Completing Him Challenge - Showing Respect

All right, it's my second week of the "Completing Him Challenge" that Courtney has going over at Women Living Well.  This week's mission is as follows:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T! No complaining, criticizing, rolling your eyes, nagging, or giving him any friction this week. Enjoy a week of peace in your home!

 I started this challenge last Wednesday, praying that God would reveal to me where I have been creating friction in our marriage, where I have been showing any disrespect to Ciaran, whether it be in my words, action, tone of voice or something else.

I adore my husband.  That's no big secret.  So this challenge was a bit frightening to me as I considered that although I adore my husband, my minute-by-minute actions could be conveying an entirely different message to him.

The first thing I discovered in this challenge is that I roll my eyes or arch my eyebrows a lot when he's goofy.  Ciaran has an awesome sense of humor, and although I LOVE to laugh, I sometimes can be a bit too task-oriented and serious and instead of enjoying and delighting in his goofiness...I turn into the eyebrow arching, eye-rolling wife.  What does this convey to Ciaran?!  There's a bit of a superiority message passed on there.  An almost parent-child superiority which is completely unacceptable from a wife who claims to treasure and respect her husband.  I felt really convicted about this once God revealed this to me.

As I prayed for God to help me change in this area, I began to think about the repercussions if I didn't change.  Ciaran and I would love to have children if and when the Lord blesses us with that gift, and so I paused and considered what could happen in our little children's hearts if they saw their mother consistently rolling her eyes or arching her eyebrows at their wonderful father.  Could they learn that from me in the future and treat their father with actions that could be interpreted as perceived superiority or disdain?  What a scary thought!   Especially when those feelings couldn't be further from what I really feel toward Ciaran.  I love his sense of humor and goofiness and how after a long, stressful day, it's nice to unwind and not have to be so serious!  I love how Ciaran balances me out in this area!

So, after praying for God to change my heart, I went and apologized to Ciaran. He laughed and said he doesn't notice it if I'm doing it, but I'm almost certain he does.  He's just an incredibly nice guy and doesn't get upset about much.  But that still doesn't mean I'm off the hook.  I now am aware of my actions and by God's grace, I'm starting to change.

So that was my big take-away from this week's challenge and I really feel these challenges are helping me grow and making me realize more and more how much I love this man of mine!