Tag Archives: words

Love languages, a card in the mail, & other musings…

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One of the books that helped theBean & I learn to communicate love for each other in the “language” we best receive it is called “The 5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. In it, he identifies the 5 primary ways that people receive & give love – if you’ve never read it, they are:

  • Giving gifts
  • Acts of service
  • Quality time
  • Physical touch
  • Words of encouragement

TheBean & I discovered that we come at this whole ‘expressing love” in completely different ways: she’s a quality time & acts of service person, & I am a physical touch & words of encouragement person. Which means, by default, we often ‘communicated love’ in our own love language… & we were both frustrated. Until I discovered that all I had to do to make theBean feel loved was wash the dishes. Help out more around the house. Arrange for dates for the 2 of us to interact, face to face, with full eye contact (NOTE: sitting next to each other on the couch watching TV is NOT quality time. Trust me on this.) And she has taken to writing me notes & taking time to snuggle, hold hands, & generally grope me in the best sense of the word.

With that information as background…

Yesterday, I received something Awesome. Yes, Capital “A” Awesome. From the title of this post, you can probably guess what it was… a card from a dear friend. In the mail. Sent via the U.S. Postal Service. It’s not even my birthday.  Yet… (only 15 more days until it is. But I digress.)

Not an email. Not a text. A card you can open & read & re-read. (I save all the cards that people give/send me with the good words in them so I can ‘feed my soul’ when I need it.)

The card was sent to say “thank you.” Some really great things are happening in my friend’s life & this thoughtful friend wanted to thank me for my involvement in helping her to discover some things about herself, her giftings, & most importantly, the truth about how God sees, loves, & values her.

And she took the time to send a card. It made my day & was a great source of encouragement to me.

And it made me think about how simple, thoughtful acts like this can have such a profound impact on us.

And it made me want to take the time to do the same thing for others,..to encourage them, build them up, & remind them that they’re special.

And I’m thankful for them.

And so I will do that.

 

 

monday-end-of-january musings…

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Um. I missed January. I didn’t miss it-miss it, it just went by faster than I am accustomed to experiencing a month of 31 days. I think it was the week in L.A. for my Masters project. Or the massive amounts of reading & writing I’ve been doing. TheBean’s new work schedule at the Starbucks Corp. Or something.

TheBean got a haircut recently from Ree the Artiste. She went from long-ish (shoulders) to shorter. I don’t know what it is officially called, other than cute. I just like it when I can see her perfect ears. It really is a cute cut. Without fail, people will comment on how they like her new ‘do, & include, “& the new color is amazing!” That is usually followed by theBean trying to explain that its not a new color, its just her hair. Really. And more often than not, they don’t believe her. Seriously, I’ve heard people say, grumpily even, “Well if you don’t want to share what color they used, that’s up to you…”

Last week, I was talking to a friend who relayed that they’d received a mean note in the mail from another friend(?) who wanted to share their displeasure, frustration, & disapproval with the friend. There was no in-person conversation about it before or after, just a mailed letter out of the blue.

When I heard it, I thought to myself, “For reals?” And then I heard of 2 other similar situations (different people) where mail/email had been used to Declare Disapproval, & to Initiate the Shun-nage.

And I thought, there has got to be a better way for friends to communicate. And if these were my friends, I think I would wonder if I had friends.

Reading a new Dallas Willard book – the day he came & spoke to our Masters Cohort is a day that will live in infamy for scoeyd… I love that guy – it’s called, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge.” In a nutshell, Willard addresses the fallacy that Christian belief & thought is merely the product of personal preferences &/or emotional responses – & declares that there is such a thing as true knowledge. A quote:

It is one of the curiosities of Western intellectual history that, during the last century or so, those with no serious involvement with practical Christianity – maybe totally ignorant of it or even hostile to it – have been allowed, under the guise of “scholarship” or innovative thought, to define what religion is & to reinterpret Christian teachings in the light of their own biased definitions & purposes… thus they present religion as an irrational projection or development of some sort – contrary to the inner nature of the religious consciousness itself.

Get it. You won’t regret it.

The Super Bowl is coming. It is not just another game. It is not the Big Game. It is not the Final Game. The Championship Game. Yet, due to the ludicrous & overzealous militant “property rights” wing of the NFL, you can’t call it the Super Bowl. Or other things. Here’s why. And of course now that I’ve called it the Super Bowl, I will probably be getting contacted by someone urging me, legally, to remove such references.

Silly, silly, silly.