Tag: love languages

Do you know your love language? Do you know your spouse’s? How about your children’s?

Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, has been around for more than 20 years. And it is still a powerful resource to help us love those around us – our spouse, our children, our family members, even our friends and co-workers.

Even if you do not read the rest of the post after this sentence, be sure that you go to this Five Love Languages Website Link to take the free on-line test to discover your primary love language. And then get your spouse and children to take it. And then share with each other the languages that mean the most to each of you.
     (The free assessment consists of 30 questions and only takes 10-15 minutes to complete)

Dr. Gary Chapman has hit on a fundamental principle for us all in his discussion on love languages, as he indicates that:

Love is an emotional need. If we know we are loved, the whole world is bright, but if we don’t have love being poured into us, we are likely to feel lonely and unappreciated.

Inside each of us is an emotional “love tank” that needs to be filled with the “right fuel” to help us feel loved.

Each of us has a primary love language, and we expresses love in the way that comes naturally to us. And since it is rare for a couple to speak the same love language, each person must learn to show love in the way that their spouse needs to receive it.

Love is a choice – something we do for the other person. We can and must learn to speak our partner’s primary love language, or we may wind up with our partner feeling unloved despite our sincere effort to love them.

Remember that when speaking your partner’s love language “doesn’t come naturally” to you, and yet you make the effort to do so anyway, you are showing your partner just how important they are to you.

The issue is not being comfortable, the issue is choosing to love.

It takes practice, practice, practice, but the results will be worth it!

The Love Chapter found in the Bible at 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 provides us with a look at the selfless nature of God’s love that we should take in and then pour out to our spouse and to others. It tells us that:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Are you willing to learn the love language of your spouse and your children and then selflessly provide love to them in a way that might not always come naturally to you?

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