"Love Dare" Day 31

Day 31 : "Love and Marriage"
Leave. And cleave. And Dare to walk as one.
Are there issues in our marriages in which we refuse to let go????? Today's devotion really talked about that oneness God intended for our marriages and how we leave the family so to speak and become that one flesh. It also poses the question .... if you have done this great however are there things hovering in your life in which you are holding to tightly to which may be affecting that oneness. For Greg and I we really dont have an issue in this area of parents being a problem...HOWEVER in the beginning of our journey together it was a HUGE issue both his side of family and mine it nearly almost took a turn for the worst until the Lord stepped into the situation and sent a very Bold, Godly, loving Christian family into our lives in which mentored us and later became our families best all time friends. When we finally did as the Bible said it was amazing the changes were night and day and family on both sides of course were angry however they too soon came around and began to give us the space needed for a marriage to work. So for today's I was reminded just to make sure I always remember to keep that oneness alive with my mate and becareful not to let guard down and if you are holding on to any situation to tightly and it is affecting your oneness with your mate give it to God and let Him work. May God just continue to convict our hearts and restore our marriages to their fullness.
Thanks for stopping by I will not be posting tomorrow I actually only do the Love Dare Mon.-Sat. taking Sunday off for the Sabbath hence is also a reason why not yet finished with this devotion book. SO I SHALL HAVE MORE TO SHARE ON MONDAY for Day 32...................

until Next Time,
God Bless,
Cindy

Day 30 " LOVE DARE"

WOW I cannot believe I am on day 30 ..... 10 days left to this 40 day challenge it is bitter sweet I love doing it so I dont want to stop maybe I shall keep going we shall see.
Well today's devotion is "LOVE BRINGS UNITY" unity ,togetherness, oneness just like the trinity we have the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit yet they are three in one unified as should we be in our marriages: even in today's thru the word in Mark ch.10: 7-9 "for this reason a man shall leave his parents and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh so then they are no longer two ,but one flesh therefore what God has joined together let not man seperate."
So we even see here we are to become one in unity one with another. In the trinity we see that they serve each other, love each other, and honor each other. though equal they rejoice when the other is praised. though distinct, they are one, indivisible. It needs to be our mission to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to promote togetherness of heart with our husbands and when we finds ourselves on two different pages before making a plea that our way is the right way may we examine our hearts to the Lord and make sure all flesh is laid aside and then if we still are led in the direction lovingly bring it before our hubby's and pray for the Lord to guide and direct.
Unity is what the Lord desires for ALL the relationships in our lives and this can only be done through his agape love so my prayer today is that we may see everyone through the eyes of Jesus may we keep the lines of communication open always and live in unity with all those around us starting at home with our husbands and families.

until next time,
Cindy
May you all have a blessed family filled weekend reflecting on Christ and His love for us and His desire for us to be unified with all our brothers and sister's in Christ Jesus.................

Day 28 and 29!!!!

Day 28 "Love makes Sacrifices" Jesus laid down His life for us, we should then also lay down our lives for our brothers (husbands) we see this in 1 John 3:16

Well as you can see I have bunched two days up today's and yesterday's I was unable to post yesterday however I did do the Dare and needed to share in order so here it goes :
Yesterday's dare was making sacrifices for our mates because true Love makes sacrifices even when our mates may be having awful days and stresses that with their words of personal accusations, love shows compassion rather than becoming defensive making matters escalate I have to say I am guilty of this it is hard when we have our bad days and they have their bad days yet we must not repay evil for evil so to speak. This is where the sacrifice needs to begin we choose to sacrifice our mood to love them no matter what or how our day has been greet them with loving open arms when they walk in from the daily grind of being in this awful world. We need to make sure we dont greet them with the trouble of the day right when we see them there is a time and place for this. Instead we need to pray that the Lord will make us sensitive to the needs of our mates not our own needs.
IS OUR MATE " HUNGRY" - NEEDING YOU SEXUALLY, EVEN WHEN YOU DONT FEEL LIKE IT?

ARE THEY "THIRSTY" - CRAVING THE TIME AND ATTENTION YOU SEEM ABLE TO GIVE EVERYONE ELSE?

DOES HE FEEL LIKE A "STRANGER" - INSECURE IN HIS WORK, NEEDING HOME TO BE A REFUGE AND SANCTUARY?

IS HE "NAKED" -FRIGHTENED OR ASHAMED , DESPERATE FOR THE WARM COVERING OF YOUR LOVING AFFIRMATION ?

IS HE FEELING "SICK" - PHYSICALLY TIRED AND NEEDING YOU TO HELP GUARD HIM FROM INTERRUPTIONS??

dOES HE FEEL IN "PRISON" -FEARFUL AND DEPRESSED , NEEDING SOME SAFETY AND INTERVENTION??
LOVE is willing to make these sacrifices to see that the needs of our spouse are given our very best effort and focus setting our needs aside to bless him instead when we do this we our blessed
by the Lord and the fruit of this will show maybe not right away but it will soon.
So ask yourself what is one of your spouses greatest need and meet it today if possible.

So I cannot share all areas I have sacrificed or am however I can share a very simple one in which I did yesterday that was blessed. Well let me take you back I am excited to see each day in the Love Dare book so I tend to browse through the next days the night before so Tuesday
night I looked a little bit into yesterday's (day 28 the one I am sharing now)about sacrifices and the Lord laid on my heart to ask my hubby a simple odd question about how he likes my hair I know it is my hair yet I also like to make myself attractive for my hubby so in the past I would grill him so you like my hair blonde uh or darker well if your not happy find someone who makes you happy (I know right awful I cant believe I shared this ugly moment however I did it) so needless to say you can understand his hesitation to answer a loaded question only this time my whole way of asking was soft and approachable so he said you really want my honest opinion and I said yes of course so he said ok PLEASE DONT CUT IT I LOVE IT LONG I said oh I dont want to cut just trim and I was going to color it darker again it is almost time (I know seems I do it every other week right lol) so he said oh WELL can you not do it dark and this is when in the past I would lose it and say OH SO YOU DONT LIKE IT BLAH, BLAH , BLAH (POOR HUBBY)
but I thought to myself oh yes Lord sacrifice lay my desire aside for his so what is your fav look for me well we got some pictures out and he showed me and I said oh ok cool that is awesome he was so shocked and wondered if I was feeling ok so it was great then we cuddled and went to sleep which brings me to yesterday I trimmed my hair and had the lighter color put in and presto he came home and to his surprise I had sacrifised what I wanted and did what he liked even though I had no intentions on doing it because it is high maintanace with lots of up keep but because I did it with a happy joyful willing heart for him the Lord blessed me and it came out better than ever before I am happy with it and more importantly he is VERY happy with it so Praise the Lord ..........................................................

ok sheeeeeeeeeeeeeewwww this is long now today DAY 29 "Love's Motivation"
Love motivated by mere duty cannot hold out for very long. And love that is only motivated by favorable conditions can never be assured of sufficient oxygen to keep it breathing. Only love that is lifted up as an offering to God - returned to Him in gratitude for all He's done- is able to sustain itself when all other reasons have lost their ability to energize us.
Love that has God as its primary focus is unlimited in the heights it can contain.

May we be motivated to love not as man loves (the world's way) but may we be motivated by our maker to Love the way Jesus loved "UNCONDITIONALLY" PUTTING OUR NEEDS ASIDE AND MEETING HIS. Well the thing I learned in today's devotion is we should not be motivated by anything else but our need to obey the Lord and in that should be our only motivation to love unconditionally and to NOT be motivated in order to ourselves recieve anything in return.
Father may you please keep us focused on the prize which is our treasures in heaven not being
comfy cozy here on earth at all times may we seek to make our mates cozy and loved and may we just see the fruits of our labor and rely on you alone to meet our every need when our mate just may not be able to meet our needs this side of heaven. Father may our love know no bounds and may it be given abundantly to all those around us In Jesus Name Amen.........

Until Next time,
Cindy

Day 27 "Love Dare"

Hello friends,
Today's devotion is titled "Love Encourages" have you encouraged your spouse recently???
Now I am going to be VERY open here this is for me another hard core day ....you see this is my gift...... so I have been told (as well as I love to do it) is to encourage those around me as much as possible. The Lord convicted my heart today as He has shown me I am always concerned with encouraging all those around me ACCEPT MY HUSBAND (OUCH THAT HIT A GOOD SPOT) I
was so taken back because He was so right I guess I was holding my husband to a higher standard or as today the devotion shared many times we have "unrealistic expectations in which always breeds DISAPPOINTMENT" I am expecting him to Always meet my needs and my desires even though I fail to do that very same thing myself wow who am I????? We must choose instead of living by expectations instead live by encouraging ALL THOSE IN OUR LIVES NOT JUST OUTSIDERS and then give the husbands parden my french but what the bird leaves on the fence. We too our just as imperfect as our mates as Jesus puts it as He paints us this picture in the word of God; when He speaks of us looking at the speck in our brother's eye (husband) while we seem to NOT notice the LOG IN OUR OWN yikes.....In the devotion today after this it asks "DOES YOUR MATE FEEL AS IF THEY ARE LIVING WITH A SPECK INSPECTOR"?? OH YIKES so today I have realized most of the problem is me, myself, and I,
I have made my hubby in the past feel on edge, fearful of always failing to live to any of my expectations and giving him a sense of disapproval rather than acceptance and shouldnt our husbands come home to a place of acceptance yes it should be the one place they can we never want to push our hubbies away from us leaving them with no desire to even be home that gives the enemy so much room to do damage. We dont want to make our mates ever feel beat down,
and defeated but instead loved, accepted, encouraged, even when we dont feel like it we must choose to love any way. Will we be perfect at this no however we should be striving in our marriages to be better putting God FIRST AND HUSBANDS NEXT even if we dont feel like it remember Love is not a FEELING but a choose in which we are COMMANDED to do period.
I will now just leave you with a few scriptures to ponder on and meditate on:

"Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble" (Isaiah 35:3

"Encourage one another and build up one another...Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak,
be patient with EVERYONE" (1 Thess. 5:11, 14)

"When you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things." (Romans 2:1) HCSB

[LOVE] always protects." (1 corinth. 13:7)

"The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her hands" (Proverbs 14:1)

May we all (myself included) just remember these things must start at home or all we do outside of the home is ALL IN VAIN!!!!

Father I pray you give each of us no matter what our marital circumstances may be in at this time the strength to love and to be that love in action not just by words may we be that safe haven for our husbands to come home to and when we are upset may we come to you first to make sure our hearts are in the right place before speaking to our mates and when we do may it always be in Love Father thank you, thank you, thank you for my loving husband in whom has endured a lot from me and stayed by my side may you bless him abundantly in Jesus Name AMEN
Until next time,
Love,
Cindy

LOVE IS RESPONSIBLE!!!

Good Monday afternoon blog friends,
As I mentioned in my previous blog I would be sharing from time to time what I am going through in this whole LOVE DARE Book............so as I mentioned I have gone back several times plan on not doing that again so anyhoo I am now on day 26 in which as it said in the devotion one of the hardest days but as we seek God for His wisdom and strength we will be able to get through it. Well let's see as the title says day 26 is , "Love is Responsible" we must take personal responsibility for things we too have done in our marriage own up to them and humbly ask our mates to forgive us (as well as God). this is one of the hardest things we can do for sure we tend to as the love dare states: believe our views are the correct views, or at least much more correct than our mate's. This one has I have to say truly been the harder days for me I am guilty of these things more than I care to admit. Love as the book says , doesn't pass the blame so easily to our mate's or justify our selfish motives (ouch) love is not nearly concerned with its own performances as with others' needs. When love does take responsibility for its actions, it's not to prove how noble we are however to admit how much further we need to go. Love doesn't make excuses and is willing to admit and correct its faults and errors up front.
LOVE calls us to take responsibility for our partner in marriage. To love them. To honor them.
To cherish them. The question it addressed today was this: Are you taking responsibilty for your own faults? Have you said or done things to your spouse- or God- that are wrong? Love desires
to have a right relationship with both God and our mates, once we get this right the stage is set for other areas to fall into place. Humility and honesty before God and our mate is crucial for a healthy relationship and for forgivness and restoration. I have had to eat huge humble pie during this whole process but oh my friends how sweet it has become and is becoming we are slowly becoming closer and breaking down huge walls in which we have both placed before our marriage that are finally breaking brick by brick day by day. So I just want to encourage you to
make sure your hearts are right before God and then before your spouse to allow God to do His amazing work and healing in your marriage. I also want to encourage you if you are doing this book and find yourself at a loss dont give up you will see the fruit of your labor in do time as Gal. 6:9 says:
"DONT BECOME WEARY IN DOING GOOD, FOR IN DUE TIME YOU SHALL REAP A HARVEST IF YOU DONT LOSE HEART".........

May God bless you all until next time,
Cindy
***** Please keep Greg lifted up in prayer he will be flying home from Arizona tonight at 6:00p.m. pray for a safe flight home please thank you.