Day 9

Be swift to hear, slow to speak. (James 1:19b)

We are often so busy speaking that we don't take time to listen. We are so quick to offer a comment—negative or positive—that we don't really "hear" our husband's heart. Remember: we have two ears and only one mouth. We need to listen more!

As you continue in your 30-day challenge, not speaking negatively and focusing on positive encouragement, hear the Lord's admonition today: "Be swift to hear."

If listening is a real problem for you, play a game with yourself. See if you can listen to your husband for one whole day, only speaking when asked a question. If your husband notices the difference, explain that you are learning to listen more—not only to God, but also to him.

One easy way to express admiration for your husband is to ask a question about something he enjoys, and then listen to his response. If it's an area of personal familiarity, keep asking questions until you learn something you didn't know, then tell him, "Wow, I didn't know that!"

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This is something that is kind of hard to do now, since we hardly ever talk face to face (or skype) and we usually just email back and forth. I know I should listen more when we do speak in person, and I’d like to think that I do listen a good amount of the time.

When we do email, I ask questions of things he’s said. And most of the time, my responses are just “I love you” and “I miss you” because I really do love and miss him so much. But we get a lot solved in our emails from time to time too. And it’s kind of nice to have things written down, so I can go back and look at them later, because he’ll tell me he wants something, and then I forget, but since we wrote it down in an email, all I have to do is just scroll through and find it. Because we all know how horrible MY memory is.

I do think I’ve done really well with not speaking negative towards my husband, there might have been a few times when telling a story I’ve said something, but most of the stuff I say is positive, because I’m just SO blessed with such an amazing man! It’s truly hard for me to believe that someone like him loves me, little ole imperfect me.