How does this happen?  I reached in the hall closet to get my jacket and purse only to discover both were missing.  I double-checked the closet and then looked through every room and closet in the house before calling Jim to ask if he might have seen my missing purse and jacket.  His answer was that he thought he had seen them in the hall closet just that morning.  Even though I had already looked in that closet twice, just to reassure him, I looked again.  Imagine my shock when the missing jacket and purse were right there on the hangar just where they should have been.  We are at an age where important things that should be right in front of us seem to vanish.

Important things in marriage can sometimes seem invisible or appear to have disappeared, too.  Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages,” hit the best seller list some years ago.  Recently we reviewed his ideas while we were preparing for a retreat.  According to Chapman we all crave love expressed primarily in one of five ways: Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts and Physical Contact can each express love on a meaningful level.  Couples who are aware of each other’s primary love languages are able to make emotional connections on the deepest levels.  Too many couples struggle with their marriage.  One or both partners may feel invisible because a spouse doesn’t express love in a way that fulfills the other’s emotional needs.  Chapman’s ideas are well worth understanding and he has helped a host of couples have  better relationships.

Not everyone will seek to understand Chapman’s ideas.  Many people live alone, or they have partners who believe their marriage is just fine and really don’t want to be bothered with new ways of understanding.  Fortunately, God himself has a profound plan for fulfilling our needs.  The word for quality time with God is called prayer and the practice of prayer leads to a life of love and peace, even in the middle of chaos.  Scripture is full of words of affirmation meant to express God’s love for us in a personal way. We are told God knows each of us so well even the hairs on our head have been counted.  For acts of service, Christ washed his disciple’s feet and we are able to continue his example by serving others. For love spoken through gifts, what gift could compare with the gift of God’s only Son?  The Eucharist provides physical contact that is the “source and summit of our relationship with God just as physical contact is an expression of heart and soul in marriage. 

We often keep God on a hangar in a closet.  When we need him, we can’t find him, even though he is right there where we left him.  Life can have a way of making us feel invisible as we age and not everyone has someone devoted to speaking love in his/her own language.  When that is the case, who better to turn to than the author of love and the speaker of all languages?  When we devote our lives to speaking God’s language of love, we discover God’s own abundance meets our deepest needs.