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| DaveRamsey.com |
Costs:
Money: A couple of bucks.
Time: A few minutes each day your wife is gone.
Best time to do:
When your wife is out for a day and perhaps an evening leaving you all alone by yourself or with the kids.
Best with:
Nothing much.
The Act:
This is easy enough and will not take much explaining. Here's the idea: Your wife is out for a day or a few days or 10 days or whatever. You are at home doing what you normally do while she is away. Laundry, dishes... sitting around in your underwear bored to tears watching Phineas and Ferb episodes on Netflix. At the end of each day, get an index card and put on their what you were doing and why you miss your wife while you were doing it.
Simple right? It's not like you can fit your entire day on an index card so you have to keep it simple. Keeping it simple is simple. For example:
My dear: Today I made myself a couple of eggs and toast and almost forgot that you were not in bed this morning asleep so after the plate was made I thought about bringing you breakfast in bed. You however, are not in our bed. I miss you so much and can not wait until you are home.That will probably just about fill the entire index card. Crazy simple. Just do one a day and the longer she is away the more awesome a small stack of index cards from you will be.
Voddie Bauhcam is an apologist and pastor. Here he talks to women as though they were his daughters on what to look for in a man. He covers different problems in men such as laziness and the fact that most men can not even list the ten commandments.
Here is a must-read from Joshua Gordan (http://www.thenonconformistfamily.com/) talking about writing love notes to your wife. He was a guest writer at The Art of Manliness website and actually put all 52 of his love notes from last year on his website. This is awesome. It is so simple to do, your wife will be absolutely in love with the love notes and you will be one step closer to excellence.
My Darling WifeDifficulty:
This note is to warn you of a diabolical plot entered into by some of our so called friends — (ha!) calendar makers and even our own children. These and others would have you believe we’ve been married 20 years.
20 minutes maybe — but never 20 years. In the first place it is a known fact that a human cannot sustain the high level of happiness I feel for more than a few minutes — and my happiness keeps increasing.
I will confess to one puzzlement but I’m sure it is just some trick perpetrated by our friends — (Ha again!) I can’t remember ever being without you and I know I was born more than 20 mins ago.
Oh well — that isn’t important. The important thing is I don’t want to be without you for the next 20 years, or 40, or however many there are. I’ve gotten very used to being happy and I love you very much indeed.
Your Husband of 20 something or other.
Yes, I realize I am writing to men and not just men but manly men who don’t keep a diary next to the bed and write down their feelings and woes every night. Well, it’s your fault you can not remember the restaurant your wife said was her absolute favorite. You didn’t remember that your wife mentioned once in passing, during a trip to Walmart, while looking at coffee makers, that she might like to have a new travel mug.
Keep a journal. I am not talking about writing down the struggles you had during the day and the “Dear Diary...” mumble jumble that women of years gone by used to keep. I am talking about a running record of goals and successes and failures that you have had during the days, weeks, months and years. Write down your goals and read them over and over again. Call yourself a failure when you gave up on something that you told yourself you would do. Remind yourself in writing that you will not quit. You will not fail.
Not only your success and failures and goals, but write down ideas for your wife’s birthday, anniversary, weekend surprises. If your memory is like mine, you already forgot what the first paragraph of this chapter said, how will you remember your brilliant idea about getting some disgusting fish from the worst grocery store in the world (I may or may not be thinking about Wal-Mart) that you know your wife would absolutely love, that you can’t stand but are willing to try so that she can enjoy things she likes from time to time even though the very thought of fish for dinner disturbs your inmost being and sends shivers to the depths of your core? Keep a journal.
“I will prepare and someday my chance will come” - Abraham Lincoln
Seventy years from now your journal may be turned into your autobiography! You could be the next Theodore Roosevelt. You must be completely honest with yourself in your journal. You certainly would not want to mislead people into thinking that your outrageous success, fame and wealth happened overnight. If you do not write down your failures, how will you learn from them and later how will people learn from them in your autobiography?
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train” - Oscar Wilde From The Importance of being Earnest
It is something extra special when you can write down your love for your wife in a poem.
John Piper:
By John Piper. ©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org
Listen to John Piper read this poem here.
John Piper gave four reasons for reading this poem to his people on his and Noel's 35th wedding anniversary:
1) It is good for a husband to express publicly his thanks to God for great grace, and Noël is one.
2) It is good for a husband to express publicly his love to his wife.
3) It is good for other husbands to watch a husband love his wife with words in public.
4) It is good for a church to know that the man who preaches the Word of God to them each week is deeply devoted to his wife and loves her very much.
Before the universe was made,
Or any galaxy obeyed
The Lord's supreme command to be,
Or empty space became the sea
Where matter floats in mammoth spheres
As if they were estranged, with years
Of blazing light between each star,
God said, "These vast divisions are
An echo of the endless scope
Of my designs. Let humans grope
To find the plan that one must be
A trillion miles above to see.
But distance is not all of me,
Nor human dread my chief decree."
And then he said, "To make this plain-
To show that in my sovereign reign
I do delight not just in great
Displays of space, but celebrate
The sweetness of things drawing near-
I now declare, 'Let there be here,
In this small garden, man, and from
His side-his side-let woman come,
And in these two, let all of my
Creation see the nearness I
Enjoy, and know that here, in these,
Is found a parable: One sees
In Adam, Christ, my Son, and in
His wife, the people Christ will win
When he lays down his life, and woos
Them with his death. And so I choose,
For this, that Adam and his Eve
Become one flesh, and that he leave,
Henceforth in ev'ry age, his kin
And cleave to her alone, and in
This nearness, taste a fragment of
The way my Son and I will love
The people that we call His bride.
Behold, how deep and vast and wide
The distance we will cross to show
That nearness is our joy, and though
The universe is great, and space
In its expanse, untold, the grace
We savor most is this: to close
The distance with our dying foes,
And by our nearness give them life,
And take them for a treasured wife.'"
How many thousand years have passed
Since then, I do not know. How vast
The ages! Yet this much is clear:
Again, the distant Lord drew near
In nineteen-sixty-eight, and said,
"Let there be here now one instead
Of two. As in the garden then
The one was first alone, and when
I made him two, I made them one
Again, so now here it is done:
Let John take this Noël and prove
It is his joy, and mine, to move
From distance into one new flesh,
And show how my Son means to mesh
His life with those he came to save."
And so it was. That day you gave
Your hand and life to me, and we,
By covenant and by decree,
Now five and thirty years ago,
Became one flesh. And this I know:
You are a gift. In spite of all
My sin, God said, "Now go, enthrall
Yourself with her, and call her your
Delight, and keep your love as pure
As mine for you. She is a gift
From me. And if you ever lift
Your hand or voice against your wife,
Remember that I hold your life
Here in my hand. Instead, go make
A parable for Jesus' sake,
And show the world the kind of grace
That put Noël in your embrace."
I fear I have not written well
This parable, and truth will tell
How marred the tender tablets are,
And time will show how deep the scar
That I have left with my poor script.
Too seldom was my stylus dipped
In oil before I wrote in this
Soft clay. Some things a tender kiss,
Cannot undo, and worse is none
Than this: The good that was not done.
The happy praises left unsung,
The bell of thankfulness unrung,
The exultation left unsaid,
And tears of sympathy unshed.
I wish that I could start again.
But that is not to be. So then,
I will make good on this our day
Of anniversary, and say,
My wife is to be praised! Let this
Be sung today. Nor will I miss
This chance to ring the happy bell
Of hope and thankfulness, and tell
The world in words, I can't conceal
The exultation that I feel,
And inasmuch as it lies in
My pow'r, to let the tears begin.
God has been good to me. Far more
Than I deserve he put in store,
And made me drink the cup of bliss
From your kind hands, and taste the kiss
Of mercy all these solid years,
In spite of all my sin. No fears
Destroy my hope that we will last,
Because God's mercy is steadfast,
And he delights to cross the broad
Expanse of all my sin, my flawed
Creation of this parable
Of love, and by his nearness, full
Of truth, make marriage here a place
To write the story of his grace.
Come, candle four, and burn with me,
On this, our anniversary.
Assist me now to say with fire
Some fraction of my heart's desire.
And in your crucible of grace
Let flames my sinful flaws efface.
Help me embrace this painful act,
Then, pure, ignite this simple fact:
I thank my God for you, Noël,
And love you more than rhymes can tell.
Writing love notes:
