Intentional Loving
Intentional loving is not waiting for a special occasion like Valentine’s Day or a Birthday to show your appreciation for your spouse.
It is intentionally, each day thanking God for your helpmate being here to love and carry the burden of life with you. Pray for their well being.
Be intentional by verbally showing your love and being affectionate toward each and every time you have the opportunity.
Is your spouse sometimes prickly and hard to love. this is the time when they need you even more. Don’t take it personal or withdraw. Reach out with prayer for them, with them and small gestures to show you care even when they don’t express what is wrong.
It may be that they have stresses that they don’t want to upset you with. In these trying times there may be work pressures and economic stresses for many of us. It could also be physical in nature like the general unwell feeling when coming down with a cold.
Try and be patient and supportive and give them time to discuss what is bothering them without adding to the issue by demanding they talk.
Remember the wise words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
