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.