June 28, 2002

• Except for the times that it has rained this week, I've made it a point to be OUTSIDE with my kids having summer fun.  I built them a sandbox, did I tell you this already?  I ordered 3 tons of sand and the fellow delivered 5 tons.  I have the bestest sandbox ever.

  
  

  Love Languages Advanced

  
  

  I promised a week ago to wrap up the summary of Dr Chapman's book on Love Languages.  Then when Xanga ate my post I was so demoralized that I just couldn't bring myself back to redo it.  But, I'm done pouting now.

  
  

  What if I Don't Feel Like Doing That?

  
  

  How can we speak another person's love language when we are full of anger, hurt, or resentment over past issues?  We are all creatures of choice.  We have the ability to make poor choices, which all of us have done.  We've spoken critical words and done hurtful deeds.  Poor choices in the past doesn't mean that we must make them in the future.

  
  

  Whenever a person says, but it just doesn't come naturally to me to do ______ ?  There is an underlying message that they don't intend.  They are saying, I know that _____ would make my partner feel loved but I'm CHOOSING not to do that.  The point of Love Languages is that you speak in your lover's language in order to communicate the depth of your feeling.  Telling your lover "vacuuming doesn't come naturally to me, so even though I know that acts of service is your love language, and that's an action that you would really appreciate, I just don't feel deeply enough for you to overcome my personal dislike of this task."  I know that in the past when Tim has performed an act of service that is in a arena that isn't his favorite kind of activity, it speaks more love to me than a dozen actions which would come more "naturally" to him and which he might have performed regardless of whether I was in his life.

  
  

  When we talked about painting the inside of our house, Tim made it clear that he prefered white walls.  I like color.  We reached a compromise and are both reasonably happy with the result.  But he turned painting a wall into an act of love.  I didn't finish painting the family room.  So while I was taking the kids to visit my Mom and Dad, Tim painted it.  I had chosen a light purple for one wall and was planning to paint the other three walls white.  Tim got the cans mixed up.  When he opened that can of deep purple that I had purchased to paint some trimwork, I can just imagine the look on his face.  It had to be the very last thing he would ever choose to put that deep purple color on a wall.  But he did it because he thought that it would please me.  And boy did it ever.  Even though it wasn't the color that I'd originally intended, every time I look at that wall I'm reminded that Tim overcame his personal preferences for MY happiness.

  
  

  

  • 8:27 am
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