I was challenged to share my love for my husband for 7 days. It’s a game or an activity to keep us focused on what is good in our lives. I am playing, but what it taught me is this… I don’t need to share my love for my husband on social media to show him that I love and care for him. I need desperately to tell him, everyday! He is my answer to prayer, my best friend and my rock. I’m not sharing this story here for more accolades of sharing my love for him, but as a reminder to each of my married couples that I know and for myself that we need to hold our relationships as a dear treasure. Something that needs to be taken care of and cultivated, tended to and sometimes even when the smallest problems arise to work them out. This message on my heart is about how bitterness can set into a relationship and change it. Bitterness of unforgiving hurts or unmet desires, start small and then have the ability to become huge in the eyes of the one hurt, sometimes..without the other person even knowing that they did anything wrong. When bitterness sets in, its slow and steady in the rise of frustration and anxiety it can and will destroy the love in a relationship faster than you think it can. Before you know it, you’re wondering what in the world happened? How did we get this way? Don’t I deserve more? I deserve better than this! All the while focusing on you, your needs, your wants, your desires… This is a recipe for disaster by the way. It’s all about you! The you… that can be selfish and bitter not the you that will flourish in the love that has been given to you. But really…It is about you, just not the selfish you. It’s about how you serve and love each other. When we get into a place that seems like the relationship can’t recover or get any better. It can! Not sure if you read that right! Yes you can help and fix your relationship, starting with you! You decide how you will love and take care of your spouse, you decide how you will respond to the tasks and chores that you desire to be done, you decide how you will react to the actions and details of your day, you decide to humble yourself and just pray about your heart and your relationship with your husband. Praying about this life long relationship is crucial, having a heart of joy to serve the relationship and making it loving, setting aside the “I wants” and talking about what you need, the real needs, this is what sets your relationship back on track and back into a place of peace and love. Sure it can take time, but start with you and see how much you have backed away, how much extra emotion and bitterness you set on the chores or tasks that you do anyway, decide what is really important to you and your relationship. Then just do it! Pray daily to find the love and the joy needed to make your relationship a better one. Pray daily to find the joy in all things. Even the tasks you don’t like. Pray for you to be the change in the relationship. When the swords are put away and the shields put back on the walls, when the armor comes off because you are no longer in battle, you are in a place of peace. Your home and your relationship with your husband should be what refreshes you and strengthens you for the life that faces you tomorrow. These words reflect so much in truth to me. “What you talk about, you bring about”. When I think about bitterness and strife.. guess what comes up? When I think about love and service, contentment and joy.. guess what comes up? Being joyful is a choice, an active choice with a lot of prayer and a lot of seeking joy in all things daily, seeing the beauty in the mundane things of life, seeing the great things God has done in my life and looking forward to the new adventures He has for me in the future. I know that I will strive harder and harder to love and cherish my husband more and more, like no woman has ever loved her husband. Why? Because he deserves it, and I reap the benefits of knowing that I love him to the fullest of my ability, because he in turn will love me just the same.