Loving with intention...

  "First pride, then crash - the bigger the ego, the harder the fall." Proverbs 16:18 (MSG)

I've always took pride in the solid relationship my husband and I have.  Then last winter we crashed.  

I couldn't even tell you what triggered it exactly.  Slowly we stopped communicating and connecting.  Pretty soon we couldn't understand where the other was coming from.  There wasn't much grace being passed out or much of anything.

Then the warning flags started popping up all over in my head.  I felt that our marriage was being threatened and it scared me like nothing else.  The threat was nothing...yet, but we both knew that if we continued going in our separate directions it would be harder to find our way back to each other.

We confided in our closest friends and they came along side of us, asking us the hard questions, listening, holding us accountable.  We sought wisdom from our pastor. We started seeking ways to prove our love.

We started reading marriage books, devotionals and the Bible together. We worked to discover each other's love language and then speak it intentionally. 

We carved out a few hours every week for each other.  Sometimes it was going for a walk or weeding the garden together.  Sometimes it was grocery shopping.  Sometimes it was sitting on the patio after the kids were all asleep.  But we made it a point to talk.

My husband put a sticky note on the computer for awhile that said "No screens after 8 pm. Talk to your wife."  He made me his priority and I did the same for him. 

We started going to bed at the same time.  We made it a point to fall asleep touching each other, every night. We have a king size sleep number bed, this wasn't the norm.  But we need that connection.  

We started kissing each other goodbye every time one of us leaves.  Every time.  Sometimes it came naturally and sometimes it was just choosing to intentionally show affection towards the other.

There were times that we had to really work at showing our love to one another.  I tried the 7 ways in 7 days to knock the socks off your spouse approach.  Once Dana became aware of what I was doing he would reciprocate and it was always worth the effort. 

Every day I have thanked God for Dana and for our marriage.  I thank him now for keeping us alert so that we were not devoured by Satan and his lies.  I thank God for bringing us out of the pit and healing our marriage.

This morning my husband sent me the following message: "So I'm pretty sure I'm head over heels for you. I can't get you out of my head." Oh, yes.  We've found our way back to each other in a more incredible way than I've ever thought possible.