Where are you my love?

Where’s the one I knew and married on our wedding day?

What happened to the spark we shared and love that lit our way?

We used to share each happy thought & catch each other’s tears.

Now it seems our love’s used up on bills, demands, and fears.

I want to reach and touch your heart, but can’t seem to get in.

Don’t know if we just don’t care, it’s busyness, stress, or sin.

My hope says there’s a doorway to reach inside of you.

I pray that you will answer me, and say again I do.

My heart wants to recapture the love that we once knew,

To share the kind of oneness known only by a few.

God help love burn again in us, alive with holy flame,

That burns so unconditionally in those who know your name.

Teach us how to love again, giving our hearts away,

To see how two can become one, renew our wedding day.

Dan Lillyblad

Hi everyone, I hope you all are surviving well and keeping your love alive. I’m including some connection tips for Quarantine romance.

First I want to announce my upcoming book I hope to have out this year; Hope for Happily Ever After. There will be sample chapters on my website soon for those who sign up, as well as access to other articles and poems.

Quarantine Connection Tips

Don’t be discouraged that it’s gotten harder. Quarantine is hard. It’s the cross. We can’t even go to church. Virtual isn’t the same. Thank God we aren’t being required to have a virtual marriage! Virtual hugs just don’t work for me.

It’s only normal for things to heat up relationally, being thrown together with all we’re used to being turned upside down or removed.

Linda & I have had more spirited conversations lately than we’ve had in a long time in our almost 33 years of marriage. Add writing a marriage book to the mix, and all sorts of things have come up for discussion.

Growing together in love never goes away in marriage, you don’t want it to. God is love, the greatest commandment is Love. God and others, including, especially, our spouses.

Growing in love is always on God’s agenda.

I’ve found the little irritations I feel will usually reveal my selfishness and intolerance. Love is patient and kind, not selfish. I need to be more flexible, lighten up, and make space. I take myself too seriously and start demanding too much out of myself, Linda, and our marriage.

Recovering Romance

Romance isn’t fairy dust or magic. It’s cultivated. Seeds are planted, watered, nurtured, and grown. It grows out of unselfish love.

Growing out of the new love or honeymoon stage is normal and part of the growth cycle of marriage. This brings hope when we realize nothing is wrong with us or our marriage.

Our fairy tale thinking gets exposed as we enter the disenchantment stage of marriage. The super high becomes a super low, but we can do it.

This is when we start growing, exploring, and healing together. Our differences start surfacing, and we start our fruitless campaigns to change each other. We learn to communicate, fight fair, or die as all our buttons we didn’t even know we had get pushed.

Being in quarantine is pushing our buttons. It’s thrown us into a new growing season. This can be good for us if we can see what God is doing, release control, and surrender to it. I will finish with some connecting points and some application

The caring connection

Biblical Self Love; Do yourself a favor

So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies; He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes, cherishes, and protects it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. Ephesians 5:28-30

Nourishes; What nourishes a woman’s soul?

Linda; I feel nourished when you tune into me, talk to me, resolve conflict with me, spend time with me. This is the love language of Quality Time

I believe a woman is nourished when she has access to her man’s heart. He treats her like she’s number one on his priority list.

Cherishes;

A woman feels cherished when she is reassured by her man, as often as she needs it, which is more often than he needs it himself. Reassured that he loves her, that she is worth loving, and he couldn’t live without her.

Things like; I love my life with you. I love our life together, being married to you. You’re the best.

Come up with originals of your own.

This has to be sincere from the heart without manipulation. They can tell.

Protects:

Linda; You respect my limitations, not pushing me beyond what I can do. Sensitive to me. Not expecting too much out of me.

A man protects his wife when he covers her, offering her his strength when she needs it, not lecturing her.

A man needs to be a big enough beach for the waves of his wife to crash upon. He doesn’t try to fix her or require anything of her. He is man enough to hold her and listen to her, loving her till the tide recedes.

The servant connection

Linda’s love language is Acts of Service. I need to be careful that my propensity for performance orientation doesn’t make me her love slave.

At the same time, knowing what makes her feel loved, I can speak her language by not neglecting her or her needs.

I serve her when I offer my support to her by talking out her fears, anxieties, and struggles, not to solve or fix.

Just being there with her loving her, listening, makes her feel protected.

For the ladies;

Remember ladies, the guys are less complicated. They need your respect and some words of affirmation. Remember that he is trying. Beyond that,

Show up naked, bring food. XO