Street Love.

Street Love - applying the 5 love languages to serving the poor and homeless (and ultimately everyone!)

Do those that come to The Relief Bus need the food and drinks we hand out? Yes. Is it handy for them to receive socks and hygiene kits? Absolutely. Do the individuals that we encounter during our Don’t Walk By outreach on Thursday nights need us to stop and talk with them, while hearing their stories and sharing a meal on the Sidewalk? For sure!

Yet, while loving parts of people in obviously tangible ways, we could be missing the entire goal that we are shooting for - and the root of it all - loving each person we encounter how they feel love.

In Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages, he writes about how there are 5 ways through which each of us feel love.

Words of Affirmation

Acts of Service

Receiving Gifts

Quality Time

Physical Touch

Personally, this way of thinking is constantly running through my mind in how I love my wife well. As much as I want to love her in the ways that I am best at expressing love, that doesn’t get me very far in loving her how she feels love.

For me, Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation are how I feel loved. So, if you pat me on the back and tell me I did a great job at something, then I am going completely smitten. 
On the other hand, if someone were to give me a rolex, sure I’d think that it was really cool, but it’s not going to change my life in the way that a touch or word does.

For Renee, she craves Quality Time and Acts of Service. So, if I spend intentional time sitting down with her (void of other distractions) and clean the kitchen each night, then she is full of love. If she has love, then she can give love.

In the same way, as much as a cup of soup is helpful (and definitely needed) to our friends on the street, if the way they feel love is through Physical Touch, then ultimately we are doing a disservice to them if we don’t love them in the way that they feel love. So, in this case I would look to give someone a high-five or a hug.

Our goal should be to remember this and look for it in every interaction. Sometimes it takes a while of trying one thing or another until you find that person’s love language, but when you do it can literally change everything!

When someone feels love, it opens them up to give love! 
You can’t give what you don’t have!

So, how can we do this? 
Intentionality. 
As easy as it is for me to think that if I just go around hugging everyone, that it will enough. It simply won’t. I have to get outside of myself and love people at their level - how they feel love. 
If I try hugging someone and they seem rigid and reclusive, then I am going to generally assume that Physical Touch isn’t on the top of their list. But, if I go above and beyond to serve them by cleaning their table and taking care of their trash when they are done, and they reply with much thanks and a smile, then Acts of Service is probably higher up the list.

Ultimately, it is our (mine and your) responsibility to find and help others find our specific love language. Once we know it in ourselves and in others, it is much easier to know and establish expectations. This isn’t privy to just what I do on the streets and for those who are in a relationship. Everyone needs love. Co-workers, friends, extended family, even the lady at the grocery store. How can we meet people where they are and love them well?

Unsure of your love language? Take the free quiz! 
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/

Now, let’s get out there and love well! Share this with anyone you think might enjoy!

Much love friends!

Will I love my daughter?

My biggest fear in expecting Selah’s arrival was whether or not I would even love her, since she isn’t genetically mine.

My wife, Renee, and I had everything figured out. We met at age 12 in church, were best friends for 5 years, dated for 5 years (4 of them long-distance through college with 1200 miles between us), married at age 22, and planned on having kids at age 24 or 25. Everything was going according to plan until we started trying to have a baby. For a year, we read all the blogs, did the timing thing, prayed, and nothing happened.

We decided to get me checked out first because the testing for guys is easier. Within a month of testing, we came to discover that I was born with a genetic disorder called Klinefelter syndrome. It’s what had made me taller than everyone in my family, had lead to some learning problems when I was younger, and ultimately made it impossible for me to add to the conceiving of a child. I was heartbroken. How could this be? I felt like such a failure. I cried. A lot.

Renee and I discussed what to do next. We could adopt, but then my wife wouldn’t get the chance to be pregnant and grow a child (something that she had dreamed of forever!). There was one option that doctors gave us for me to have a surgery that would give us a 30% chance of success for me to still be involved. The only problem was that $30,000 and not covered by insurance at all. We thought about it and prayed about it. I couldn’t peacefully add this much debt to my family, so we decided against it. Insteaded we chose to use donor sperm. This was an interesting process, through which you can choose to know as much or as little as you want about the donor. We chose to know less, but to keep as many similarities to me as made sense. 
Tall, caucasian, Italian and English descent, similar build, and good family health. This was all great and I was glad that we could choose such things, but it didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. I still was heartbroken that this baby wouldn’t be mine.

On the second cycle of trying, we found out that Renee was pregnant. That was great! No more stressing over conceiving and no more spending the money it took to get there - even with insurance, it’s still costly. Now was the waiting game.

Over the 9 months that Renee was pregnant I went through all the emotions that there are; excitement, worry (for her health and baby’s), and fear. Fear was the most gripping and constant emotion for me. How will I feel? Will I love her? Will she love me? What will she do when she finds out? What will I say when people inevitably ask who she looks more like? Knowing that some day she might get mad and me and say that I’m not really her dad, so how can I do this or say that? Fear. Fear. Fear.

To add to all of this, the night she was born, I wasn’t even there. 
My wife ended up being in labor for only 30 minutes and gave birth to her in our bathroom on accident with the paramedics there. I was all the way in the city serving the homeless at the Port Authority. I remember driving to the hospital and just sobbing that after all of this and the connection I had planned on having at birth, I couldn’t even do that.

But then everything changed.

The moment I met my daughter, everything changed. Instantly I was in love. She was mine. I was hers. The past 9 months of fears and anxiety were erased.

Now that it’s Father’s Day and she has recently turned 1, I can only praise God that I have had the opportunity to raise, play with, and love my little girl for the past year. It means nothing that she is not genetically mine - nothing at all. 
I love her. She loves me.

I praise God that a miracle exists to make this possible. I praise God that she ended up looking like me - and that when people say so I can smile and agree! I praise God that she likes to laugh, dance, and say “hi” to everyone! She is my daughter and I am her father.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Everything we go through is to help others.

Please, if you are going through pain or loss, learn what you have to learn in the process, then open up and help others. 
We need each other. We were created to do life together.

Thank you all for living life out loud with me.

Happy Father’s Day! Much love!