This is my favorite time of year. Despite the cold nip in the air, and the hustle and bustle, it’s a special time to think about those we love and design creative ways to express that love.
I am a gift giver so finding the perfect gift is important to me. I spend hours thinking about each person I love and what gift might best express that. I often solicit gift ideas from others and am grateful for their input but I am profoundly thankful to my daughter-in-law who in recognition of my “perfect gift” mentality, whole-heartedly supports my efforts. Now, she would tell you that she is not a gift giver, but I have witnessed a thoughtful precision in her choosing of gifts that results in each person feeling valued and very loved. Though she is a wife, and mother of four, and has to take into account Santa’s role in the mix, she always offers me the very best of her gift ideas. This is love for me.
It reminds me of a passage I was reading in the book of I Peter. I was captured by the words in chapter 1; “…love like your lives depended on it.” I don’t read The Message version of the Bible very often but it inspires many thoughts that other versions do not. This passage made me ask myself, how do we “love like our lives depended on it”? I have pondered this for a long time and am still trying to fully understand it but I do know one thing…Love may require us to go to extreme measures to express it and everyone needs to experience this type of love.
Because we are all unique, the giving and receiving of love can look different for each person. Love can find its expression in many ways. Gary Chapman, the author of The 5 Love Languages, illustrates how people receive love differently. Written originally for couples, he describes five ways that people communicate love: Words of affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, Quality time, and Physical touch.
It is important to know how the people in our lives receive love. If you are buying expensive gifts for someone and their love language is “acts of service”, you may want to invest in a rake and help them rake the leaves in their yard instead. Remembering another person in a special way can be a wonderful thing but knowing them well enough to respond in a way that they feel loved is powerful.
Sometimes our giving of love is to a perfect stranger because our hearts have been touched by their lives. This is also a powerful expression of love that says to a person that someone sees them and they really matter.
The NIV version of the same verse says, “…love one another deeply from the heart.” Whichever version you read, loving others is always the answer.
Lives may not be dependent on my daughter-in-law’s providing of gift ideas but her response to me expresses a deep love that words do not and I am so very thankful.
Tis the season to love extravagantly…“like your lives depended on it.” What could be more loving than the God of the universe humbly coming to earth in the form of a baby just so we could experience His love first hand?
May you experience the fullness of giving and receiving love this season.
Christmas blessings!!