Book of the Week: The 5 Love Languages (Which One is Yours?)

This week’s book of the week is Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages. While I have used the premise of this book often in counseling, I had never actually read the book.  Since this week was a heart book read, I decided to go through this book finally.  The idea is that we all have  primary love language that we tend to speak and want others to use on us.  The problem is that rarely do spouses share that gift.  That means if someone is a big physical touch person, they try to hug and kiss their spouse’s hurts away when what that person really needs is words of affirmation.

This book is a great read.  While I register with all of these on some level, I realized today that I am a words of affirmation person and I am married to an acts of service wife.  We had a great conversation on these topics below.

For the 5 lines this week, I decided to pull a quote out to describe each of the love languages.  Do you see yours?

Top 5 Lines:

1. WORDS OF AFFIRMATION: “The word encourage means ‘to inspire courage.’  All of us have areas in which we feel insecure…The latent potential within your spouse in his or her areas of insecurity may await your encouraging words” (42).
2. QUALITY TIME: “Some husbands and wives think they are spending time together when, in reality, they are only living in close proximity…It means that we are doing something together and that we are giving our full attention to the other person” (60).
3. RECEIVING GIFTS: “Gifts come in all sizes, colors, and shapes.  Some are expensive, and others are free.  To the individual whose primary love language is receiving gifts, the cost of the gift will matter little, unless it is greatly out of line with what you can afford” (76).
4. ACTS OF SERVICE: “[Acts of service] require thought, planning, time, effort, and energy.  If done with a positive spirit, they are indeed expressions of love” (88).
5. PHYSICAL TOUCH: “Almost instinctively in a time of crisis, we hug one another…We cannot always change events, but we can survive if we feel loved” (109).

So what is your primary love language?

Travis Agnew

Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.