Last night I had a very rewarding experience.

I saw with my own eyes something great happened, because I did something wrong.

It’s not often you get to have this kind of experience is it?

Usually you do things wrong and they work out really bad.

Of course as you might suspect there is something I’m not telling you here.

That’s the part I want to let you in on now.

Making mistakes is never a great thing in itself.

It’s even worse when your mistakes aren’t just mistakes.

When they are deliberate stupid things you’ve done.

What’s funny about this particular thing I did wrong is, I did it deliberately because I thought it was the right thing to do.

Wow!

How do you ever win when things can get this complicated?

“Okay Kel. Quite spinning my wheels.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Because I’m grew up in Christian circles.

I learned a long time ago not to “blow my own horn.”

I was taught to be humble and let God decide when I get credit for what I’ve done.

Jesus said, “When you do your good deeds, do them in secret. Then God who sees what is done in secret will reward you openly.”

In other words, Jesus was telling you bragging about yourself isn’t very becoming.

And I think most of you would agree with that right?

But here’s the problem.

What if what you’re not bragging about, is acts of love you’re doing for your partner?

You’re doing them of course because you really love them.

But since they don’t know you’re doing them, you don’t get credit for them either.

Since your partner doesn’t know what you’ve done, he or she also doesn’t know how you love them.

This is the thing I did wrong…for years.

There were literally tons of times I did an act of love for my partner.

But I thought it was wrong to try to get credit for it.

So I would just do the act and “trust God.”

Believe he would take care of my partner knowing I loved her.

Now I don’t doubt in God’s wonderful accounting system, I will one day experience the reward for the genuine love I was showing my partner.

But that didn’t help her at all.

And because it didn’t help her, it didn’t help US.

The feeling of romantic love doesn’t just happen between you and your partner.

It happens because you experience good things together.

If you hide the good things you do for your partner?

You’re preventing them from associating those good feelings with YOU.

“Okay so you’ve told us what you did wrong, but it doesn’t sound like it turned out really great. What gives?”

Well you’ve caught me on that one.

In truth it didn’t turn out really great in THAT relationship.

So much of what I’ve learned I had to learn after the fact.

It was only when I reflected on this whole thing I realized.

Saw how wrong I was not to take credit for the sake of our love.

But what’s great is, just last night I was able to apply this learned lesson to my current relationship. And the outcome was ABSOLUTELY great!

Not only did my partner feel loved.

She felt HUGELY loved.

She recognized how completely I was putting her first in the action I did.

I knew she was facing a big emotional challenge that day.

We hadn’t spoken but I knew the big event was happening that evening.

I was on the phone in a deep conversation when I saw her call coming in.

I immediately told my friend I had to go.

Took her call instead.

After we spoke for a bit she told me she was surprised I picked up.

She expected my voice message.

Then the fateful moment came.

I thought to myself, “Nope. I’m not going to be ‘humble’ and fail to take credit this time. Instead I’m going to tell her that not only did I pick up but I chose to hang up with my friend, to prioritize her call because I knew how important this challenging event was to her.”

My partner broke into tears of love and appreciation.

Because she realised just how much I loved her.

That I was putting her need first in this situation.

The connection we have was increased magnitudes.

From my making sure she clearly knew I was loving her in what I did.

And THAT’s what makes doing things wrong so great.

It’s never too late to learn from you past mistakes.

Right now you can make your current partner know you love him or her.

Just by changing what didn’t work last time.

What do you think? Are there some great things you’ve been doing wrong you can use to make your relationship better today?