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Jealousy. Something about an ugly head.

Love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire. —Song of Solomon 8:6

A fire can be hard to put sometimes. That’s why the blazing fire :: jealousy metaphor is so powerful. It can consume you. Worse, it can burn away everything you built prior to that moment.

Not all jealousy is illegitimate. Book talks about a husband having a legitamate reason for being jealous when his wife replaces him with someone else. The book says he may be justified and longs to have back what is rightfully his.

That is also the kind of jealousy God has for us. He created us in His image to praise and worship him. He doesn’t want anything to come between us and Him. Interesting to read a book about growing closer to your spouse and hit a paragraph about loving God above all else. Yes that includes your spouse. I always use the triangle example to explain.

           God
           / \
          /   \
         /     \
        /       \
Husband --------- Wife

(Please forgive my horrible ASCII drawing.) As you and your spouse move closer to God, so you move closer together. But your first priority should be your relationship with God. As you learn to love God more, you’ll love your spouse more too.

So back what jealousy has to do with my marriage. I’m supposed to support Amanda in everything. “Be [her] biggest cheerleader.” I’m enjoying some time away playing sports. I boast about destoying everyone on the field and she feels like destroying me because she stayed home and cleaned the house. Love puts others first and refuses to let jealousy lead. This all seems like a dumb example, but you celebrate their success instead of being mad that they were having fun while you weren’t.

Today we told to be determined to become our spouse’s biggest fan and reject any thoughts of jealousy. We also had to rip the bad qualities we listed yesterday from our paper, discreetly burn them, and tell our spouse how glad we are about a success they recently enjoyed.

I burned it in the parking lot at work. Almost poignantly a rendition and combination of Amazing Grace and some other song came on the radio. The act of burning away her bad qualities while listening to someone sing about amazing grace was something that I couldn’t have even planned if you had given me a month to think about it. Amazing grace. Giving her grace when those qualities are being shown and choosing to react with love.

Man this is good stuff.

Believing the best. Sounds pretty cheesy.

[Love] believes all things, hope all things. —1 Corinthians 13:7

Again, sounds pretty cheesy. I mean, this is pretty similar to trust on the surface. You want to believe that your spouse won’t cheat on you, won’t overspend, has your best interests first, etc. You want to believe that they have the best qualities and the self control to handle themselves in an appropriate way. But the flip side to the coin is that everyone has negative qualities.

Take a second, what are yours?

Weaknesses, failures, bad habits. Spending time dwelling on the bad things your mate does will kill your relationship. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean you should spend your time thinking about it. You are the only person that can choose to forgive and forget. Honestly, seriously, what possible purpose does it serve to make a point of remembering information about a time someone messed up so that you can bring it up again later? You want to make them feel bad right?

WHY? You love them, don’t you? Your wife. Your husband. Think about that. You purposefully save little things to say to the person to love the most on this earth to make them feel worse during an argument. That’s pretty messed up.

I know it’s difficult to try and focus your thoughts on good things always, but I think my personal twist on an old saying is pretty valid here: practice makes permanent. Forgive and forget and be done. Get back to enjoying life and why you chose to spend it together.

Today we got two sheets on paper and secretly wrote three positives qualities and three negative qualities about each other. Then we were supposed to phone and thank our spouse for having one of those characteristics.

I am SO THANKFUL that Amanda has patience.

I’m told it’s a virtue.

Irritableness. Sounds like a side effect.

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city. —Proverbs 16:32

Obviously, one of the main causes of irritability is stress. The book says there are excessive causes (over working, overplaying, and overspending) and deficiencies (not getting enough rest, nutrition, or exercise). The exercise one is dang spot on for me. If I don’t get my ultimate frisbee time on Sunday, I’m pretty wound up. If I don’t go do something two more days out of the week, I know I’m coming home already “locked, loaded, and ready to overreact” (page 26).

The truth is that there are plenty of reasons why people are irritable: selfishness, lust, bitterness, greed, pride, etc. “Those motivations can never be satisfied” (page 28). The test is reacting with love regardless of the situation. We also made a list of areas in our lives where we need to add some margin as well as motivations that we need to release from our lives.

Today we choose to react to tough circumstances in a loving way instead of with irritation. This dare is kind of hit or miss though. I don’t think we actually had a situation to apply our knowledge to. There’s always tomorrow.

See you then.

Rudeness. Well excuuuuuuuuse me.

He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be reckoned a curse to him. —Proverbs 27:14

The book says that the two main reasons why people are rude are ignorance and selfishness. Are you starting to see a pattern as well? The only thing I took away from this day is that a person intentionally behaves in a way that’s more pleasant when they are driven by love.

Today we told each other three things that cause us to be uncomfortable or irritated. And we have to do it without attacking them or justifying our behavior. It was basically and free pass to say what was on our minds as far as things the other person do that irritate us. I honestly don’t even remember what I said. I didn’t write it down or anything (not like I would say it publicly here anyway even if I did.) It was … interesting to hear what I do that irritates Amanda. Especially when it’s something you thought wasn’t that big of a deal.

But I guess the test is now to see if I still do it knowing that she doesn’t like it.

Thoughtfulness. Love thinks. It’s not a random feeling.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me… How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. —Psalm 139:17-18

I have a bit of trouble with thoughtfulness, that’s for sure. But in my defense, it is because I am a man. Men tend to focus on one thing and forget the rest of the world. Women, on the other hand, are way better at multitasking. Amanda can talk on the phone, cook dinner, make a grocery list, and plan her next day.

There is one thing about thoughtfulness that I don’t quite understand. Knowing that men and women are designed differently and that men and women communicate differently, I am supposed to be thoughtful of how Amanda talks and recognize her unspoken implications. If I am designed not to do this, why am I in trouble when I don’t do it?

A wife should learn to say what she means and not rely on me picking up on implied things. But maybe that’s just me still learning how to not be selfish.

Today we were to call our spouse for no reason at all. Just to see how she was doing and if there was anything I could for her. It’s difficult to try and do the things in the book because she knows what’s coming. As soon as I asked her how her day was going and if there was something I could do for her, she kind of freaked out. She thought I wanted something and that I was buttering her up in preparation for asking for something. I don’t really know how I feel about that.

If you’re reading this, and you have a significant other, do the same and see how they react. I’m curious how many of us  practice thoughtfulness on a daily basis.