Love Languages

          I had gone with my friend to deliver her daughter to her first year of college.  After unloading all of her belongings into her second floor dorm room (first floor reserved for male freshmen), I went to the car to give mother and daughter some privacy for their goodbyes.
          While sitting outside that freshman dorm, I saw a mother, father and son bidding farewell.  The father and son were in a bear hug.  As the son turned away from his dad to embrace his mom I saw the dad do something so sweetly familiar to me that my eyes filled with tears. (How often had I seen my husband do this with our own kids)?  While the son hugged his mom, the dad reached into his back pocket and extracted his wallet.  By the time the son had broken the embrace with his mom and turned back to his dad, the dad had a fist full of bills extended in his son's direction.  Is this a universal way that dad's show love?
          Gary Chapman has written several books on love languages; he may have even coined the phrase.  A lot of Christian women are familiar with the topic.  I sometimes end up talking with some of them who complain that their husbands just will not learn their love languages!  Unmet expectations abound.  It doesn't seem emotionally healthy to me to put the onus on one side.
          Sure, it's wonderful, if everyone around you (and espcially those closest to you) know what makes you feel loved and kick into gear to "speak your language"--words of encouragement, gifts, quality time, whatever....  But it seems even more important to accept the love shown through the languages "spoken" by your friends and family.
          I wonder if that college freshman son knew his dad was giving him love in that outstretched hand full of money?  Even if he appreciated the cash, he may not have interpreted that action by understanding all the meaning that it embodied.  He may not have known the sacrifice, or the angst in his dad's heart wishing it could be more, or the continued desire to protect.
          How are you at interpreting the love shown to you by others?  Do you get stuck resenting the ways they fail to show you love instead of appreciating the ways that they do?

Romans 12:9, 10
Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves.