minute by minute.

So I will not be able to enter her contests since I have skewed this, but I am concentrating in earnest to use this passage in my parenting.

Guess what happened yesterday?


1. When Noah started his daily little fit about getting dressed, I repeated "love is patient" in my head, and I DIDN'T get mad. I said what I had to say, and walked away.

2. When Aaron was fiddling with his shoes for fifteen minutes when it was time to go outside, I usually would have lost it with him. Instead, I repeated again "love is patient" and headed outside by myself. He followed shortly after.

There were SO MANY instances yesterday of this kind of challenges and changes.

For most moms, this would be common sense...be nice and patient with your kids. But for me, I struggle daily, hourly, and every minute with how I interact with my children. It's not that I don't love them. I love them with all of my heart. But I am an impulsive person who has a tendency to react first and think later. If I even have hopes of helping my sons learn to think before they act, then it is up to me to model the behavior.

Today the challenge is "Love is patient, love is KIND". In addition to PATIENCE, I will find ways to be KIND to those special three men in my life.

So I will continue to visit Karen each day as she posts each day's challenge. But I will also continue to practice it on my hubby AND my children.


Have a great Tuesday.

7 comments:

Courtney said...

I am like you...act first, think later. Not a great thing.

Kristie said...

I would have never thought to do The Love Dare with my kids! What a great idea! I, too, need to work on patience-especially a certain time of the month! I'm sure there is more that I need to work on besides patience, so maybe I should try this too.

Mom Knows Everything said...

Patience....geez I think I ran out of that a long time ago. I'm going to give your idea a try and whenever I need to I'll remind myself that "love is patient".

La Familia Garcia said...

I love this idea! Taking the dare and applying it to loved ones in your life...
May God bless you on this journey!

Anonymous said...

That is so cool, I'm glad to read about this challenge! I couldn't get past the bad acting in the movie, but I loved the premise and the message. I bought the book, but there it sits, right next to everything else I buy from Family Christian store with the best intentions and then forget about. Thank you - sincerely - for the reminder.

Veronica @ Luv My Quiver Full Of Arrows said...

Kristi,

There you go again, Mama. Always striving to be a better mother and I learn from it. Thank you!

And, as for my opinion, I think the acting was actually pretty good...Kirk Cameron could do no wrong in my eyes ;0)...did you know I was supposed to marry him when I got old enough?!? I tell my husband that all the time...that I totally had myself convinced that he, Kirk that is, was supposed to be my husband someday. HA HA!!

Love ya! Veronica in CA

Kila said...

Good for you, that's awesome.

I have tons of patience (too much) with the boys, but NONE for my DH.