Doug Van Pelt

User rhymes with Loser. Don't do drugs, kids. The Love Dare.07

I want to say "Wow," like Christopher Walken after reading this chapter. It talked metaphorically about two rooms. One is a room of appreciation, where we find things written on the walls about our spouse. These are things we appreciate about them. Character traits, personality traits, physical traits, whatever it is that you admire and appreciate about your spouse. You may have spent a long time in this "room" when your relationship first started. Now you go in there less and less, it seems.

There's another room that you're likely to spend more time in these days. It's the room of depreciation. It's where the walls have negative traits and things that bother you about your mate are written. Sometimes it's easier to spend time in here. It can also be a place that you retreat to whenever something bad happens by/from your spouse. This is a room where evil and destructive plots are hatched.

True love acknoledges these negative traits. It doesn't act like they don't exist. A true lover, though, will spend time in that appreciation room. They will occasionally peak into the depreciation room to know how to pray for their mate. They will also enter the depreciation room to write "COVERED IN LOVE" in real big letters over all the messages written there.

That is an excellent way to approach our mate's faults. Faults and sin are there. Trying to change your spouse, as you've often heard, is an exercise in futility. But covering those negative traits with your love ... that's the way to go.

Today's Dare:
Oh boy, this one almost deserves another Christopher Walken exclamation.

For today's dare, get two sheets of paper.
On the first one, spend a few minutes writing out positive things about your spouse. Then do the same with negative things on the second sheet. Place both sheets in a secret place for another day. There is a different purpose and plan for each. At some point during the remainder of the day, pick a positive attribute from the first list and thank your spouse for having this characteristic.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at February 23, 2009 10:28 AM