- #40D4W Explained: Forty Days For Wife
- #40D4W – Day 1: Check your ego at the door
- #40D4W – Day 2: This is how I roll
- #40D4W – Day 3: A roll of the dice
- #40D4W – Day 4: Vanity, all is vanity
- #40D4W – Day 5: At what price porcelain?
- #40D4W – Day 6: Not far enough from the madding crowd
- #40D4W – Day 7: Laundry by any other name is still Hell
- #40D4W – Day 8: Fibber McGee’s Closet – Round One
- #40D4W – Day 9: Stripping the lights. Fantastic.
- #40D4W – Day 10: Souper Man
- #40D4W – Day 11: A thousand words
- #40D4W – Day 12: Philosowrapter
- #40D4W – Day 13: As nasty as I don’t wanna be
- #40D4W – Day 14: Confessions of an Angry Man
- #40D4W – Day 15: My side of the story
- #40D4W – Day 16: Basic Training
- #40D4W – Day 17: Course it’s a good idea!
- #40D4W – Day 18: Now that’s a fire!
- #40D4W – Day 19 – 31: Mid-Wife Crises
January 5, 2015
In conjunction with my goal to do my chores, I am implementing a plan that I think God touched upon my heart through a few factors and stimuli. I had read about a 40 Bags In 40 Days movement as a Spring cleaning project, and that seemed kind of cool to me. This year, particularly, we need to clean and organize in preparation for some potentially big things coming to the Cowles Family. Also, a good friend of mine, Larry Finch, and some of our fellow Knights of Columbus came up with the 40 Days For Life idea so that catchy phrase is always on my mind. I don’t participate in that program because i have my hands full 365 days a year by handling the day-to-day online functions of The 50 Million Names Project – something you should look into…
And then the phrase “Forty Days For Wife” popped into my head. I’m pretty solid in the belief that when ideas “pop” into my head they are more often than not nudges from God, so I dwelt on them a bit. Sometimes they are of the Devil, and dwelling on them for a moment gives me clarity on that, too.
Here’s what it is: For the forty days leading up to Lent, culminating on Ash Wednesday, I am going to specifically sacrifice something for my Wife – something specific to one of the Seven Matrimonial Sacrifices – and not tell her about it. It may be something she sees or experiences, and it may not.
What it is, though, is a sacrifice to help me become more attentive and in tune with my Wife, Beth (whom I tend to call “Mama” in most of my writing thanks to a Man named George Halsey) and our Marriage. It is an attempt to steel myself against me putting the Marriage asunder, which is what we Husbands are all prone to do if we do not conscientiously and purposefully Love our Wife.
In order to keep this on the QT, I have to wait until Lent to publish this post and the daily reports, which will come every day during Lent. Since I think that Beth may be the only one who reads my Blog, I can’t exactly post this article and the daily reports and make sure she doesn’t read them. Okay, technically I do have the know-how to make that happen, but that would take energy and time and resources I would rather spend sacrificing for her and, therefore, our Marriage. So the date at the beginning of each article is when I actually write it and concerns that day’s Sacrifice. For instance, this article was written on January 5, even though it will be published on February 10. I realized a few days in that I had chronicled but not explained what “40 Days 4 Wife” is, which is why this is dated after I started.
This will be hard, I can already tell. I am, by nature, very lazy and a master procrastinator. I hope my daily reports have something in them worth reading. I definitely don’t want to say I didn’t do anything. This will be an interesting exercise, and probably pretty revealing on how awesome Mama is and how much of a shlub I am. Oi!
So, here goes Forty Days For Wife: #40D4W!!
PS: The Heart in Hands image above is from a friend. It is of her daughter’s hands. It is used with permission. Please do not use it elsewhere.
