Nancy Leigh DeMoss: If you've been listening to Revive Our Hearts for any length of time, you know that we love giving 30-day challenges. And one of the challenges is in relation to wives encouraging their husbands. Now, in case you've not heard it before or in case you've forgotten, let me share with you just what that challenge is.

We've asked women to make the commitment that for the next 30 days they will not say anything negative about their husbands, to their husbands or to anyone else about their husbands. Now, usually when I share that, I get some pretty wide eyes and women wondering, How in the world can I do this?

But that's not the only part of the challenge.

The second part is that every day for the next 30 days, they need to commit to say something positive, affirming, encouraging about their husbands, to their husbands and to someone else about their husbands.

So I tell women, "You can say something to your children, to your mother, to his mother, to your boss. Say something about your husband and say something to your husband that expresses what you appreciate about him."

A lot of women have taken that challenge seriously as we've given it in the past. And today, I just want to share with you some of the e-mails and letters that we've received from women who have taken that 30-day challenge to encourage their husbands.

I think you'll really enjoy these and that you're going to see the power of this simple little thing called "encouragemente" and how, if you're a married woman, encouragement can build and strengthen the most important relationship in your life.

So let me just read some of these e-mails and I know you're going to enjoy them. Now, not everyone found this challenge easy. But I'm sure everyone who took it found that some days it was particularly difficult. One listener admitted that she had difficulty right from the outset.

She said, "I made the commitment yesterday but I've blown it already. I need mega help. What attracted me to my husband of forty-two years was his quiet strength. But now, his being so quiet and easy-going drives me crazy."

This listener says, "I've become very critical through the years so he probably doesn't dare say anything. He never knows what he'll get in return and that makes me so sad and brings tears to my eyes. Your suggestion to think back to what I loved about him really works because I really do love him. He is twelve years older than I am. He's seventy-four so I want to get it right before something happens to one of us. Thanks again for the challenge."

Well, here's a woman who said, "I still consider myself a newlywed even after three years of marriage. I thought I had a wonderful husband. We always built each other up no matter who we were talking to. But after hearing about your 30-day challenge, I decided I would try that and see what the results would be.

"I didn't think anything would change since we already tell each other how wonderful the other one is and how happy we are to be together. I've been doing the challenge just over two weeks now and it has impacted our lives. My husband acts like a teenager in love again. Thank you for renewing our hearts to each other. Your teaching on marriage has truly impacted my life."

And other women wrote to share how God began to bring about results in their marriages rather quickly. One woman said, "Thank you, Nancy. I can't explain how this happened but I made a commitment to speak good words to my husband for 30 days and I experienced a big change on the first week--from him telling me how beautiful I look to bringing flowers after his day of work. It's like when we were dating eight years ago. God is so awesome."

Well, from people who've been married just a few years to those who've been married for many years, this challenge made a significant impact.

30 Day Challenge

Untitled Comment