This summer, Jeff and I will be celebrating our 16th anniversary.  Sometimes being married and loving Jeff is as easy as breathing.  But other times, I need to be intentional about loving Jeff – not so much because of anything he is or isn’t doing, but because of me.  Almost 16 years of marriage has shown me one glaring truth about myself – I’m very selfish.

If Jeff is sick, my thoughts immediately go to how it affects me and our boys.  If Jeff had a bad day, I seem to be more concerned about how his mood affects me than the fact that he is upset.  I expect him to cater to my moods (which I have many ups and downs). Meanwhile I’m wanting him to be perpetually in a good mood, and I have little tolerance for anything else.  Since I’m a night person, I make very little effort to go to bed early even though he wakes up at 6.  And since the mornings and I don’t get along very well, I make no effort to get up and spend anytime with him in the morning before he leaves for work.  I’m very selfish.

As I said before, I’m aware of my imperfections, but not content to remain in them.  Therefore, when I saw a recent post from iMOM, I knew it was for me.  It is a 30 day Marriage challenge in which each day you focus on doing something for your husband.  There are 30 items and you are supposed to correspond them to the date.  So I figure I’ll start on Sunday, April 1st.  I will at some point do #1. “What can I help you with today?”  Which may seem like no big deal.  But on the weekends, I usually have my own agenda for us, and I usually give Jeff a run down of what we need to do.  I definitely think by asking Jeff, “What can I help you with today?” I’m showing him that he is important and giving him value.  I’ll be putting my focus on him and his needs rather than on mine.  These aren’t difficult things, and they are things that I really want to do for him, but when I focus on myself, I probably don’t.  By doing them, I’m intentionally trying to be less selfish.

I’ll admit, I’m a little concerned about #4: “Kiss your husband the first time you see him in the morning.”  Not because I don’t want to kiss my husband… because I definitely do!  But like I said earlier, mornings and I don’t get along too well, and I usually only grunt a good-bye to him.  So I need to remember to do it!  Maybe you can pray for me that I’ll remember to wake up on Wednesday 🙂 Who knows, maybe it will start a whole new morning routine for me.

Perhaps you’ll join me on this challenge.  Not married?  Then perhaps there’s someone in your life that you could apply this to.  A coworker that is difficult to work with?  A roommate? Your mother?  Whatever, the idea is to focus on intentionally doing things for that person to take the focus off yourself.  Obviously if you are applying these things to someone other than your husband, you’ll have to adjust them… I mean your coworker may not appreciate you kissing him or her the first time you see him or her in the morning… but you get the point.

Joining you on the journey,

♥Becki, imperfect wife