What is a love language you ask? A love language is the way you both give and receive love. It's the way you communicate or show someone that they are important to you. It's a way of offering care, encouragement and support. But here's the thing, everyone has a love language, but not everyone has the same love language.
My top two love languages are "acts of service" and "quality time." Whereas for my son Manny, I'm fairly certain his primary love language is "receiving gifts." So I've had to learn, for example, that the times when I make his bed, which I feel is a gift to him (an act of service - my love language), go unnoticed by him. But when I buy him something new, anything new, even a new toothbrush and toothpaste, he feels loved and appreciated by me (receiving gifts - his love language), whereas I feel it's just a routine errand.
Gary Chapman has written a number of books about Love Languages: The 5 Love Languages, The Secret to Love that Lasts; The 5 Love Languages, Singles Edition; and The 5 Love Languages of Children. The premise of his books is that there are five primary ways people both express and receive love. The five love languages are: acts of service, quality time, physical touch, words of affirmation, and receiving gifts. Chapman says there are "many dialects" of the five languages, but those five cover the broad spectrum of how people give and receive love. He goes on to say, "married or single, young or old, every human has the emotional need to feel loved. When this need is met, we move out to reach our potential for God and our potential for good in the world."
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'm sharing this with you because when we hear Jesus say, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself" we can use the love languages concept to better understand not only ourselves but our neighbor too.
So as Valentine's Day approaches once again, our relationship status matters not. We all have a need to both give and receive love. And even though that happens in many different ways, we have in common the love language of Christ. The love language of Christ gives us a solid foundation to move beyond ourselves for the sake of another. So go on, step out of your love language, take a guess at what someone else's love language might be, and make a little extra effort to shower them in a way they will feel loved.
~ In Christ, Pastor Jeanne