They both make me incredibly happy. Especially when, with the former, I ignore that fact that I’m starting a stare down with the half-century mark.

Okay, yes, it is a few years away still, but in the words of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, “But it’s out there!”

Have you read The Five Love Languages by Gary Smalley? He explains how each person has (generally) one dominant way in which they both feel and express love. Some people are as he explains, bi-lingual, in that they speak two different love languages.

Gifts and time are my languages. One of them I’d love to exchange.

The Gifts one.

I know with all of them you’re asking people to give you something (love) but gifts…when you’re a child it’s to be expected. When you’re in a stare down with a half-century of life on planet earth, most people think you’re crazy. I hear from a lot of people, “Just stop talking about it.” and “Oh! You just want everything don’t you?” or “You’re the one who always wants gifts.”

So I decide to take a vow of silence on all things gift.

Then my love tank takes a dive and I’m left feeling alone, unloved, unworthy. I know I’m not. I’m not blaming anyone for those feelings. They’re a lie.

But God, in His infinite wisdom, has hardwired each of us to have at least one love language. By His design, we are like this.

I can’t change the way I’m wired. I can’t exchange one language for another. The more thought I give it, I realize I don’t even know which one I would change it to.

Touch. Yeah, this is so not me. I’m not quite as out there as a friend from my college days who made me stand on one side of her and a cousin (of hers) stand on the other side when we’d get in a circle and join hands to pray. We only held pinkies. But there are so many, many times that I want to shout, “If you love me you won’t touch me!”  The hard part about this is, my 12-year old has touch as her love language.

Acts of Service.  I find that when people start doing things for me, I start to feel entitled. And incredibly lazy. Both of which I hate. I wish I would feel loved instead.

Words of Affirmation. This one is super. I know I can always use a few more “attagirl” and the warm, fuzzy feelings I get when I hear them. But they aren’t necessary to my emotional health. I need them, you need them, everyone needs them.

I’ve really come to the conclusion that we all need all of them. We all need gifts, time, touch, acts of service, and words of affirmation. But we need one more than the others.

This is totally not what I had intended to blog about today. But apparently this is what was inside.