40 Love Dares

     For those of you who have never seen the movie Fireproof, you should probably go watch it right now. Especially if you're a hopeless romantic like me who's prone to saying things like "Back off scumbag, she's married!" or "Oh, he did something sweet, please notice please notice please notice...why didn't you notice?!?!?!?!" or "Awww! Yay God! Yay marriage working! Yay love! Wooooo!" while watching movies. (By the way, I sincerely apologize to anyone who was bugged by my running narration last night. I am not and have never been a quiet movie watcher. I'm working really hard on learning to restrain myself.)
     But basically, the movie chronicles 40 days of the life of a man whose marriage is falling apart and shows his attempts to save it despite his wife's resistance. And God is woven in there as well, because who is better qualified to help save you marriage than Jesus Christ? Pretty much no one.
     Whoever decided I should watch Fireproof last night must not know me very well, or else doesn't care that I will now be obsessed with trying to recreate the 40 day love dare in my life for at least a week. Even as the movie was going on, I caught myself surfing the internet on my phone trying to find a list somewhere. I eventually managed to locate one late last night, and I'm determined to see it through to the end (so I say...we'll see how it works out). For the record, I am not married. But I feel like almost all of them can be applied to non-marriage relationships (with the exception of at least one day I know I'll have to skip - I'll cross that bridge when I come to it). Maybe it defeats the purpose to use it on a non-marital relationship. I don't know, but I really don't care. I am seized with vigor and I will try this. So with no further ado, Day 1: Love is Patient.

     This day was easier than I thought it would be as patience is not really a virtue that I possess. I did have one slip up but other than that I managed to keep a positive spin on most things. It sounds cliche but it's actually amazing how differently the day goes when you have a positive attitude. A lot of things that normally would have sent me into a fit today sent me instead to my wrist where I could read my reminder, and I chose to laugh, smile, or close my eyes instead. And the magical thing was, my day wasn't bad because I didn't give in to anger. I don't have any less sense of fulfillment tonight looking back and realizing how many people, objects, and situations I didn't unleash my wrath on. So it's possible that no one else noticed my love dare today, but it definitely improved my outlook on life.
     I also spent some time alone today just reflecting on what it meant to be patient. This is something I want to make more time for in the future. I've never been big on quiet reflection but today it was refreshing and almost kind of fun to retreat into myself, and I feel like I may have learned a thing or two.
     All in all, I think the 40 Love Dares is something I could stick with. I'm interested to see where this journey takes me. And I invite you to join me on this crazy path...because otherwise I will be way less likely to go through with it. Much love!
     P.S. Just a note: I did a whole post on just the first day so I could introduce the topic and such, but I'm probably not going to do one post individually for every single day. I'll likely end up combining several days together but I will try to touch on each day in a post at some point.