The Appreciation Room

In each of our hearts, according to The Love Dare authors we have hidden in our hearts 2 rooms. One is the Appreciation Room. In this room reside all the wonderful and special things you hold dear about your spouse. Remember those courting days? The smells, the tastes, the memories, the likes, the romance are memories creating in love and cherished/remembered. I can clearly remember my dating days and visiting those thoughts regularly when I was absent from my “boyfriend.” I remember falling asleep at night thinking of all the special things about him while he was away at college and so far away from me. All thoughts in the D-Room are, “true, honorable, and good.”

Second is the Depreciation Room. In this room (in the “darker corridor” of your heart) reside all the negative things you hold about your spouse. Oh, with 20-some years of marriage under my belt, I’ve seen a few of those in my days. And I must admit I’ve visited this room many a times. These thoughts “bother and irritate you about your spouse.” This room is filled with darkness and the walls hold harsh words and thoughts. This could be the room one falls out of love in. Spending time in this room plots ugliness in marriages.

The author suggests that the only time one should even glance in the door of the D-Room is to “know how to pray for your spouse,” and the only reason to enter is to write “Covered in Love” in huge letters over the walls!

What’s written in your Appreciation Room about your spouse? What’s written in your Depreciation Room about your spouse? I know my list and throughout the years the list has fluctuated in each room. This morning as I mediated on my Appreciation Room, it brought warm memories, gentle moments, happy smiles, and made me appreciate room number 1 in my heart. My Appreciation Room certainly outweighed my D-Room.

My favorite line in The Love Dare (Day7): “Your spouse is a living, breathing, endless book to be read. Dreams and hopes have yet to be realized. Talents and abilities may be discovered like hidden treasure. But the choice to explore them starts with a decision by you."