Day #1 THE RESPECT DARE

Today, I am joining a group a of women in the Respect Dare. The book the Respect Dare: 40 days to a Deeper Communication with God and Your Husband written by Nina Roesner challenges every woman to -with God's help, learn to  and be transformed by respecting our  husbands better or more.
After reading the first day, the conclusion is that this is not for wimps.  This dare will take you to a place of introspection that will be difficult, but Nina assures, necessary and vital for personal and marital transformation. May God bless all of us who are accepting this challenge.

The first challenge is to take a look at our expectations-bad and good.  The ones we have for our husbands (negative), and the ones we have for ourselves (positive) as we go through this program.

It was not always this way, but in the most recent years I have thought that my expectations for others were kept at a minimum. As I think about this activity, I feel the same, but being honest, it doesn't mean that I don't have any expectations at all.  For my husband, I expect these things:

1. smile more (he seems either depressed or upset a lot)
2. Be more of a spiritual leader for my family which means initiate prayer with me and my daughter more, and encourage us more in the Word.
3. Have similar priorities or be more like-minded in our opinions.  We don't argue about our differences of opinion, but, it seems that if we were more like-minded, our relationship would be even better.
4. Be more aware of his table manners and habits which I don't want passed on to my daughter.
5. Be a bit more disciplined with personal hygiene.

Now, the challenge is to lay these expectations down, release them to God.  I accept my husband for the man he is now, not trying to change him, but accept him.

For the rest of the challenge, I expect these things from myself:

1. Understand what disrespect is to my husband and stop those things.
2. Repent of all bitterness and resentment that is poisoning me.
3. Use my words exclusively to build up my husband, encourage and affirm him.
4. See my sin the way God does, deeply mourn over it with Godly sorrow that leads to true repentence.
5. Be full of God's joy.


This was by no means an easy task. In fact, I had some help from Jennifer.  Thanks to her comments and lists, I could organize my thoughts and not feel so overwhelmed.  Encouraged by the Forgiven Wife because she describes the feeling I sometimes have when dealing with internal issues!  Lost and overwhelmed! Not able to identify or communicate anything well!

Thank you, ladies!