“Herein is love, not that we loved God–but that God loved us and sent His Son…”  (I John 4:10)

I found the note today–five days after Margaret’s funeral–where she had listed in her handwriting some of the reasons she loved me.

Here’s what happened.

Just before Christmas, our pastor, Dr. Mike Miller, told the church how one year his wife Terri filled a jar with 100 notes, each one telling why she loved him. Each day he drew out one and read it and basked in the glow. He was reluctant to draw out the last one, he said, and has left it there ever since.

Margaret and I teased about that afterwards, as to whether we could do it. I told her I could list a hundred reasons she loved me.  She laughed that she might have trouble getting to a dozen.  Then, over the next few days, if one of us did something the other didn’t care for, we would tease, “Okay. One less reason” or “You’re now down to 5.”

It turned out she actually was making such a list.

And today, I ran across it.

It doesn’t exactly give a hundred reasons, but hey, who’s counting?  (I assume it was a work in progress, so maybe she would have added to it, right?  Smiley-face here.)

Want to see the list?  Do not miss her question at the end:

(There was no heading to the page, and her reasons were not numbered.)

Picking up my dirty dishes.

Making my tea.

Keeping the hard floor clean.

Vacuuming.

Taking care of the trash.

Putting out the garbage cans and recycling bin

Bringing them in

Carrying my purse

Helping me in and out of the car

Helping me in and out of the house

Being generous with your money

Doing the grocery shopping

Picking up prescriptions

You always smell nice

You always dress nice

Your hair is combed at the breakfast table

Taking care of the dirty/clean dishes

Are you beginning to suspect that my primary love language is HELPS?

That question at the end has a long history.  Years before Gary Chapman wrote “The 5 Love Languages” and sold a zillion copies, then turned it into a cottage industry, Judson Swihart gave us “How Do You Say I Love You” with eight languages of love. Published in 1977, that book was revolutionary. I must have given away hundreds of copies, particularly to couples whom I was marrying.  (Swihart was a counselor in San Diego.)

Swihart’s eight ways of saying “I love you” are:

1) Meeting material needs

2) Helping each other

3) Spending time together

4) Meeting emotional needs

5) Saying it with words

6) Saying it with touch

7) Being on the same side

8) Bringing out the best

At the end of the book, Swihart provided two pages of questions with instructions on how to place the answers into one of these 8 languages.  In most cases, one or two would predominate, and those would be your primary love languages, with all the others being your secondary languages.

Margaret’s two primary languages were “helping” and “spending time together.”  I have known this for 30 years; we were married almost 53 years.

I should forget about bringing her gifts if I’m not spending time at home and not helping with whatever she is going through.  However–and this was the genius of the plan–if I was spending sufficient time with her and helping out around the house and with the family, then everything else worked also, making her feel loved.

In 1977, I spent two weeks with the missionaries in Singapore working on an evangelistic comic book.  On my return, I presented her with a dinner ring I’d bought in Singapore and a pin I’d picked up in Hong Kong.  She accepted them, but because she was feeling my absence so strongly, they mattered little.  She needed a little personal attention from her husband and my help in seeing to three children at home.

Every wife understands that.

As most everyone on the planet knows by now, Gary Chapman condensed these eight love languages down to five: Words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.  (Frankly, I’ve always liked Swihart’s better, but to my knowledge, his book is long out of print.)

One of many things my wife and my Lord had in common was their take on love.  In Luke 6:27ff, Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who threaten you, give to those who would take what is yours….”

Love is something we do.

Words of love are fine, no one questions this. But they are never enough.  “My little children, let us not love in word and in tongue (only), but in deed and in truth” (I John 3:18).

My wife got it.  I sure hope she felt I did too.

“God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Thank God He was not content to sit in Heaven and send love-notes our way.  “Herein is love,” Scripture says.  “Not that we loved God.”  That’s barely love at all. Who wouldn’t love the Creator and Power of the universe??  “But that God loved us and sent His Son.”

Now, that is love!

So thankful for love today.  Thankful to love and thankful to have been loved.