90 days of unselfishly loving my wife

What happened when the pressure was turned up ......

For those who thought the Dominican Monk was down for the count, I am still standing. (admittedly, I did take a mental overhand right to my jaw which dazed me and caused me to lose focus on my writing and my quest.)  In my opening thought process, I wrote that this quest could cause me humiliation due to I was going to be open and transparent in my quest to love my wife unconditionally for 90 consecutive days.  I only made it 15 days before I hit a wall and stopped writing.  As a man, I am embarrassed that I did not persevere through the time after the home invasion.  Of course, I never stopped loving my wife throughout these past few months but I was on a deeper quest of loving her as Christ loved the Church (which I was doing immediately following the violation of our home) but for some reason I did not want to sit down and write about it.  I know now what I was wanting to avoid.  With my quest, I was looking deep inside myself and looking at my feelings (positive and negative) along with my motives and at this point in my life - to survive - it was easier to avoid thinking of these feelings.  I am busy, so I write late at night.  After we were robbed, at night I was on extremely high alert protecting my family (in the beginning, our family even dreaded the coming night).  I also sat and typed on the laptop in my bedroom, on my desk, in the exact spot the thief came into our room and took the laptop - it honestly was unsettling.  Again, as a husband and father, writing left me for awhile but this incident drew my wife and I closer together and closer to God.   

I want to touch on some topics prior to returning to the quest.  Here are some issues I dealt with immediately following the robbery.  Was I doing the right thing by staying in this country as a missionary?  I love the people we are here to help.  But when someone is walking around in your house where your kids and wife are sleeping, it made me wonder should I pack us up and head home to the safety of the good old USA.  We are a bigger target here as the locals think all Americans are rich and we are the only Americans living on this side of town.  I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful 17 year old daughter along with two sons and do not want any harm coming to them.  In those immediate weeks and months during those long nights where I heard every noise in the neighborhood and would get up 5 to 10 times during the night to patrol the downstairs, I will admit to running through every horrific situation that "could" happen to my wife or daughter and I will admit that fear gripped me some nights.  Hey, I am a tough guy.  In our neighborhood growing up, we had our share of fistfights, played every sport imaginable, and basically stayed outside from morning til dark thirty.  In college, I was even involved in a few fraternity brawls and nightclub fights (although my smooth talking ways got me out of most incidents).  So it is humbling to admit to laying in bed and then hearing a noise around 2:30 am (the same time as before) my wife waking and shaking uncontrollably and and having to will myself out of bed to go and check on things all over the house  (with my baseball bat).  Of course, on the outside I was calm and cool but the inside I was setting some heartbeats per minute record.  Some friends here recommended I get a gun.  My reaction to this is; I was sent here to help these people and yes I will protect my family but I am not sending someone straight to hell (if they are unsaved) with a gun.  In those crazy, middle of the night thoughts - I once thought, "I am a big guy, 6 ft 2 inches - 210 pounds, I could capture the guy and figure out why he is stealing, and help the guy out and change him for the better." (probably not realistic but my heart was in the right place and who is to say that God would not use me like this to help some guy eternally)  The bottom line for me was that I knew that God has called me here.  If God asks me to sacrifice my life for Him, I have always been willing to do it.  But what about my family.  We talked about it before we ever came.  We came as a missionary family.  We all felt called to come and help, even my kids, and they add a lot to our mission.  A week after the incident, I was talking with my daughter and she told me something that stopped me in my tracks.  She said, "Dad, Did God ask Abraham to offer up Isaac?  Why could he not ask you to offer me up?  Dad, If I had died, I would be safe with God and I would expect you to continue to do the work God has called you to do."  I honestly could not believe how sure she was that she was right, and she was.  My daughter has a beautiful relationship with God, always has, and what she really understands is that Her God is good and He loves her.  But I do not want to lose my wife or kids and pray that never comes to past.  While I was wondering why God did not protect us, she understood that He did.  God does not cause all the bad stuff that happens in this world but most of the time the bad stuff can lead us to draw closer to Him, which it did for us.  Psalms has become my favorite book of the Bible due to the beautiful prayers it has (prayers asking God to protect, provide, forgive, etc...)  There is only one Prince of Peace and if you do not know Him, get on it.

I also know that things have calmed down in our life.  I am no longer awakened at EVERY noise in the neighborhood and my wife is sleeping a lot better (thank you, Prince of Peace).  I understand that I have the gift of being a front-runner. I have a great idea and I have the ability to get if off the ground and running.  I will start a project only to get interested in something else and never finish.  But what is cool this time, is that God keeps bringing me back to my wife.  He wants me to love her like Jesus did - He will not stop bringing it up to me.  He obviously wants to show her something special (and lead me to the deep water with Him.)  So I am back on my quest to love my wife.  15 days down and 75 days to go.  It seems as if the devil (you do believe in him - its in the Bible - Jesus himself was tempted by the devil in the desert) does not want me to finish this quest but too bad diablo; In God I trust.