The 5 Love Languages - Receiving Gifts

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Our third love language from Dr. Chapman's book this week is Receiving Gifts.  This is probably one of the hardest languages for some people to understand if it isn't their language.  For some, buying gifts seems a frivolous activity and waste of money.  But to those with the gift language, it is a tangible expression of love.  There is no shame in feeling love through gifts.  It is the way God made you!  Dr. Chapman has an excellent explanation:

"A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say, "Look, he was thinking of me," or, "She remembered me."  You must be thinking of someone to give him a gift.  The gift itself is a symbol of that thought.  It doesn't matter whether it costs money.  What is important is that you thought of him.  And it is not the thought implanted only in the mind that counts, but the thoughts expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it as the expression of love."

If this is your language, you probably love to give gifts even as much as receiving them!  Do you pick things up for a friend that she would just love?  Are you great at remembering to send cards for birthdays?  Do you always show up to dinner parties with a gift?  Yep, this is your language!!


Real Life

This used to be my primary love language. (yes, they can change!)  I can honestly say that in my first marriage, since we had no idea what love languages were, we failed miserably at this.  It is important to realize that by not giving any gifts at all to someone with this language, it may seem to them like love is being withheld.  For me it became an area of real insecurity.  When I remarried, we quickly learned about these love languages, and Husband was quick to be sure I received all the gifts I needed!  Now be sure to realize that gifts don't have to be something you went out to buy.  It can be a note (like we talked about yesterday), accompaniment to an event, something found at a garage sale, etc.  You get the idea!

Husband has been so great at adding to these posts, I asked him to join us again for his ideas on this love language.

Hello all.  Husband here again.  Gift giving was an adjustment for me.  Growing up we got gifts at Christmas and Birthday and that's it.  And it was fine.  So now being the Husband to the Wife who found gifts a way to be loved I needed to learn how to give gifts for no reason at all.  And me being a relative cheap guy, this was a challenge.  It's probable that along the way I started giving less gifts at birthday and Christmas time just so I had extra gifts for other times but I don't want to come out and say anything definite in case Wife reads this part too.....

Anyway, back to what I'm supposed to be sharing, I learned that to be a good gift giver, I needed to be a good listener.  If she mentions a book or CD she might be interested in, I'll buy and sometimes keep them for present time.  I've also learned that Wife appreciates the effort of the wrapping of the gift and not just pulling it out of the bag and saying, "Here, I got you something."  One of those overpriced greeting cards with a personlized message on it qualifies as a gift here at home.  And she can't return it.  Because there's nothing that takes the wind out of the gift-giving sails faster than Wife returning a gift that you took the time to buy.

That's all for today.  Back to Wifey.  This post is the gift to my Wife today.  Enjoy, Baby!  Love, love, love!

Oh I just love that man!! 

Children 

 

Somehow several years ago for birthdays we gave gifts to each of our girls.  Of course, the bday girl got the most gifts, but everyone else got one too.  Well here we are many years later and we are still doing this!  The girls have loved it so much.  We may have inadvertently coached them into gift receivers! 

If your child treasures every gift ever received and keeps precious items in special places, she is probably a gift receiver!

Join us again tomorrow.  We'll be discussing Acts of Service.