The Love Dare - Day 6

Day 6: Love is not irritable - "People who are irritable are locked, loaded, and ready to overreact."

Boy isn't that the truth? Have you ever just sat and stewed over something that made you mad? The more you think about it, the madder it makes you and then, when given the chance, you fly off the handle and react out of anger or irritability. You feel better for a few minutes and then realize that you've hurt someone's feelings or bruised their ego. It's hard to exercise self-control when I'm irritable. It's almost like being irritable (especially if Matt is the one that irritated me) gives you permission to act in a way you normally don't act. Stress, not getting enough sleep, not eating right, etc. are all things that make me irritable. My primary love language is "Acts of Service" and when things are not done around the house when I think they should be done, it really gets me going.

Day 6 Dare: Choose today to react to tough circumstances in your marriage in loving ways instead of with irritation. Begin by making a list below of areas where you need margin in your schedule. Then list any wrong motivations that you need to release from your life.

Matt got called into work at 4:00 this morning for an emergency situation, so he was gone all day. I feel sorry for him when he has to go into work, but I used to get irritated about it, especially when he misses church. Today, I did not. I made a special effort to pray for him at work and pray that his day went well so he could get home and rest. Since there were no "tough marriage circumstances" today, I took the rest of the day and I concentrated on things that I could do to create margin in my life. I just kept thinking about how I try to squeeze as much as possible into a 24 hour period of time and it seems like I never get everything done. I'm sure this is a common problem, but it's definitely a source of irritation for me. So, I would say that I need to create some margin in my life to allow a little bit of relaxation time to re-energize myself. Something else...meal planning. I can't stand coming in from work right at dinner time and scrambling around looking for something to feed the family. It's a definite source of irritation and tends to get me all riled up. I had trouble with the "wrong motivations" section, so I'll continue thinking about that.

Lord, thank you for being a constant source of peace in my life. Help me to remain happy and content and to overlook sources of irritation. Amen.