Valentine Thought's

This is Valentine’s week and a time to honor and celebrate those significant ones in our lives who are near and dear to our hearts.  A book on love and relationships that is full of wisdom in understanding others is “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman.  In this book Gary points out that there are five main actions we can use to express our love.  This is especially helpful concerning married couples.  Chapman also points out that most people receive the most love from one of these five.  The five love languages he lists are:  acts of service/ words of affirmation/ touch/ quality time/ and gifts.

I have found that the sooner we can discover which of these love languages is most important to our spouse, the better.  I was totally oblivious to these love languages when I first met Cheryl, my wife of 43 years.  We were students at Christ For the Nations in Dallas when I met her.  Our relationship began because we had a mutual friend who invited the two of us to join her in corporate prayer each morning before classes began.  The three of us also traveled a lot together doing evangelistic ministry in and near the Dallas metroplex.  I began being attracted to Cheryl as the weeks progressed but had no idea if the same was true concerning her interest in me.  God wanted us together as man and wife and I believe He began orchestrating events to help the romance begin.

Because Cheryl was traveling and ministering so much with our mutual prayer partner friend and myself, she began falling behind in her schoolwork.  I noticed that she was looking quite stressed most days, even depressed.   I finally asked her if something was wrong, and she opened up and told me about the tremendous pressure she was experiencing in being behind in school which was due to her heavy ministry involvements.  She specifically told me about papers and reports that were soon due, and she didn’t know how she would get them finished on time.  I immediately spoke up and let her know that I would be glad to meet for as long as it took and would help her complete the reports and papers.   I was amazed to see how her eyes lit up and her countenance brightened.  “You would do that?”, she asked me.  I did, she was impressed, we began dating, and the rest is history being made!

Unknowingly, I had sown into Cheryl’s main love language; works of service.  It was the catalyst that set the romance in motion.  My main love language is quality time.  Like most people, Cheryl and I both like gifts, being touched, and receiving words of affirmation.  But to make the largest deposit in our bank of love, acts of service bring the biggest bang for the buck for Cheryl and quality time does it for me. 

I encourage you to find Gary Chapman’s book if you have not already read it.  It will help you in your relationships whether you are married or single.   I have also discovered that there is a flip side to this principle.  It has to do with the law of opposites.   This is to say that if someone’s main love language is gifts, for example, giving the wrong gift or no gift can bring the biggest withdrawal from their bank account of love.  This means that if the main love language desired is quality time, then wasting or abusing that person’s time brings the greatest disappointments.  If their main love language is acts of service, then refusing to offer service or being self-serving becomes damaging.   If touch and affection brings the greatest love deposit then withholding affection or touching in a hurtful way brings the most negative results.  And finally, if words of affirmation are the main thing they need then seldom or never affirming then speaking over them words of failure, shortcomings and faults can bring the greatest wounds.     

This Valentine’s Day and season would be a good time to sow a special gift into the lives of those you love in a way that resonates with their main love language.   Don’t neglect the other four but be aware of what brings the greatest bang for your buck.  Aren’t you glad that God put them in your life!