Several years ago I was sitting on the back row of the overflow at Church listening to our bishop share his testimony when I heard him say, "In the last 28 years, my wife has probably only criticized me 2 times."
I leaned over to my husband and said, "Please don't bear your testimony today." I knew that he could truthfully say that in the last 2 months his wife had criticized him 28 times.
I wanted to be better. So a few days later I wrote on the top of a piece of paper, "How do I love thee, let me count the ways...." and had a goal to write down 10 positive qualities that I admired about my husband.
I could only think of one.
I had become so comfortable in fault finding that I was unable to see any good. With some time and effort, I did eventually come up with 10 things and set the list on my husband's dresser so that he could see it. A day or so later I thought of a couple more so I wrote them down. Then wondered if I could think of 25 wonderful qualities in my husband. And I did. A few days later I thought of a few more. A few weeks later I was at 50! It was satisfying to watch my husband sneak peeks at the list each day to see what new incredible quality he had. When the list hit 87 amazing qualities, he picked up the paper and sat down on the bed to look at it and to soak in specialness. Then he said. "This is really nice of you because I'm sure that you could make a list of the bad things too." I thought for a minute and I couldn't think of any. Not one---- all those bad qualities had somehow just disappeared.
"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. " Gal. 6:9
Now this brings me to tears. So relatable. I 'm a wife of a recovering porn addict who's under the GreatnessAhead program, and though things are way better these days than what we had to go through the past two years, I admit, I may not be vocal but there's a lot of blaming that's going on inside of me- blaming him and blaming myself. I hope that there will come a time where I'll be healed completely and all I could think about are the amazing things about my husband.
ReplyDelete....and I hope that you make a "How do I Love Thee" list for yourself. From just your comment here I can start the list for you:
ReplyDelete1. You are in touch with your feelings.
2. You are empathetic.
3. You are strong.
4. Resilient.
5. Honest with yourself.
6. Willing to learn and change.
7. You are a Woman of Hope......
Love it
ReplyDelete