Love Languages

My name is Arnie. I will be your love butler. Yah.

Love Language No. 3: Acts of Service

This is a very big love language for some people, if my brother and his girlfriend's list is anything to go by!

Can you remember a time when you felt really loved because someone went out of their way to be nice to you or do you a service? It could be a time when you were sick, and someone brought you chicken soup for your cold. Or it could have been a time when they offered to do the dishes, even though it wasn't their 'turn' to.

Random Memories: Seven Years Old

It was a Sunday evening, and I was miserable in bed with a fever. My family had gone out to the local supermarket in OUG, and had McDonald's for dinner. Sick with a fever and no McDonald's. Could life be any more wretched for a seven year old?

I remember my brother coming home, and then sitting at the foot of the bed. He brought out the Filet-O-Fish in its blue paper wrapping and I chewed on perfect mixture of the soft bun, oozing mayonnaise and chive cream, and the crunchy golden fillet of fish. My brother played storyteller and started recounting this eerie story he had heard on Radio 4's Sunday evening radio drama.

An act of service - cleaning the house, making a nice dinner, mowing the lawn, helping a colleague who's swamped at work - these are a few ways of expressing love to the people whose primary love language is acts of service.

Sometimes you just can't win.

I think a lot of us place importance in this act of service simply because this was how our mother's expressed love to us - fetching us to and from school, preparing breakfast and dinners for us, cleaning the house - for a lot of us, this spelt L-O-V-E in capital letters for us.

Gary Chapman in his book warns against how this love language can be abused - Manipulation by guilt ('If you were a good husband/wife you would do this for me') or coercion by fear ('You will do this or you will be sorry') is definitely not the way to go about having your love language fulfilled.

If this is you/your partner's love language, a list may be quite helpful in defining what they/you can do in order to be loved ie. 'I feel most loved when you...' Sometimes we feel unloved when random things do not get done, but are unable to put it into words, so a list can be helpful.

So, is this your primary love language?