Love is not Prideful

Wow, this has been an amazing & profound journey I've been on. The "Love Dare" challenge has helped me grow and brought a change in my attitude towards life and marriage. It has totally turned my attitude around for the better. My love for Tommy has grown so much through this challenge. I love him more today then when we first got married....which excites me and inspires me to keep doing the Love Dare challenge b/c I can only imagine where we will be in 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years from now. Love is a commitment to keep striving to better ourselves so that we can better our marriages. It breaks my heart to see couples go through divorce around me, especially with my close friends. I grieve with them over their loss. But even though it breaks my heart it also reveals to me the importance to keep striving to find ways to work on my marriage, keeping the love going strong and being committed to giving my all in my marriage. My heart longs for the day to see the divorce rate in our country drop... but, for right now the only person I can keep working on is myself and the rest I will have to keep in my prayers.

Love is not prideful: an over high opinion of oneself, exaggerated self esteem, haughtiness, arrogance, since of one's own dignity, self-respect, delight or satisfaction in one's achievements.

The opposite of pride is humility. If more of us would be willing to humble ourselves in our marriage then I believe we would have a lot less fights and a lot more respect shown towards our spouse. Do we really always have to be right?! Proverbs 16:18 tells us "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall". When we allow pride to fill our hearts we begin to forget the treasure that lies within our spouse and we begin to focus on our self. It's all about me, my needs, my desires, my life. But Humility thinks about others and their needs and their dreams. When we are humble we desire to help our spouse succeed in life and reach their dreams.

SO, I challenge all of us willing to seek out the best in our spouse and humble ourselves this week when a disagreement arises that we will "be slow to speak, quick to listen, and slow to get angry". Let's put ourselves in our spouse's shoes and see their point of view in the disagreement. Good luck to you all and may we all strive to better our lives and marriages.