7 Day Challenge

Every year a couple from church preaches a foundational message about marriage, how to keep it strong, keeping Christ in the focus of it, and how to re-engage each other as not only husband and wife but as best friends.  A main focus they hit on is the dying life of intimacy among married couples and the crucial need to bring it back.  Half of the congregation always roll their eyes while the other half shouts "Amen" with a strong fist pump!

7 Days...

Some friends of ours begin telling us about the same message given two years ago with a challenge; 21 days of intimate bedroom talk for each married couple.  Most failed after 3 days but for those who stuck to it, they were never the same.  Me being the one who never initiates intimacy in my marriage and almost always the one who turns it down knew that starting out with 21 days would be impossible.  7 days seemed the perfect number; enough to push us and grown us.

Days 1 through 3...

After hearing the "sales pitch" of a changed life we were committed to test it; we needed growth in our marriage and we both knew it.  As always with a new challenge we both went with zeal thinking of how easy this was and we'd be doing the 21 day challenge right after.  The days came and went with us both feel accomplished and that much closer.

The fires of 4 through 7...

If there was ever a time in our marriage where we were more tired neither of us could remember.  The days seemed 40 hours long and non-stop the entire time.  Usually not making it home until midnight or after, only to realize we had the Challenge...Oh that challenge...how we hated it.  Don't mistake our frustration at the challenge as discontent with each other, we still loved and longed for each other as much as ever, but somewhere along the way we'd lost touch of what a best friend and lover meant.  A statement I'd read about a similar challenge rings true here:  We found that getting lost in the challenge forced us to get lost together(although some nights out of obligation and not desire), but as we got lost together we truly found each other.

Let the heavens pour out...

A long talk came after and being very unexpected but definitely beneficial for the both of us.  We talked about how we felt, what we experienced, the real truth to what we found in each other those 7 days.  In short, we died.  A blind spot is what we call an area in a persons life that they are unaware of that causes them to be less like Christ .  For me it was selfishness: never touching her(not even holding her hand...I know I know...) which would brighten her day to a new level of radiance.  Her blind spot was laziness which lead to never wanting to help around the house, or do favors for me just to show me she loved me.  Both of us had denied the other their love language because we were too caught up in showing our own.  I would do her favors(my love language, not hers) and she would try to cuddle(her love language, not mine).  We gave selfishly, neither wanting to budge or come to an agreement.  

The forest and those darn trees...

Do you love your spouse?  I do mine.  Do you respect your spouse?  I do mine.  I never showed it though, at least the way she needed me to.  We were so caught up in giving we didn't consider we were giving what the other couldn't receive.  Give freely what isn't yours to keep and take willingly what is a blessing to receive.  Oddly enough a simple statement but something neither of us realized or cared to search out.  Today we know the meaning of best friend forever, but also what it means to be the strength each needs in our weak moments.  7 days to fall in love, 7 days to relight the fire, and 7 days to find that best friend all over again.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8  Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy ([a]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].