God calls us to love one another. I think everyone can find a verse somewhere in the Bible that talks about that. Probably one of my favorite verses about loving one another is 1 John 4:7
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
We are supposed to love others, we are supposed to make them feel loved and cared about. Now how do we go about doing that? Well I think there are several ways, but I am going to focus on the one that's been brought to my mind, and that is speaking their love language.
Love languages isn't something that is just applicable to people who are in a relationship. Learning about love languages can help you with your relationship with anyone whether is be your boyfriend or girlfriend, your best friend, your parents, or your spouse. Knowing what makes someone feel loved is valuable information that will bring you closer to the people in your life.
Now let's get down to business, what am I talking about when I refer to love languages? Love languages is something that the author of the book that I am reading, Dr. Gary Chapman, noticed during his years of marriage counseling. It is "a primary way of expressing and interpreting love" He noticed that when couples would come in they would say that they didn't feel loved because their partner was not doing something that made them feel loved. Dr. Chapman noticed that these expressions of love generally fell into one of five categories: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, or acts of service.
- Physical Touch: A person whose love language is physical touch will feel loved the most when you respond to them with loving, appropriate touch. Hugs, high fives, pats on the back, or touching their shoulder are just a few examples of ways that you can speak deeply to anyone who is a physical touch person, and regardless of what type of relationship you have with them. Remember to keep it appropriate however.
- Words of Affirmation: A person whose love language is words of affirmation want to hear good, loving things from you. They want compliments, they want to hear "I love you" and why you love them. To that person, words are extremely important.
- Quality Time: A person whose love language is quality time want your full, undivided attention. Put things down and be there for this person. Listen to them when they need to rant and speak their mind. Spend quality time with them, just you and that person.
- Receiving Gifts: To a person whose love language is gifts, giving them a gift lets them know that you love and care about them and are thinking about them. This isn't materialism however. They don't want just any gift, they want gifts that you put a lot of thought and love into.
- Acts of Service: To those whose love language is acts of service, it's all about the actions. They feel loved when you do things for that person, like help out with chores.
Generally one of these categories speak to us louder than the others. We all feel loved in different ways. Dr. Chapman suggests that the love languages that we most often speak is what we would like to receive. But what we speak may not be what the other person wants to receive. That is why I feel it is important to get to really know the people around you and find out what it is that makes them feel loved. Even though Dr. Chapman's books were originally directed at couples and marriages and romantic relationships, I think this is valuable information for everyone to use in every relationship. For example, my roommate is my best friend and someone who I love very much, and even though we aren't a couple, I want to know what makes her feel loved and love her that way. I think we all should want to love people the way that they want to be loved, it just brings us all closer together and I think that is a good thing.
So I think I am going to go out and buy the actual book on love languages because I want to know more about this topic. I think everyone should too, but especially if you are in a relationship. There is the original version which is directed at couples, that can be found in the link below,
And here is the link for the singles edition, because as the book description says, "Being single or married has nothing to do with whether you need to feel loved! Everyone has a God-given desire for complete and unconditional love in all relationships"
If you want to know what your love language is, there is a really simple and easy quiz you can take to find that information out. Here is the website:
If you aren't married, choose the one for singles. If you are married, choose the one for husbands or wives, there's also quite a few other quizzes you can explore too. I encourage you to take the quiz, and then share the results so that I and others can know exactly what makes you feel loved.
These are the scores that I received:
| 9 | Words of Affirmation |
| 11 | Quality Time |
| 6 | Receiving Gifts |
| 3 | Acts of Service |
| 1 | Physical Touch |
So there's my two cents on the topic. Now go out there and spread the love! :) <3
Gabs
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