more than words ...

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  1 John 3:18

Did you see Apollo 13?  If so, you will remember that gripping 4+ minutes towards the end.  After days (was it only days) of things going consistently wrong in space, the 3-man team aboard are re-entering the atmosphere.  Houston knows that they will lose contact with the ship for the 3 minutes it takes to get from stratosphere to splash-down.  Mission control is tense, but not panicked.  But then the 3 minutes pass, and there is still no contact.


In my memory, the film makers slow the pace of the movie to real-life speed.  4 minutes is such a long time.  


"Apollo 13, do you copy?"
Silence.
"Apollo 13?"
Silence.


Radio crackle.  Heartbeats.


And then Tom Hanks' voice: "Houston? ..."


I'm sure that at every screening, every audience member unclenched his fists, sat back in her seat, breathed out long and slow.


The message was being broadcast - it wasn't being received.

Which is a long-winded introduction to the scene at the Oakley house this evening, in which Number Two bounded up to my lovely wife Sally with her hands peaked on top of her head.  "Goodnight Mummy.  That means 'I love you' in Squiffy language" she says.


After the "aww"-moment passed, I started thinking.  We tell our children often enough that we love them - we're broadcasting the message - but are we being received?  


My Eldest understands love through gifts.  I first realised this when she was raging about someone touching "her things".  Aha!  Now some of her other behaviour makes sense!  She loves to give little presents to me and Sally.  She's always at me to buy Sally flowers (I really should listen to her more.)  She always sneaks little things she's been given to school to show her friends.  


Suddenly a lot of the fights between her and Number Two made more sense.  Suddenly I wondered: has she been on a starvation diet for these last few years?  Not receiving the message of love I've been broadcasting?  As she grows she'll see my love for her in the day-to-day things, but for now, I'm trying to speak her language.  I'm praying that, in recent months, that message has been getting through.


And Number Two?  I think she's a cuddler, which is quite alright by me.


I found Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages a really helpful book to understand that Sally expresses and receives love differently from me.  He's also written versions specifically for kids and teenagers.