Feeling Guilty That Receiving Gifts Is Your Love Language? Me Too!
By Carolyn Ferguson
If you haven’t heard of the Five Love Languages yet, it sure is time! Gary Chapman’s 2015 novel published under the same name highlights five different ways we give and receive love: words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, physical touch, and receiving gifts. The idea is that everyone gravitates towards one or two of these and once we understand this, we can also better express our love to others.
But the one love language perhaps most misunderstood is the gifts one. It’s easy to feel guilty, shallow, selfish, materialistic, you name it, if receiving gifts is your love language. It gets a bad rap. But for those who do have this as their love language, we know that it’s not about “gimme gimme gimme” but something much deeper.
Oftentimes, we are deeply touched that someone thought of us and went out of their way to satisfy a little desire in our hearts: whether that’s picking up our favorite candy in the check out aisle because they saw it and thought of us, or picking a flower from the garden (I think flowers are actually a love language all their own heehee).
It’s never about the money or quantity of gifts. We feel known when someone gives us a little thing they thought we would like, or we feel heard when someone remembers something we said about “always wanting a (fill in the blank).” Maybe we’ve been craving an iced latte, and our spouse surprises us and drops one off at work. Or maybe we’ve been a little down in the dumps, so a friend sends us a card in the mail. Suddenly, love is blooming in our hearts!
Similarly, we shouldn’t feel guilty if we best express our love through gift giving either. It’s not the easy way out (as I’m wont to fear). Sure, it can be if we write out a check and throw it at our nephew and check off “Love child” for the year. Giving gifts can mean you thought about that neglected corner in your sister’s house that she always struggled to decorate, or you’ve searched and finally found the perfect Thomas the Tank Engine toy for your best friend’s toddler. It often means lots of research and even some financial sacrifice on our part. And then there’s the time it takes to wrap it and ship it at the post office.
Grant it, we should always try to take into consideration what the recipient’s love language is. If it's quality time, maybe we give a gift card to the local coffee shop for a future outing together. If it’s an act of service, maybe we show up with a casserole and do the dishes after.
This season can be challenging in a lot of ways. Some struggle to receive gifts and feel overwhelmed when simply showing up and spending time with family is a gift enough. Being sensitive and attentive to love languages helps a lot, and when we are faced with receiving love in ways that don’t come naturally, it’s an opportunity to grow in love.
