His and Her Lent Plans

We are tackling two things for Lent this year. One stems from something we heard about in church a few weeks ago. The other was found on a friend's blog and is so needed in our house right now.

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Three weeks ago, the church sermon and community group (small group) lesson revolved around love. Scriptures like 1 Corinthians, which are widely known, were reread, but added to this discussion was talk of The 5 Love Languages. 

We have talked about these before, but neither of us had taken the time to really discover what we thought our love languages were and how that applied to our marriage. After the sermon and lesson, we decided to take the profile assessment and really examine what the results meant for us as a married couple.

Amanda - 
At community group, I shared that I thought I was a combo of Receiving Gifts and Acts of Service. After taking the profile assessment, this is what I discovered.

Acts of Service was one of my lowest. I knew Words of Affirmation would be as well. Physical Touch is up there, but my two highest are Receiving Gifts (which I fully expected) and Quality Time (which surprised me, but not Sean - he saw that one coming).

Amanda's results are pretty much what I expected her to get. She values quality time with me and those who are close to her and she values small gifts that others give to her. One of her favorite things is for me to write her a message on the chalkboard in our hallway. Small, but significant to her.

Sean -
At community group, I could not decide which love language was mine. The group asked Amanda what she thought and she said Acts of Service. I didn't necessarily agree, but I went along. After taking the profile assessment, this is what I discovered.

Results/Thoughts:

  

After reading through the questions I am not surprised by the results. I do like to give Amanda a quick hug or kiss, I enjoy spending time with her, even if it's just hanging out at home.

 

Sean is a very huggy person, so I am not surprised that this was his primary love language. We hold hands a lot when we are walking somewhere and I pat him on the back or ruff up his hair when I am walking past. I knew that those little touches throughout the day meant something to him, I just didn't realize how much.


We have both agreed and committed to trying to more actively show love in the other's love language during this season of Lent. Not that Sean will discount Acts of Service or Words of Affirmation for Amanda and Amanda will not discount Receiving Gifts for Sean (though he wishes she would at times). But we will make more of an effort to show love in the way that is most meaningful to the other. We are hoping that this will strengthen our relationship and connection moving forward.

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Raise your hand if you have too much stuff cluttering up your house. 

We both raised our hands as high into the air as physically possible. Recently, we have talked about the need to go through certain areas of the house to throw away items, reorganize things, and move things to their proper place. It does seem like our clutter and our stuff has taken over the house. We cannot remember when we last went through some of the boxes or drawers in our home. It is time!

Enter the 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge!

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We are committed to this and we are ready to take back our home from the clutter. We printed the schedule and filled it in. Today begins a new chapter for us. We are ready!

 Our list...ready to go. The "Sports Room" is our extra bedroom. It is where everything goes that we are going to deal with "later". Looks like "later" begins on April 3.

White House, Black Shutters has all the information you need to get started on this challenge. She has printables, FAQs, and some simple steps to get going.

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If you haven't already taken the Love Languages Profile Assessment, here is the link. There is also a quiz for teens that is good for both teens and their parents. They also shared at church that there is a way, through the website, to ask questions of younger kids so you can learn their love language, since they are too young for the quiz. We would love to know the results you got, if you are comfortable sharing.

If you join the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge, we would love to know so we can encourage one another. There is also a closed Facebook group you can join, an Instagram account, and a Facebook account to stay connected and motivated.


Are you giving something up or committing to something this year during Lent?


Happy Loving and Decluttering,