Love Dare, days 13, 14, 15, and 16

Day 13 was "Love fights fair." The challenge was to set up rules to follow when an argument is unavoidable. I'd imagine, though, that by the time couples reach this point in the book, arguments are rare. Jordan and I used to argue regularly over stupid little things, but we haven't really argued in a while. We are more sensitive to each others' needs. There was a list of rules already in the book, and we agreed with most of them. The ones we came up with on our own were:

1) No guilt-tripping (um... that would be me)
2) No fighting in front of other people

The rules in the book have it just about covered. Don't bring up divorce, don't fight in front of your kids, don't go to bed angry, etc. Jordan and I have always been good at getting over arguments easily. I don't think we've ever had an argument last overnight, even the worst ones! We stay up and talk it out until it's resolved.

Day 14 was "Love takes delight." We were to purposely neglect an activity we normally do and spend the time having fun together instead. Well, it's funny. We decided to spend Sunday afternoon shopping for pants for me, and on the way home I suggested we eat at Fuddruckers. It was our favorite restaurant until the incident two years ago, which I will recount in a later post. We had a great time. I shared my burger with Suzi and we all shared a basket of fries. We'd hardly been out to eat alone with Suzi at all, except for fast food, and we normally get that to go. It was so nice to go to a good loud restaurant and enjoy being parents without having to worry about dirty looks because Suzi is still confused about the purpose of an "inside voice." When we arrived back home, Suzi fell asleep early and that's when we read the day's dare, only to find we'd already done it!

Day 15, "Love is honorable," was a tough one. We were supposed to find a way to honor each other above our normal routine. If you've been keeping up with this, you'll know Jordan and I have done a few different nice things for one another and we are running out of creativity. We both ended up helping each other out with laundry and other household chores. And I did iron his clothes this morning so he'd have a nice looking outfit to wear, which was what I'd planned to do back on day 11. It is easy to lose track when several of the days are so similar, so I need to do a better job of keeping up! One thing I need to work on is paying better attention when Jordan is telling me a story or about how his day went. He usually talks about computers and things that don't generally interest me, and I often have to ask him to repeat things. It's not just something I do to him; my wandering mind is one of my worst faults.

Day 16, today, was "Love intercedes." The best point the book made was that we can't change our partners, but God can. (Of course, that's not to say God will change our partners in the way we specify!) Our only task was to pray for each other, and pray for three specific areas in which we wanted God to work. I did pray for Jordan but I won't say what I prayed for specifically. That's between me and God.