Have you ever felt this way? He brings flowers but I just want him to spend more time with the kids. I'm sure the girl next door wishes he would think to bring flowers but he rushes to be home earlier.
I bet you've heard about The 5 Love Languages. If you haven't heard of it, the basic concept is that everyone gives and receives love in one of 5 ways. The book is popular because it helps couples recognize that the way they express their love might not be the way their spouse does, and this can lead to a lot of conflict. For example, if you tend to be the type of person who expresses love most by words you might be confused when your spouse doesn't feel you care about her when you have told her 10 times that day you love her. She instead expresses love through acts of service therefore because you have walked right past the sink full of dirty dishes, stepped over a basket of unfolded laundry and forgot to take out the garbage, she's not feeling the love. She loves you too and shows it in her effort to make sure the coffee was made, lunch was ready when you walked out the door, folded your shirts the way you like them, and cleaned out your car. It's obvious to her that she loves you because she did all those things, but you haven't heard the words in two days and therefore aren't feeling the love either.
It's really helpful in a relationship to know these things about each other so that we can really try to love our spouses in a way that they can really feel loved, making a point to say "I love you" or taking out the trash. The concepts of stepping outside of your own comfort zone and sacrificing to love your spouse are beautiful marks of Theology of the Body and God's true intention for love and marriage.
BUT.....
this doesn't mean that this is the only way my spouse is allowed to love me. It doesn't mean I can say "because this is the way I want you to love me, it's the only way I'll accept love from you." Its a tool to help me love the other better, and maybe recognize where my frustrations come from, but it's not the only way I can be loved.
It's pretty common that couples are complete opposites when it comes to the way they love best. And that's interesting because we typically fall in love with a person before we really know what their "love language" is. They clearly are able to get across to us that they love us early on in the relationship without knowing how we want to be loved and instead loving us the way they do best. It kind of makes me wonder if we might know how we WANT to be loved, but maybe this person actually knows how we NEED to be loved. Maybe that's why we fell in love with them in the first place.
This weekend I was driving home in tears and I realized there's someone else who doesn't always love me the way I want to be loved. The one I love the most, the one who knows me the best, in my mind doesn't always get it right. I was telling Him that point blank as I drove away from a heartbreaking situation that I was sure He should fix. If He loved me after all, He would do this for me. There I go again, thinking I might know more than the one who created the world.
I always want "out" when it's painful. I want a quick fix, a happy ending. So I want God to love me by giving me what I want. But He always gives me what I need instead. And lots of time it seems more like punishment than blessing.
But once the tears slow, I can usually remind myself just how good and trustworthy and faithful God is. I can usually remember that if I can only endure this trail that He has asked of me, then He will use it too for His good purpose. He will use it to change my heart, to mold me, because clearly there is so much work yet to be done to make my heart like His.
I don't like it. I really wish He would just love me the way I want Him to. I also really wish my husband would remember to take out the garbage, but the flowers on my counter have made me smile every time I look at them. They were the brightness I needed this dreary week. I know I fell in love with both of them because they love me the way I need to be loved. Now I just have to learn how to just let them love me and see the beauty that is already there.
No comments:
Post a Comment