Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Romancing Your Spouse: Day 14--Green Light. Red Light



"Love is patient, love is kind."
1 Corinthians 13:4 (New International Version)

A Week of Kindness:
Today is day three of our kindness week. 

Question for Reflection:
What do you do, in terms of kindness, when things aren't going well with your spouse?


Perhaps one, or both of you are tired after a long day at work and your spouse becomes short-tempered over something. Those are the times when I find it best to stop myself from saying too much.

Red Light. Green Light.
I try to visualize a traffic light. I don't want to hurt the feelings of my spouse, so, to exercise kindness, I think, "Red Light. Come to a stop. Don't go forward. If you go through this light, both of you are going to collide and someone may get hurt. Just be patient and wait for it to turn Green."

Next, like any quarterback who throws the ball to the wrong team, I try to forget about the bad move on my part, get back in the game and wait for a better opportunity to show kindness to my spouse.

Simply put, sometimes, the kindest thing we can do is to do nothing and say nothing and let our spouse have some space and time to themselves.

What I wrote yesterday holds true every single day: 
Making the effort to be kind is so important as only God knows how much time we'll have down here until His Son, prayerfully takes us home.

Homework:
Continue our daily assignment for the week:
Make an effort to do some little kind thing for your spouse--without spending any money. I'm not asking you to be as frugal as me. : ) I just want you to put some thought and planning into this assignment.

In addition, if possible, practice a random act of kindness to someone you encounter each day this week and observe how it influences both of you and the results thereof--in other words--how the act affects and effects both of you.

-----------------

Thanks for reading this devotional. I feel blessed that folks take the time to read it and offer feedback to me. Please feel free to share and pass along to others.


Have a blessed, kind, wonderful day!

--Steve Kendall