Saturday, January 29, 2011

oh Your love is a symphony

We had a seminar on marriage yesterday (kind of weird seeing slides and footnotes and statistics about a subject like that, as if it's something you can pin down to a formula) and they talked about the five love languages. Giving, physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, and acts of service. I was never sure which one was mine. Either words or time. But I think it's actually something more to do with talking/listening/someone trusting you enough to communicate with you on more than just a superficial level, and spend time doing it/you trusting them enough to do the same. Or something.

Whatever that's called.

If not that then I suspect my love language is sarcasm.

On Thursday I learned that Titus was written to a church in a place were pirate bands were common and Christianity was new. "So Paul could have been writing to converted pirates," Ari said, and "Pirate bands? Musical pirates?" said Gabby. I will never view the book of Titus the same way again.

Today my outreach team is going away for two days--kind of a preliminary weekend to see the place we'll be spending ten days at next month. It's a working-class church of 25 people near Leeds, my team has 11 people on it (twice as big as most), and we'll be doing kids work and school assemblies and stuff. Other than that, no idea what we're in for, and I have a sneaking feeling that that's the only reason I'm not freaking out. Isn't that a comfort. I don't know what we'll do this weekend or where I'll be sleeping tonight--will definitely be an adventure!

So. That's what happening. And my heart is full and God is AWESOME and more than all the stress about outreach and school and travel and What Am I Going to DO With My Life When I Go Home?, I am super incredibly happy right now.

6 comments:

  1. How very interesting! About 8 months ago, our pastor actually began a relationships class with The Five Love Languages as textbook. Though I was dreading sentimental ridiculousness, it ended up actually being quite informative, and even interesting.

    I thought at first I was "Quality Time", but I've since discovered that my love language is a subcategory of that - "Quality Conversation". I feel most loved when someone will actually LISTEN to my thoughts and opinions. Not just hear, but understand them. And I've noticed that I always feel very cast out and unloved when I haven't been heard, when no one seems to care about what I think. When no one wants to hear. I thought that seemed pretty compatible with an INTP personality in a way - the whole "thought" thing. Perhaps there's correlations between personality types and love languages?

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  2. Hmm, I wonder if the Five Love Languages have anything whatsoever to do with your braintype. Insteresting! I bet you are words of affirmation in a way, and probably giving, too! You have such a heart for Nina, and you feel for her so much! I am always touched by how much you love her!:)

    whataretheyteachingyouinschoolthesedays??

    I'm terribly glad that you are happy! It makes me happy, too!

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  3. First of all: *freak out at post title!!!!!!!!!* I'm sure that's all I need say on that :P.

    Marriage seminar, eh? I hope you won't be needing to use that sometime soon! :P But that is so true about the communicating/trust/time stuff. hm. I wonder what my form is... :/

    'Pirate bands.' HA! that made me laugh :).

    All the best with your outreach!!!! (tell me all about it :P). May God be with you, speak through you, and touch people's hearts through you. May you experience the essence of being His vessel. And may the people you are reaching, have soft hearts and open minds to receiving Jesus' amazingness. Praying for ya! :D

    Yay about the God/awesome stuff!!!!! Don't stress about your future - God knows what He's doing in your life!!! Don't be afraid of the walking through the unknown, traveling into and unclear future.... Hand in hand with Jesus, you've got assurance, direction, and security :). It's when we don't have our own plans, agendas, and life 'all figured out', that God can really lead us and work in our lives. God's got GREAT plans for you, Kelsey!! You have got SO much potential and there is just SO much that He can do with someone like you. Your heart is willing and in love with Him... He does NOT ignore that!! :D (oh man. I am so excited to see where He leads you!!!! :O)

    (oh... and I have some pretty cool stuff to tell you about missions fest ;)).

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  4. I thought I had posted here before, but maybe it didn't work.
    It sounds like a neat outreach program!
    I'll pray that is goes well.
    Letter coming soon!

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  5. Nastya: YES. Exactly that! And "quality conversation" is a much more concise and accurate term than my handful of words trying to describe it. Is that a legit subcategory that you read about somewhere (where?) or your own discovery? Anyway. I SO AGREE.
    And I bet it is somehow connected with personality type, although obviously it wouldn’t work out perfectly all the time...acts of service is an SJ thing and....um I can’t think of any other correlations. :P any ideas?

    Kayla - awww thanks. ;) I'm going to guess yours is words of affirmation, since you're so much a word person and you're always so loving and encouraging, but it's hard to tell without really properly spending time with you :P

    Zoe - HA, yeah, I hope I don't need it for a while either. ;) I will definitely talk your ear off about outreach! Thanks ever so for the prayers! Found out some more details this weekend, will let you know in the next email/blog post/whatever...and I can't wait to hear your missionsfest stuff :D)

    and thanks for the encouraging words—right back at you ;) I know you're right...just waiting...

    Anna - hooray! I can't wait! And thanks SO much for the prayers, we can definitely use them. ^^

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  6. "Quality Conversation" is discussed in the Love Languages book, I believe. It's mentioned as a subcategory of "Quality Time". I think I came across that when reading the book, and our pastor mentioned something about it, so I'm pretty sure it was covered in the book. But yeah, I felt like that nailed me the most.

    You could probably label "physical touch" as purely an 'F' thing and be safe with that conclusion. That's the only other obvious correlation I can come up with.

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