“Love thinks. It’s not a mindless feeling that rides on waves of emotion and falls asleep mentally. It keeps busy in thought, knowing that loving thoughts precede loving actions.”
Today’s ‘dare’ is based on the principle that Love is Thoughtful. I have been prompted to ask myself many times: is this thoughtful… am I mindful of his feelings, wishes, desires? Am I thinking — really thinking — of his needs?
The book outlines ways we slip out of being thoughtful — or how we tend to be less thoughtful than we were, say, when we were first falling in love. We told one another we couldn’t stop thinking of the other. And… after marriage other things are allowed to come in and crowd our thoughts toward our spouse… that we ‘drift into thinking about your job, your friends, your problems, your personal desires, yourself. After awhile, you unintentionally begin to ignore the needs of your spouse.”
So, I thought about this chapter. I asked — boldly asked myself: do I do this? Do I think of everyone else or everything else before I think of him? Do other things hold greater priority in my thoughts, plans and decisions?
“If you don’t learn to be thoughtful, you end up regretting missed opportunities to demonstrate love. Thoughtlessness is a silent enemy to a loving relationship.”
This day’s dare was to: “Contact your spouse sometime during the business of the day. Have no agenda other than asking how he or she is doing and if there is anything you could do for them.” (and again, a _____ Check here when you’ve completed today’s dare.)
This was not really a new thing to me… I often call my husband and he often calls me. But you know what grabbed my attention? He left me a cell-phone text message of a phone number I was to call and bcz it was not a call I could have made right then… I didn’t reply right away. I knew he was busy so I justified my not returning the message — his message required no reply, really. But, later, I thought… now, it would have been thoughtful to return the message with any sort of affirmation or acknowledgment . You see? I could have used that text to give thanks as well as ask if there was anything I could do for him.
So, I determined to use that experience as a prompting to be more attentive and thoughtful… even in the smallest things. And I do want to be faithful (and thoughtful) even in the smallest things. And not bcz of any book or dare or anything like that… but bcz it’s the very least I could do for the great love that’s been shown and given to me.
