I was recently given Gary Chapman’s Love as a Way of Life, the sequel to The Five Love Languages. I just opened it twenty or so minutes ago, and I’m already so inspired to live and love a different way, I had to pause and blog about it.
My senior year of high school, I began my first dating relationship. And for the most part, it was awesome: we laughed a lot, he made me feel secure in him and our relationship, and I was confident of his care for me. But there was something really missing, and I didn’t know what it was. Every few weeks or so, I’d cry in his general direction that I thought we were being selfish, that we needed to be focusing on others- that our relationship should be focused on serving others. It was great that we were so happy and carefree (what else can you be in high school?), but I needed something… more.
And for a minute it would work. We would go volunteer somewhere, or just in general be on the lookout for how to serve and love people better: striking up conversations in the hallways, providing a listening and non-judgmental ear to anyone who needed it, inviting people to hang out or go to the movies or have lunch. Whatever. It was awesome for a minute.
But then we would inevitably fall back into the routine of self-focus and that feeling of needing something more would begin its slow struggle to the surface where I would, once again, cry in his general direction that I was unhappy and needed… something more.
What was I missing? Why was I staying in this cycle?
Because I was right. According to Dr. Chapman, “First, love is an attitude that says I choose to focus my life on helping others.” When my mind and heart were focused outwardly, I was being my true self, and receiving satisfaction in that thing that we were made for- relationships- whether it was a long-term or momentary one. When my focus shifted back to “us” those feelings of discontentment seeped up. My problem was that, simply as a seventeen-year-old in her first romantic relationship, I didn’t know how to juggle my feelings toward that relationship with my feelings toward the rest of the world. I was simply unprepared for how to handle life in all its complexity.
Fast-forward ten or so years, and I’m sitting in a Starbucks watching the snow outside tumbling down like a Hallmark card, and this book in my hands is confirming everything I always knew to be true and necessary. And it is such a bolster, such an inspiration to learn to handle myself and all my relationships in a way that is others-focused and serving-oriented.
Now all I need to do is live it out.
Thanks, Dr. Chapman.
