How NOT to Score Points with Your Sweetheart

By Cynthia Ruchti –

• Justify giving her new windshield wipers for your anniversary as an expression of your concern for her safety.
• Give your wife a lovely recipe box…full of your mother’s recipes.
• When your wife hints that she loves flowers, bring her two kinds—all-purpose and whole wheat.
• Empty the heart-shaped box of chocolates you found marked down (Valentine’s was a while ago) and replace with a paperback copy of Dr. Phil’s weight loss guide.
• Hint that your surprise anniversary trip will involve warm waves and soft music, then turn on your car stereo while you take her with you to the car wash.

How to score points with your sweetheart: Use the time on your flight home to talk with your seatmate about your wife’s projects.

On a full airplane, my husband and I were unable to switch assigned seats and sit together. So we made the best of the situation. I napped. He marketed. When my husband reported how he’d bent the ear of the grandmother-type woman next to him on the plane, chatting non-stop about his respect for where and into what the Lord has led me, convincing her to pick up a copy of my inspirational novel at her earliest convenience, I responded to his love gift, “Oh, honey! It’s just what I wanted! How did you know?”

A sale? Well, yes. But more than that, I was blessed by the respect and affirmation that colored his anniversary gift to me.

We’ve often served as cheerleaders for one another’s projects, but in that moment I was reminded of the deep value of the support of someone you care about. What a gift!

PRAYER: Lord, how often have I been caught napping when I could have been promoting Your latest project? At times I feel I have so little to offer You, so little that would bless You. But bragging on Your goodness or talking up Your grace or promoting Your particular brand of love is a gift in itself, isn’t it? Drive that truth deep into my heart, I pray.

“…talk ye of all His wondrous works” (Psalm 16:9b KJV).

Today’s devotional is by Cynthia Ruchti, writer/producer of THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME radio ministry and president of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). Cynthia’s debut novel—They Almost Always Come Home—is available now from Abingdon Press wherever books are sold.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZb0by984g. Cynthia writes stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark (www.cynthiaruchti.com).