Tuesday, August 26, 2014

How do I love thee, let me count the ways.....


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