Are You Life-Giving?

     What does it mean to be life-giving?  Each of us has a need to be loved, cherished and appreciated.  Let’s say that when we receive these things we store them up. Let’s call the reservoir these needs are stored in our love tank.

     Now we should understand that the love tank is always being drained by the things that happen in life.  Maybe stress, work, long hours, health issues, family and just life in general can drain the tank. It is the responsibility of the spouse to fill the other’s love tank.

     This is why it is so important that you are healthy yourself.  How can one give when they have nothing to give? I concentrate daily on being healthy spiritually, mentally and physically.  If I am lacking in one of these areas, I work on it until it is in line again. I can’t pour into Kim’s love tank if I have nothing in my own tank to give.

     Kim has needs to be met.  As a caring husband, I know that for Kim to feel loved and appreciated I need to keep this tank supplied.  You might ask how one does this? The common need of a man or woman is to feel loved.

Her Needs

     Kim is sitting with me as I’m writing this.  I asked her what the needs of a woman are. For her, the needs of a woman are to feel cherished, security, affection, trust, encouragement and belief.  Let’s look at these needs.

Cherished

     If you are married, you probably took a vow to love and cherish your spouse.  But what does cherish mean? Cherished can be defined as, “to protect and care for someone lovingly.”

Security

     Security is important for Kim.  She needs to know that I will be there for her today, tomorrow, the next day and forever.  That as long as I have breath, I will love her.

Affection

One of my favorite things to do when sitting by Kim is to softly caress her cheek with the back of my hand.  I love it how she leans into my hand when I do this. Affection isn’t just demonstrated in private, but in public as well.  Opening her car door, seating her at a restaurant, even telling her I love her in front of others are all ways that show her my affection for her.

Trust

     I once knew of a farmer whose wife was unfaithful.  This happened fairly early in their marriage. Thirty years later, he still wouldn’t allow her out of his sight.  If he was milking the cows, working in the field, or going to the mill, she was there also.

     When people come to me for counsel and they have lost the trust in their marriage, they have very little to bond them together.  A person needs to know their spouse can be trusted when they are apart.

Encouragement

     I was counseling a man from Ethiopia who told me his father never talked to his mother unless he was correcting her.  As a result, she believed that if he was not saying anything to her, that was good. She has equated his speaking with criticism, so not talking was a good thing to her.  But I wonder how she felt about herself with this kind of treatment?

     We all need encouragement – it fills our love tank.  When Kim encourages, me I feel energized and like I have worth.  I know that as believers, our worth should come from God, but I also believe God gave us spouses to fill this need.  God loves and encourages us and if we are to be like God, we will love and encourage our spouse.

      It would be very uncommon in this day and age for a woman to have an appreciation of her own body.  From an early age, we are taught to compare our bodies with others. There are people with bodies that society deems attractive, and for some reason, when a woman’s body isn’t that exact image, they feel less than adequate.

     Cameron Russell does a great TED Talk about what it is like to be a professional model.  What I gathered from her talk is that we would expect a room full of models to be very confident people, but it is the opposite. She says they are the most insecure people because they know how finicky the world is and that they will be out of favor soon.  They know they have won a genetic lottery that enables them to be one of the pretty ones, and they also know that if they gain any weight, their appeal to the world is over.

     Husbands, your wife needs to know that you think she is attractive.  I will sometimes tell Kim, “It’s just not fair to all the other women that you are so beautiful.”  When I say that, she always smiles. I once asked her, “Do you know that you are beautiful?” Kim is very modest, so with the cutest, coy voice she said, “I know that you believe I’m beautiful, and that’s good enough for me.”

     Encouragement can come in so many forms.  Compliments on how she dresses, looks, acts, housework and even telling her she is a great lover are important.  We all need encouragement.

Belief

     Belief can be defined as a trust, faith, or confidence in our spouse.  This means we will believe in them, their abilities and their future. When the world is trying to drag them down they can know that we will always be their cheerleader.  This also means that we listen to them, support them and we are on their team.  

His Needs

     The common needs of a man are to feel believed in, needed, and appreciated.

Conventional wisdom would say that the man is the strong one and the woman is weaker.  That may be true when lifting weights, but I believe it pretty well ends there. A man has an incredibly fragile ego.  Without a loving, caring wife I would be but a shadow of what I am.

Believed In

     I once counseled a man whose wife would try to sabotage his every effort to succeed.  As a result, he struggled to have worth and value. There’s a reason there is a country song that says, “She thinks I could hang the moon.”  Kim believes in me more than I do sometimes. I have been able to do things that I probably am not even gifted enough to do – solely because she believes in me.  

Needed

     Part of a man’s makeup is that he has to feel needed.  In Sonny Barger’s book on Hell’s Angels, he writes that if the members of Hell’s Angels would have had fathers at home who cared about them, there probably wouldn’t be a Hell’s Angels gang at all. Men need to be needed, and they will go to extreme measures to be needed.  The song from the TV show Cheers says, “You want to go where everybody knows your name.”  It’s probably part of the reason why there are so many men’s clubs to be a part of.  Men need to be needed. If I didn’t feel Kim needed me, I would lose some of my purpose.

     When my grandpa was 92 and in a care facility he told me, “Just look at me.  I’m no good to anybody. I can’t do anything for anyone.” I explained to him that all he had to do was be my grandpa, nothing else, that’s enough.  What grandpa was saying was that he wasn’t needed anymore; and what I was telling him was that he was still needed, all he had to do was be grandpa. This gave his life purpose.  I watched him reason what I had said. He looked at me and smiled.

Appreciated

     A husband and wife came to me for counseling. He said that while she slept in on a Saturday morning, he got up and did the dishes, wiped up the counter, vacuumed and dusted.  When she got up he told her all that he had done for her and she asked, “So what do you want? A cookie?” These words she spoke to her husband were not life-giving.

     A man’s fragile ego needs to draw out of his love tank.  It needs to be filled with compliments. When I clear the snow from the driveway I enjoy hearing, “Thank you, honey.”   I need to feel that if I weren’t there I would be missed.  

     It would only stand to reason that a person will respond to a filled love tank.  It is so easy to get concerned with our own love tank and forget about our spouse’s tank.  The scriptures are full of “one another’s” – 59 in fact. Here are a few verses that challenge us to love one another.  Remember, these are for the general person. The one we vowed to love and cherish should be a good place to start this behavior.

Matthew 7:2  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Romans 12:10  Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves.

Philippians 2:3  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.

John 13:34-35  A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

     When we get our focus off of getting our needs met and strive to meet the needs of our spouse, things begin to fall into place.  Loving others will be a natural next step. If we put these principles into action, we will be life-giving.

Making your spouse feel loved, needed and beautiful are so important!  Here are three links we would really recommend for couples to watch together.

Watch Cameron Russel’s Ted Talk about the truth about what it’s like to be a model.

Watch the Dove Evolution commercial.

Watch the Dove – Choose Beautiful commercial.