I felt like I was pretty harsh about what I had said about the man: “After his wife is gone he is sad, but I wish he could have expressed love to her when she was alive.” I just repeated what I had heard from an elder person in\n my family. Immediately after I said that I saw a puzzled look on my colleague’s face. I realized that she did not expect such a comment from me. Besides it was too unkind to say that when someone is grieving over the loss of a loved one.
More I thought about it the more I felt ugly inside and had to repent and ask God to help me to show mercy to others. As I re-evaluated my words the next day, I realized that I do not always express my love to my spouse or another family member as they desire or God expects. We may not be an alcoholic or have extra-marital affairs but we also neglect and ignore our loved ones in more culturally accepted ways like silencing the weaker ones, controlling decisions, or being a workaholic. Besides roles in any relationship demand certain level of unconditional love to the people whom we care for. Be it between parents and children, husband and wife, wife and husband, adult children and parents, shepherd and sheep, or teachers and students. I am sure we have failed in many of these roles to express unconditional love.
We can be more kind to others when we realize that we are also sinners in need of favor from a merciful God rather than entertaining the thought that only others are “sinners in the hands of an angry God.” When we cannot see our need for mercy and repentance, we become too quick to judge other couples about the speck of dust in their families and ignore the log in our family.
Before we try to fix our neighbor’s family life, let us take a quick evaluation to see whether our spouse and children or other dependents feel loved in our homes. We may be good in loving them according to our standards by providing food, clothes and shelter. But do they feel loved? That is the question all of us need to ask. Others feel loved only when we express love in the way they feel loved or as Gary Chapman says when we speak others’ love language. He says that children by the age of four have developed their primary love language which can be words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. In his book, he explains how God Speaks Your Love Language using the five languages. I pray this truth will motivate us to learn how to speak love languages so that those who care for will feel loved. The following link describes the different love languages: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cOTS8yEncYG91bZBVJACbqllyOTnmcoC/view?usp=drivesdk
Let me close with a word of wisdom, let us be immersed in the love of God in Christ so that loving others will be naturally supernatural.
Thoughts For You 