First date feelings
Remember back to your first date with your spouse… What were your thoughts during that date? How long did it take for those thoughts to slowly fade and began to be replaced by thoughts you never would have imagined?
I can remember our first date almost 11 years ago and I was a total wreck inside. To make it even more intense I picked up Tasha around 11am and we drove to Midland for a lunch date...which was a huge gamble because we didn’t “know” each other at all. We were taking a trip out of town for our first date, if it wasn’t going good there was no “emergency exit” to get out of it. At the end of that date we finally said goodbye and goodnight it was after 3am the next morning. It was hands down the absolute best and most amazing date I have ever been on. It is an absolutely priceless memory to me.
Most everyone that knows us is fully aware of how much of a train wreck I was when we first met. By the end of the date all i could think was “she’s absolutely perfect in every way and i have no idea why she spent the day with me.” Fast forward 11 years, a dump truck load of trauma and storms and i ask the question “do i still have those same thoughts and feelings for my wife?” No, after all we have been through and overcome those “first date” feelings are not comparable to the feelings and emotions I now have when I see and am with Tasha. She has a hard time believing and understanding that still to this day when we kiss or we are physical that i have way more intense feelings and emotions for her than i did 11 years ago.
Has it always been that way though… no unfortunately it hasn’t and it's not something that just continued to grow more and more each and every day. It’s more like a broken bone… A lot of times when a bone is fractured the location of the bone that has been broken will heal and that section will be stronger than before the break.
All of our seasons of brokenness God has used to heal us and overcome those traumas. Today we are stronger and in a much better place than we could have ever dreamed. We would never have the relationship that we currently have if not for all that God has brought us through.
We have all been told “feelings are fleeting” and that they will come and go. I’ve learned first hand the last 11 years that our feelings will always follow our focus. What about your spouse are you choosing to focus on? I can almost guarantee that your first few months together your only focus on your spouse was all of the “good” attributes. But over time and as life begins to happen you all of a sudden find yourself noticing things you didn’t catch in the beginning. None of us are perfect we all know that and we knew that in the beginning but we chose to see the good and not focus on the negative. So many couples find themselves buried in anger, bitterness, and resentment and can’t even find a positive thing to say about their spouse. That’s not how any of us are called to love and serve our spouse. Satan is good at slowly working his way into the center of our relationships and then through different seasons allowing us to build up negative feelings and emotions about our spouse that he can turn into a raging inferno. When we allow the enemy access to our hearts in the form of negative talk about our spouse he does all he can to keep us from listening to the saviors truth and instead we end up believing Lucifer’s lies. The feelings we find ourself soaking in a lot of times are directly related to our own selfish desires that we claim our spouse did not meet. Frustrations from selfishness will cause us to blame our spouse for the feelings that we have for them because we are solely focused on ourselves and own desires rather than pursuing and serving our spouse selflessly.
Back to the early season of dating, most of us were going above and beyond to pursue our person. We had a desire to show them how much we care about them and want to see them happy and their needs met. But over time it’s easy for that fire of serving the other person to turn selfishly to serve “ME” so that i can be “happy”. It’s not biblical but the statement “do what you did in the beginning and there will be no end” has so much truth to it.
If you find yourself missing your first date feelings about your spouse then i would ask yourself “What/who has my focus been on?” Husbands we are called to love our wives as Christ loves His church and gave up His life for it. Jesus didn’t go to the cross with His focus being on Himself and how it would affect Him or what He was going to get out of it. He went to the cross willfully and chose to give up His life in the most physically painful way possible so that we could then have a relationship with the Father for all eternity. How often do we as husbands love and serve our wives with that same passion? Paul makes it clear in Ephesians chapter 5 how we are to love our spouses and we are never told our spouse is supposed to make US happy and meet our needs. Husbands should be living each day intentionally loving and serving our wives in the areas that they need it with our focus being on them and not ourselves. Most of us that’s exactly what we did at the beginning of our relationship but over time complacency lead us to alter our focus. Re-orient your focus, first on the Father and then follow HIS leading to serve your spouse better each day.