Strawberry Candy and Folded Cash: Learning the Dialects of Love

 I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we learn to love, and more importantly, how we learn to recognize love when it doesn't look exactly like our own.

I noticed something about my father-in-law. He has a consistent habit of giving money to me, my wife, and my kids. He does this for others, too. It’s not about flashing wealth; it’s just what he does. His own father did the same thing.

For a long time, I have to admit, I struggled with this. My instinct was to be cynical. Giving money isn't my "love language," so I often interpreted it as "buying love" or a transactional substitute for real connection. It felt impersonal to me.

But I’ve realized that I was looking at his actions through my own self-centered lens. I was judging his actions by my preferred methods. The reality is that for his generation, and the one before him, providing resources was the ultimate expression of duty and care. When he hands over cash, he isn’t buying affection; he’s saying, in his own dialect: "I want to make sure you are safe. I want to know that I am still useful to you."

It got me thinking about the generational gap and how easily we miss the love of those who came before us.

The Scent of Strawberry Candy I remember going to my Grandma's house as a kid. To be honest, it was often awkward. It was boring, she was old, and her house smelled funny. I was the youngest quiet kid, and I didn't know how to relate to her, and she didn't know what to do with me.

But now that I’m getting older (and probably starting to smell funny myself), I look back with different eyes. I see that Grandma really did love me fiercely; I was just too young and self-absorbed to translate her actions.

Her house wasn't huge, but she made sure we were comfortable, even if that meant I got the hide-a-bed couch. She was an amazing cook and always fed us really well (I can almost smell the cinnamon rolls). And, inevitably, there was the candy bowl filled with those strawberry hard candies—the ones in the red wrapper that looked like a strawberry, with the soft jelly center.

For birthdays, I’d get a card with money. For Christmas, I’d get socks. As a ten-year-old, socks are a terrible gift. As an adult, a fresh pair of socks on Christmas morning is a top-tier present. That shift represents my own movement from wanting excitement to appreciating provision. Her love was quiet, steady, and based on meeting needs I didn’t even know I had.

The Love Gap in Marriage We bring these inherited styles into our marriages, and it creates what I call a "Love Gap." Our natural, self-centered nature says, "My way of showing love is the right way," and we judge our spouse for doing it differently.

When I got married, I realized my wife came from a family of "Loud Lovers," while I came from a family of "Quiet Lovers."

• My wife would say "I love you" so often—sometimes dozens of times in a conversation—that to my ears, it started to suffer from inflation. It felt like it was losing its value.

• In contrast, I almost never said it. I’m sure my own dad said it to me, but I honestly can't remember a specific time. To my wife, my silence felt like a famine.

It created a cycle: the quieter I got, the louder she got in an attempt to get a response. We both had to learn. She had to learn that the words hit the target harder for me when they weren't used as filler. And I had to learn the hard truth that she needs to hear the words more often than once every twenty years—and crucially, I need to say them unprompted.

Becoming Bilingual The Bible holds a fascinating tension regarding how we show love. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us to let our light shine before men so they can see our good deeds. In the very next chapter, Matthew 6, He warns us not to practice our righteousness before men just to be seen.

Which is it? Loud or quiet?

I think the answer is that we need to be Loud for their sake, and Quiet for our own soul’s sake. Love must be visible enough so the recipient feels secure, but humble enough that we aren't doing it for applause.

Now, as a father to teenage boys, I’m seeing the pattern repeat. One son is a "loud lover" who needs physical touch and constant verbal affirmation. The other is a "quiet lover" whose highest compliment is putting his phone down just to sit in the same room with me in silence.

I am learning that part of maturing as a husband, a father, and a follower of Christ is becoming "bilingual" in love. We have to learn to speak the dialect of the person standing in front of us, rather than just shouting in our own native tongue and wondering why they don't understand.

We need to learn to value their language more than our own comfort. Love is about being consistent, intentional, and—when necessary—out loud.

More Than Just Quiet Time: Why Solitude Doesn't Always Recharge Us

I consider myself an extreme introvert. Large crowds drain me instantly, and social interaction—while meaningful—often feels like a heavy withdrawal from my emotional bank account. According to the standard cultural definition, the prescription is obvious: If I’m drained, I need to be alone.

But there is a glitch in that theory.

While I desperately need alone time, I found that there is one specific exception to the rule. I can spend hours with my wife—just sitting together, reading, or existing in the same space without pressure to perform—and instead of draining me, it refills me.

If "people" drain introverts, why does she recharge me?

It made me realize that the whole introvert/extrovert dynamic is too two-dimensional. It ignores the most critical component of our internal wiring: The Spiritual Battery.

The Difference Between Stopping the Drain and Refilling the Tank

We often confuse "unplugging from the world" with "plugging into God."

For an introvert, solitude stops the leak. When I get away from the noise and the crowds, the drain stops. I stop losing energy to performance, processing, and social expectations. But sitting in an empty room doesn't necessarily add energy back into the system; it just stops me from hitting zero.

True recharging requires a power source.

This is why time with my wife is different. Because of the safety and intimacy of our relationship, I’m not "performing." I am connected. It’s a relational current that flows back into me.

Rethinking the Yoke

This concept completely changed how I read one of the most famous passages in the Bible. In Matthew 11:28–30 (NASB), Jesus says:

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

I always viewed the "yoke" as a work metaphor—two oxen plowing a field together. In that view, the "rest" comes because Jesus is strong and He pulls the heavy side of the load. That’s true, but I think there is a deeper mechanical truth here.

What if the yoke isn’t just about leverage? What if the yoke is a connection cable?

When Jesus tells us to take His yoke, He isn't just saying, "Let Me help you work." He is saying, "Plug into Me."

The reason so many of us are exhausted—even after our quiet times, even after our vacations—is that we are operating on battery power. We retreat to solitude to let our batteries cool down, but we never actually plug them in. We return to the world just as empty as we left, just slightly less stressed.

Operating "Plugged In"

Jesus didn't offer an escape from the work; He offered a power source for it.

"Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." (Isaiah 40:31, NASB)

The Hebrew word for "gain new" strength here literally means to exchange. We trade our depleted battery for His infinite current.

If you are feeling drained today, look at your "recharge" habits. Are you just isolating yourself to stop the bleeding? Or are you finding that safe harbor—in the presence of God, or the "one flesh" safety of a spouse—to actually reconnect to the Source?

Solitude might preserve your sanity, but only the Source can restore your soul.

No Casual Entry: The Physics of Holiness and the Heart of Worship

For years, I have held onto a personal theory about worship and creativity. It started with a simple observation of the Throne Room of God as described in Scripture. Whether it is Isaiah’s vision or John’s revelation, there is a consistent element: the unceasing anthem of the angels crying out, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts" (Isaiah 6:3).

My theory was practical. I postulated that if I wanted to write genuine worship songs, I needed to go to the source. I believed that by joining the angels in singing "Holy, Holy, Holy," I could posture my heart to enter that room, "download" what heaven was currently singing, and bring it back to earth.

It was a beautiful thought, but as I have dug deeper into the Word, I have realized that while the mechanism might be right, my motivation needed a profound shift. I was treating the Throne Room like a resource center—a place to go when I needed inspiration.

But the Bible makes one thing terrifyingly clear: There is no casual entry into the Throne Room.

The Weight of Glory

When we look at the accounts of men who actually saw this place, we don't see them pulling out a notepad to write a hit song. We see them hitting the floor.

In Isaiah 6, the foundations of the temple trembled, and the house filled with smoke. In Ezekiel 1, the prophet fell on his face. In Revelation, John fell as though dead. The atmosphere of the Throne Room isn't just "peaceful"; it is heavy. It is electric.

This brings me to a hard truth about the modern church. Too often, we approach God as "sunday christians." We treat the presence of God as a weekly scheduled event where we can stroll in, sing three songs, feel a goosebump, and leave unchanged. We attempt to enter the Holy of Holies with a casual spirit, forgetting the lesson of the Old Testament priests.

For the Levitical priests, entering the presence of God was a matter of life and death. They had to wash, prepare, and carry blood to cover their sins. If they harbored secret sin or entered flippantly, they didn't come back out.

While we live under the New Covenant and have access to the Father through the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 4:16), the nature of God has not changed. He is not less holy now than He was then. As Hebrews 12:28-29 reminds us, "religiously serving God with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire."

The Physics of Holiness

I used to struggle with the idea of God’s holiness. It sometimes felt like God was demanding we bow down to feed His ego. But I have come to realize that God is not arrogant; He is Holy.

Think of it like the sun. The sun is not "arrogant" because it burns up a piece of paper that floats too close to its surface. The sun is simply being the sun. Its nature is one of absolute, uncontainable nuclear power. The paper is destroyed not because the sun is mean, but because the paper is incompatible with that environment.

This is the physics of spiritual reality. The unholy cannot exist in the presence of the Holy.

When we live as "sunday christians"—ignoring God Monday through Saturday, harboring secret sins, and living casually—we cannot expect to survive an encounter with the Consuming Fire on Sunday morning. We might be in the church building, but we are certainly not in the Throne Room. We are stuck in the outer courts, wondering why our worship feels hollow.

Redefining Humility

So, how do we enter? The key is humility, but perhaps not the way we usually define it.

I used to think humility was thinking less of myself—beating myself up for being a sinner. But in the glare of the Throne Room, humility isn't about self-deprecation; it is about self-forgetfulness. It is the shift from a horizontal view (comparing myself to others) to a vertical view (seeing myself in light of Him).

When Isaiah saw the Lord, he cried out, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" (Isaiah 6:5). He didn't say this because he had low self-esteem; he said it because the light exposed the dust. But notice what happened next. He didn't stay ruined. A seraph flew to him with a burning coal from the altar, touched his mouth, and said, "this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven" (Isaiah 6:7).

The Transaction

This is where my original theory about songwriting gets redeemed.

Entering the presence of God is indeed a transaction, but it isn't "I give you praise, You give me a song." It is "I give you my life, You give me Your fire."

When we stop trying to use God to get a creative spark and instead submit to His holiness, the dynamic changes. We go from Utilitarian ("I need a song") to Submission ("Here am I").

• Isaiah went in, saw the Lord, was purified by the coal, and came out with a Prophetic Commission.

• Ezekiel fell on his face, was filled with the Spirit, and came out with a Message for Israel.

• The Psalmist enters the gates with thanksgiving, sees the glory, and comes out with a New Song.

We do leave with something. God loves to give good gifts to His children. If you are a writer, He will likely fill your pen. If you are a singer, He will fill your mouth. But the gift is the byproduct of the encounter, not the goal.

Living as Everyday Priests

I am not writing this as someone who has mastered it. I am writing this as a man who is tired of my own casualness. I am realizing that I cannot be a "sunday christian" and expect to carry the weight of Glory.

To enter the Throne Room, we must be "everyday priests." We must wash ourselves daily in the Word. We must keep short accounts with God regarding our sin. We must live in a state of reverence, so that when we close our eyes to worship, we aren't trying to bridge a gap of a million miles.

We step into the flow of the river that is already moving. We join the song that never stopped. We add our small voice to the thunderous, eternal reality of the angels:

"Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."

flawed people

This may not come out as a complete and tidy thought but I wanted to put it down on the page to share. 
We are all human, we are flawed, and weak, and we screw things up.  The hope is that as we get older we learn and we make less mistakes and do a better job of staying on the path that we laid out for ourselves, but in reality often we just make newer and bigger mistakes and make bigger messes and failures.
In the Bible, David was notorious for his failures.  He would get his eyes off God and wander in his own selfishness and lusts until God reminded him who he was and what he was created for.  And he would always turn from his mistakes and failures and amazing progress would be made for the nation he led.
**Spoiler Alert - If you have not seen the greatest showman and would like to stop reading now, I am about to give away most of the movie.
An easy example to see of this type of behaviour is illustrated in the recently released movie The Greatest Showman.  Phineas Tailor Barnum was a man of vision, a dreamer.  As the storyline goes (the movie storyline, not necessarily the real life story) he had a dream from a young age, a dream of greatness, a dream that from a reasonable mind was outside his reach.  He had an anchor in Charity, the girl who would become his wife, she was his reason to fight, the prize he needed to win.  His life though as an orphan was fraught with failure, but each time life got him down something would be a catalyst of focus.  First it was the kindness of an outcast, a deformed girl who gave him an apple and also planted the seeds for his the larger part of the fruition of his dream.  That kindness fought back the depression and rekindled the will to fight for his impossible dream.  And when the fight to survive seemed once again hopeless an opportunity to work for the railroad once again put him back on the path to success.  Having had success with the railroad and changing his status in life he finally won the prize and was able to marry Charity.  But being the dreamer winning the prize only makes the dream bigger.  Now he needed to become a great success so he could give Charity the life he believes she deserves.  At this point the dream often blinds him from blessings he has and he keeps striving for more and it often becomes about him proving that he is better than he is.  Every time he fails though something stirs him onto even more greatness.  He loses his job and begins to fall into the mindset of failure when his wife reminds him of the "magic" that they created in their little family.  That encouragement stirs him onto his next big adventure.  When his wax museum ideas fail and he is on the brink of bankruptcy the dreams he has planted in his daughters remind him that he needs to think outside the box do something sensational and he is reminded of the disfigured girl who turned his perspective around  so many years before.  When he starts to recruit his troupe of "freaks" he immediately falls flat on his face and a toy soldier reminds him that people respond better to encouragement and flattery rather than ridicule.  The next big failure in his life he was the last one to see and so he did not respond to all the signals he was given to avoid and ultimately lost him everything.  BUT......... (and in our lives this is where we insert the BUT GOD because until we are dead and shed our earthly bodies God is not done with us and will always give us a chance to continue His work)  But, sitting in the bar wallowing in self pity and despair Barnum's family of "freaks" that he created came to remind him of the great things he has made and calls him out of his self pity and reminds him that the dream is worth fighting for.  This is my favorite part of the movie because it shows us how repentance and redemption works.
We all screw up, most of us do it on a regular basis.  We are going to fail, what matters is that in times like that we look to God and let him set our focus on His path for our lives.  God is always faithful, he will always point you in the right direction, but we have to learn to look past ourselves.

With a capital c

I have struggled for years using a capital C in the word Christian.  I guess my struggle stems from why we use a capital C.  Presumably it is because the capital C stands for Christ, but so often christians do not.
The faces of christianity that are often seen by the world are self-righteous, judgmental, angry, and hateful.  Jesus was none of those things.  Christians will often site the scripture where Jesus got angry and drove the merchants out of the temple as an excuse for their own "righteous anger" towards sin over things that it is unlikely that Jesus is even angry about.  When in fact Jesus' "righteous anger" is directed towards the very ones who are using His name to judge and be hateful.
I read a post the other day on Facebook that struck me odd.  It took me a minute to figure out what bothered me but I finally did.  The post was about an actor who basically cursed Jesus in front of the world at an awards ceremony. The writer of the post stated they were offended and called for christians to be angry and respond by not watching anything this actor was a part of.  It went on to ask that the post be shared so more people could be angry.  The more I thought about it the more I began to realize it was unlikely that Jesus was angry at this actor or the things they said and much more likely that He was sad.  Not sad that the person hurt His feelings, but that they were hurting.  And on another front Jesus is likely sad and hurt that the people who hurt this actor are people who claim to be for Jesus.
W.W.J.D, This was a popular movement around the turn of the century.  And while asking what would Jesus do is a really good way of questioning our own actions, either most christians missed the point and just did what the wanted to do feeling justified that they wore a silly bracelet or they just really do not know Jesus well enough to answer the question.  The call to boycott Disney, the call to boycott Starbucks, the movement to shame and condemn homosexuals, these are not the things Jesus would do they are the actions of self-righteous, judgmental, angry, and hateful people (or people blindly following those people).  Jesus would not have turned his back on people because they believed differently.  Jesus did not call people who were not following God out on their sin, he went to dinner with them. When Jesus met Zacchaeus he did not call him out on his immoral tax practices, He asked him to share a meal together, to spend time getting to know each other. Jesus did not need to get to know Zacchaeus, He knew him better than Zacchaeus knew himself.  But Zacchaeus NEEDED to know Jesus!
I have often heard christians being critical of people do not appear to have need taking advantage of services and ministries offered by the church sometimes going as far as confronting them.  If we look again at the example of Jesus with Zacchaeus maybe we would realize instead of judging them we should be getting to know them because God used the ministry to get them to a place where you could introduce them to Him.

The perspective of scale

In today's fast paced society the world has become a much smaller place than it was in Biblical times.  That is not to say that the world has actually decreased in size but our perspective has changed and the scale at which we measure things has changed.  Having studied geology in college I tend to have a different perspective on time than many people.  Most people think of 4000 years, roughly the commonly recognized time people have existed on earth, as a very long time.  When you compare it to the average lifespan of a person it is a long time, but if you compare it to the billions of years that there are of geological records of time 4000 years is just a short time.

"as far as the east is from the west, so far He has removed our transgressions from us" Psalms 103:12
From the frame of reference of the people at that time the distance from the east to the west was likely only a few thousand miles, but that is a distance that would take weeks or even months to traverse and would cost so much that it was an inconceivable distance to travel.  Today we have an airplane that can circumnavigate the globe in under 2 hours.  Than kind of makes the distance from the east to the west seem insignificant.  We must remember though God was using a scale that was significant to them to say "when I forgive you your sins are gone and beyond anyone's reach to bring them back to you".  Perhaps we should even consider rewriting this scripture to say "as far as from here to Alpha Centauri A so far He has removed our transgressions from us"

"For all the animals of the forest are Mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills." Psalms 50:10

This one I have always struggled with.  Growing up in farming communities the cattle on a thousand hills is a lot, but it is a conceivable number.  Lets say there are 100 cows on a hill, so God owns 100,000 cows?  At roughly $2000 a cow in today's market that is $200 million.  Yeah, that's a bunch of money, but when you compare it to the net worth of someone like Bill Gates whose net worth is something like $81 billion that is an insignificant number.  So to understand this we need to understand from the perspective of those who were around in bible times 100,000 cows might as well have been a gazillion it was so much. God was not saying I only own 100,000 cows, he was saying ALL things are Mine and I am not in need.

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Matthew 18:21-22

70X7=490  That was easy, did it in my head, that's a math problem we expect 12 year olds to be able to solve with ease.  And forgive someone 490 times? Okay, I know people that would only take 2 weeks to achieve.  I thought this being a christian thing was going to be a challenge.  Yup, I missed the point again.  I really doubt Jesus was saying "No, 7 times is not enough but you can stop forgiving at 490 times".  I think instead he was throwing out a large difficult to reach number in order to say do not keep a record of forgiveness keep forgiving.  But mathematical concepts have advanced to the point that 70 times 7 is not a difficult enough concept for us, perhaps we should think 7 to the 70th power when we read this scripture....

The dual nature of love.

Most of this comes from a Facebook post I wrote some time ago, but I felt the need to brush it off and update it.

To me the most significant part of wedding vows is “I commit to love you”. The important thing to understand about love is it is both a wave and a particle, no wait, that is light. Love is both an emotion and a commitment. They work in tandem and become stronger together when you lead with commitment.
As an emotion Love defines how we feel but often times how we feel is not completely in our control. Emotions are fickle and can be easily swayed by simple things; a song, a look, a place, a smell, all of these things can easily change our emotions. And being easily swayed this is one of the most effective ways Satan can affect our lives. Emotional love often times is selfish, it is jealous, and self seeking, it is easily turned to anger, and often keeps score. This is what I like to think of as lust. Lust is often thought of as bad, but I believe lusting after your spouse can be a good thing….
Love as a commitment however is an entirely different thing and is where the power in love resides. Love as a commitment says I will remain faithful, I will protect you and place your needs and desires before my own regardless of how I feel. Love as a commitment is described well in the scripture 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away."  It is important to understand when you say your vows that this is the commitment you are making.
These words are easy to say especially when you are young and starry eyed blinded by the emotions that love brings. But in real life when you are tired and the reality that your spouse is a real person who is not perfect but in fact is sometimes a real jerk and your kids won't shut up and give you just 2 seconds of peace and you cannot figure out what it was that made you have any sort of emotional love for this person who is only concerned with their own selfish needs, it is hard to walk out the commitment love. Love is hard, sometimes you are going to feel love sometimes you are going to feel anger, maybe even hate. But if you continue to lead your heart with the commitment of love even when you do not feel it eventually your heart will follow and the reward will be great.