Introducing: The 1 Corinthians Challenge

Let me paint you a picture—it’s midnight in an old but well-loved home in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. All the lights are out except for the blue glow of the living room tv where a man sits alone, scrolling through social media and feeling miserable. Feeling equally miserable is the woman sitting up in bed in the dark bedroom down the hall. On one knee, she bounces a nine-month-old son who is nursing at the breast, willing him back to sleep. On the other knee, she strokes the soft golden curls of her three-year-old daughter who is sleeping restlessly, clinging tightly to the woman’s body even in sleep. Warm, wet tears stream down the woman’s face silently as she cries alone in the stillness of the night.

Can you relate to this picture? I hope not. Unfortunately, this is a picture of my family last night. Hours before, my husband and I had been arguing in the living room in front of both kids when I said something I absolutely should not have. This comment was a verbal landmine that sprung from my mouth in a moment of weakness and exhaustion and anger and was targeted to wound. What’s worse is that as both my husband and I sat there stunned, ears ringing in the aftermath, my three-year-old put her tiny body between us, held out her arms like a referee, and calmly but sternly commanded, “Stop it right now, mama and dada!” I have never felt more like I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. I could tell you some bull about how my husband deserved it, how he was also being a jerk, how I was exhausted, stressed, hormonal, whatever. But the truth is that those things are just a small part of the equation, and not even a particularly relevant part—I had lost control of myself completely. And as I cried to myself later that night, all I could think was, “how do I snap myself out of this?” Well that, dear friends, is the reason why I’m writing this blog.

But you’re probably wondering, “who is this angry lady, and why am I reading her blog?” All good questions. So, before I get too far ahead of myself, let me back up and tell you who I am.

I’m a thirty-something woman, and I live in Texas with my husband and our two children. My husband and I are both attorneys, and I also do a lot of volunteer work. I was raised Protestant in a family that bounced around from church to church, and I converted to Catholicism as an adult. My spiritual life, dry as it is right now, is a mix of Protestant and Catholic flavors, with influences from my family’s strange mix of non-denominational/Baptist/Methodist Protestantism peppered into a mostly Catholic personal belief system. I have bachelors’ degrees in Classical Studies and English, and a Masters in English with a minor in Multicultural Women and Gender Studies…and a tendency to hold seemingly contradictory personal beliefs. Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).[1]

Enough about me, though. Let’s get to why we’re really here. I need to make a change, and maybe you do too. I need to find a way to reignite my relationship with God and heal my relationship with my husband and daughter. I also need to find a way to make peace with myself. As I was falling asleep last night, the echoes of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 played loops in my head, and I came up with a plan. It’s just crazy enough that I think it might actually work.

 The Plan

For the next 12 months, I am going to research, read, study, and pray my way through the virtues encased in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Why that passage specifically, you ask? Well, it’s one that most Christians (and many non-Christians too) are familiar with, and its iconic enough that it’s spoken at weddings and printed on tee-shirts and posters and generally plastered anywhere Christians gather. More importantly, I once read somewhere that a good test of whether you’re succeeding in your marriage is to replace the word “Love” and its pronouns in the passage with your own name…and let me tell you, I tried it, and it was a rude awakening. Here, you try it:

[Your name] is patient,

[Your name] is kind.

[Your name] does not envy,

[Your name] does not boast, [Your name] is not proud.

[Your name] does not dishonor others,

[Your name] is not self-seeking,

[Your name] is not easily angered,

[Your name] keeps no record of wrongs.

[Your name] does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

[Your name] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

[Your name] never fails.

Yeah, gut-punch, right? If you’re like me, you want to be all these things but don’t know how to get started. I’m going to break it down with an eye toward figuring how to add these ideals to my life more consistently. Conventional wisdom says it takes about 21 days to form a new habit (probably wrong, but it’s somewhere to start). So, I’ve given myself some extra wiggle room and allocated a month each to learn and practice each virtue in hopes to make them permanent additions to my life. This is what the plan looks like:

June: How to Have Patience

July: How to be Kind

August: How to be Generous

September: How to be Humble

October: How to Honor Others

November: How to be Selfless

December: How to be Slow to Anger

January: How to Forgive

February: How to be Honest

March: How to Trust

April: How to Have Hope

May: How to Persevere[2]

To keep myself accountable, I’m going to document my findings, my successes, and my failures right here for the world to see. My goal is to be unfiltered and ruthlessly honest. Common Catholic wisdom is that one of the reasons that God designed for us to confess our sins to a priest rather than just silently in prayer is that by sharing your sins with your fellow man, you are shining a light on your sins so that Satan can’t keep you hidden in your own shame[3]—that’s the same mentality I’m adopting with this confessional, of sorts. Maybe you’ll join me on this challenge, or maybe you’ll just sit back and laugh—either way, welcome, I’m glad you’re here.

[1] Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 51

[2] Note: I’ve left out the last line, “Love never fails,” because obviously trying not to ever fail is setting myself up for failure. God created us knowing we’ll fail sometimes—only God is truly infallible. In fact, failure is how we learn. So I’m instead going to focus on giving myself grace through my inevitable failures.

You’ll also notice that some attributes aren’t explicitly named or are couched under different names. This is done intentional to simplify and connect attributes that are logically grouped together. In particular, “humility” is intended to encompass avoiding both boasting and pride and “protect” is grouped under “honor,” because we all know as moms we have no trouble fiercely protecting our loved ones when necessary, so this challenge will focus on learning to protect others’ spirits and reputations, which fits nicely with the attribute of “honor.”

[3] As you can probably tell, while my thoughts and feelings are necessarily impacted by my own Catholic faith, it is not intended to exclude readers of other faith backgrounds (or who don’t subscribe to any faith tradition). My intent is to provide practical strategies and honest stories that anyone can connect with.