Life Lessons and Love Languages - Dr. Gary Chapman

This is Doug Hastings, Vice President of Moody Radio, and we're thankful for support from our listeners and businesses like United Faith Mortgage. Heading into spring, I've been spending a lot of time pondering, analyzing, and debating something extremely important to men, and even many women. And that's whether a new driver would improve my golf game.

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That's the story of my life, I think the story of all of our lives. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, a look at the life of our host through a new memoir titled Life Lessons and Love Languages, What I've Learned on My Unexpected Journey.

It's our featured resource today at fivelovelanguages.com. And I am so excited because usually Gary gets to ask all the questions of our guests. Today, we put him on the hot seat. It's going to be a no holds barred expose into the life of Dr. Gary Chapman. Gary, I hope you're ready for this. I hope I am too, Chris.

I don't know for sure, but I'm going to give it a shot. I read through your book, and I have to tell you, you know, we've spent a few years together here. I've heard some of your stories, but there were things in here that I didn't know about you. Again, the title is Life Lessons and Love Languages, What I've Learned on My Unexpected Journey. Was that your idea for the title?

No, Chris. My idea was How I Became Me. But the publishers decided on the title that you presently have. But I like the title, Life Lessons, because that's what the book's about, and Love Languages. And I think the reason they wanted to put Love Languages in the title is because they thought, you know, a lot of people have heard of love languages, but they don't know got to Gary Chapman. So we're going to tie the two together here.

Yes. Well, and I like the Life Lessons, too, because it's not just here's what happened to me in my life. You know, here's what happened here at age when I was born and what happened to my family. It's what you took away from that, especially as you looked in the rear view mirror of your life. Right?

Yeah, that's right. You know, it's not just a chronological biography of my life, although there is some chronology in it, obviously, but it's looking at various segments of my life and what I learned, you know, at those various segments, because we're all hopefully learning, learning, learning as long as we live. And my hope is that some of the lessons I learned, both in the hard things in my life, as well as the more pleasant things, will help other people learn some lessons similar to these. As I read it, I was really energized by the way that, you know, it's very simple.

A guy like me can read it, you know, it's just put forward in a simple way. But simple sometimes can be the most profound thing. I wonder, as you look back on your life, you're sharing things here that a lot of people never tell about themselves. And I wonder why you think many hold back and what they're missing from not sharing.

Well, I think there are probably different motivations why people do that. And one of my hopes is that this book will encourage other older adults to think in terms of recording some of their life story, you know. Even if you never get it published, it's going to impact your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. And I think that young people have a lot to learn from parents and grandparents, but often the young people don't even know how to ask the questions. But if you write down some of the things you've experienced, the good and the bad, maybe you can help them.

They can come to emulate some of the positive things and avoid some of your pitfalls. So, you know, that's my attitude is share reality, you know, on your life. And yes, there are things that maybe you're ashamed of, all of us, we wish we hadn't done that, but if we learn from them, then God uses even our failures.

Yes. How many times have you heard a eulogy about somebody and you've said, I never knew that about them, you know, I never. And not just the bad stuff or the little things that they did that they didn't tell anybody because they were ashamed of, but just some of these little tidbits of their lives.

I think that that a lot of people, you know, how much better would it be not to hear it in a eulogy, but you telling your children or your grandchildren. So if you go to the Web site, five love languages dot com, you'll see our featured resource today by Dr. Gary Chapman. Life lessons and love languages.

What I've learned on my unexpected journey. One of the first places I want to go, though, is is to your childhood where you grew up, because there was a time when you moved from North Carolina to Syracuse and then you came back. But paint of a picture of us in our minds of that small town that you grew up in.

What was that like? Yeah, the town was named China Grove, not the one the Doobie Brothers sing about, but a real town, China Grove named for the China berry tree. OK, it was very logical and there were groves of them. So, yeah, yeah, I grew up there in that small town, actually right outside the small town, to be honest with you. But during the Second World War, if you worked in a defense plant, you would not be conscripted into the military. And my dad's brother had moved to Syracuse, New York, and was working in a steel mill there.

And my dad thought, man, I'd rather work in a steel mill than to get shot at, you know, in the war. So he moved our family, which was just me and my sister and my mother, to Syracuse, New York. And we were there for 18 months. My only vivid memory was the snow was higher than I was. Of course, I was just young.

I was five, six years old. But after 18 months and two winters, my dad decided he'd rather be in the military than to live in Syracuse. Now, I'm sorry for you folks who live in Syracuse, but that was his conclusion, OK? And he moved us back to North Carolina and he joined the Navy. So, yeah, and so the next three years, Mom was our caregiver and we got letters from Dad.

So, yeah, a lot of a lot of good memories there. You remember those letters and he got packs of letters because of the way that the mail went as he was on the on the naval ship. But you remember her opening those up and reading them to you.

Yeah. Mom would write him almost every day. And as you said, sometimes he'd get bundles of letters because there wasn't daily mail delivery on the ship. And he'd write Mom pretty regularly and Mom would get my sister and I and she'd just read them out loud to us. And then at the end of the letter, almost always, he would tell us, you know, give your mom a big hug for me and be sure that you obey her. You know, he was quoting the Bible to us.

I didn't know it was the Bible. Now, the interesting thing about him was that he wasn't really a believer when the two of them got married. And your mom was, right?

Yeah. Mom was a Christian and a regular churchgoer. And when they started dating after a while, he started going to church with her. But they were not Christians when they got married.

And I said to Mother later, because years later, when my mother was, I guess, in her 90s, early 90s, I sat down with her and for two hours asked her questions and I recorded her answers. And one of the things that I asked her, I said, now, Mom, that wasn't very wise. You married Dad and he was not a Christian. And she said, I know, but God took care of that. And what she meant was, two years after they were married, my dad became a Christian. And when he became a Christian, he was all in. So God did take care of it.

I still don't recommend people marrying a non-Christian. But obviously, in that case, God did take care of it. There's a story about the China berries that you were using a slingshot and shooting at other kids in the neighborhood, and they were shooting back, right? Yeah, we used to have war, you know. We called it war with China berries. Everybody had a slingshot and we would hang behind trees and step out enough to shoot the China berries.

And China berries are about the size of a marble and almost as hard as a marble. And we would shoot each other. And if you hit them, they had to die, you know, had to fall down and die.

So we were trying to see who could be, who would be standing at the end of the war. But one day, I shot a young guy, his name was Mickey, and I shot him and it hit him in the eye. And he just raced home, you know, crying and screaming. And his older sister, when she found out what happened, she came out the back door. She declared war on us. And she said to all of us, there will be no more China berry wars. You hear that?

No more China berry wars. Of course, I felt badly and all my friends felt badly. We didn't want to hurt each other. We were just playing. And I guess that's probably the first time I realized that if you are doing something that you think is fun, but it hurts other people, it ceases to be fun. So, you know, that's a good lesson to learn.

And I'm glad I learned it early in my childhood. What did you learn growing up there, though, in that it was a textile mill town. Your dad worked at the mill, right?

Right, yeah. He worked on the third shift, which means he went to work at 11 o'clock at night and got off at 7 o'clock in the morning. And then he would come home and he would sleep during the daytime. And then at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he would get up out of bed.

And he did that. He chose that on purpose so that in the afternoon he could be with me and my sister and spend time with us with our homework when we needed it. And then in the summer and springtime, we would work in the garden with him. Looking back on it, I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back on it, I've always appreciated the fact that my father chose that shift because in the textile mills, the first shift, which is 7 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, everybody wanted the first shift.

You know, that's ideal work hours. And so he couldn't get on the first shift. It was an option of whether he had to work on the second shift, you know, which goes to working 3 o'clock in the afternoon and works till 11 o'clock at night.

We would never have seen him. And so that's why he chose the third shift. And so I've always appreciated that about him. So you grew up then, your formative years and the things that you remember about your dad in the war, in the 1940s basically, right?

Yes, absolutely. I was born in 1938, so I was a child through the 40s. And do you remember seeing your first television?

I do. It was at my neighbor's house. My uncle and aunt lived next door to us and they got the first television on our street. And so I was over there and they were showing me this television thing. And we were seeing people in other places around the country and I couldn't believe it.

I could look in the screen and see these people in New York and in Charlotte and wherever. I remember I was rather blown away with the whole idea. My family did not get a television for a couple of years later. But yeah, television was big in those days. Actually, it did not impact my life very much because by the time television was coming along, I was getting older and getting ready to go off to college.

Yeah. What do you think would have happened to you? What would be different in your life if you grew up at a time when there were computers and smartphones and everything, all the screens that we have today? I've often wondered that, Chris. How would that have affected my life?

How would I have been different? And that's a question I'm asking also about young families today who have children at home in a screen-driven world. In fact, you know, I wrote a book about that with Arlene Pellegane. Are we going to allow screens to control the lives of our children? Or are we going to use screens in a positive way but not let them become addicted to screens?

Well, there's no way to predict, Chris, how my life would have been different had I been raised in this generation with all the technology that we have. But I do think that parents need to be thinking about it. How is technology affecting my children? What lessons are they learning?

What morals are they learning, you know? And if they're playing video games all the time, research indicates they will become addicted to video games and likely still be doing that when they're 24 and 25, you know? So a lot of things to think about and reflect along those lines. You write about coming home every day from school, having a snack, doing your homework, doing your chores. You and your sister would listen to the radio because the TV wasn't there.

And you've mentioned some of the radio programs that you listen to. But there was a structure to your life. There were these things that were put in place that you just did every day. And that's one of the reasons why I think you say now the children of today, even though it's wildly different, they need structure. Yeah, and one of the things I do in this book, Chris, is along the way, I am challenging parents to learn some things, you know, from my experience and looking back on it. And we know today, all the research indicates that children thrive on structure. You know, when there's a time to eat and there's a time to read and there's a time to do homework and there's a time to watch a TV program and there's a time to do physical exercise and there's a time to play in the backyard. And, you know, when a child's life is structured, much more emotional stability in a child. And they will also tend to develop more social skills and also educational skills of concentration, that sort of thing.

So, yeah, I think the more parents can do to structure the lives of children, they're doing their child a great service. Were you ever afraid of anything as a child? The only thing I remember, Chris, that maybe was a little fearful for me, was when the sirens would go off in the Second World War. I think they were mostly just kind of warnings or tests, you know, so that everybody would know if there was a problem. You're supposed to find a safe place. And I vaguely remember that, but I don't remember it being super stressful for me or being afraid.

But I do have that memory that the possibility of something could happen that would be really, really bad and we would all need to hide. Were there teachers who gave you guidance as you grew up? Yes, one of them gave me guidance by giving me a spanking.

Now, that would be outlawed today. Oh, let me, tell me, who is she? I want to call her. I don't even remember why she spanked me, but I never forgot the spanking. That was Mrs. Coffee, right? Mrs. Coffee in the fifth grade, that's right. Fifth grade. Oh, I can't imagine Gary Chapman in the fifth grade, but there you were. There I was, getting a spanking, wow. And the thing is, when I got home, my mom gave me another spanking.

I don't know how she found out now, looking back on it. But at any rate, yeah, there were some teachers that had a significant impact on my life. And really, the one that had the greatest significant impact was my Bible teacher. Now, I was in a public high school and Bible was taught in the public high school.

Old Testament survey and New Testament survey. The teacher of that class, in addition to what I was learning out of the Scriptures, she was the one who mentioned in classroom one day something about D.L. Moody and Moody Bible Institute, of which I had never heard. And it was that mention of that that eventually led to my going to Moody Bible Institute.

So she had a tremendous impact on my life. Then talk about your coming to faith. At what age did you see, did you start to understand the truth about God and you and the gospel? You know, Chris, it was at the age of 10 and it was very dramatic.

Sometimes people wonder whether children at that age can really, you know, have a genuine response to Christ. It was very real for me. I was sitting in church on a Sunday night and the pastor preached. And we were in church always, every Sunday morning and every Sunday night.

I knew the Bible stories and all of that. That night, I keenly became aware that I had never invited Christ into my life. I was not a Christian. And I really sensed God calling me to turn my life over to him. And the pastor gave an invitation at the end of the service and asked people to come forward if they wanted to receive Christ. I wanted to go, but I was really ashamed to go because I thought, these people think I'm already a Christian, you know, and I just wrestle with that. And I didn't go forward. And I walked out that night really feeling badly because I knew that God had called me to do something, you know, and give my life to him.

And I didn't do it. And in my mind I said, well, I'll do that next Sunday night. Well, next Sunday night, I was in church. I didn't have any sense like I'd had the week before. I didn't sense that God was calling me that night. I mean, it was just, there were no emotions at all.

There was no thought at all. And I went home that night and I thought, did I miss my chance? You know, did I miss my chance? God called me and I didn't respond. And I really, I felt it through the week and thought about it several times. And next Sunday night, I was back in church. And that night I felt the same thing inside.

I had the same impression on my mind. You need to give your life to Christ. You need to accept him as your savior. And I almost ran to the front of the church that night and gave my life to Christ. Now, you know, I did not, Chris, obviously understand all the theological things and what that really meant totally and what it was going to mean in my life.

But it was real. You know, I gave my life to Christ. I accepted the fact that he paid my penalty on the cross and I accepted his forgiveness. It's the greatest decision ever made because it impacted everything else in my life. So, you know, no question in my mind, children can genuinely become followers of Christ at an early age.

And if they're exposed to the truth and the Holy Spirit touches their hearts, it can be a genuine life-changing experience. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. And we're talking about the new book that Gary has written, Life Lessons in Love Languages, What I've Learned on My Unexpected Journey. We have it linked at fivelovelanguages.com.

Again, go to fivelovelanguages.com. There is so much in here. There are so many lessons from your life. But right there, so you commit your life to Christ. You're a new person.

God has indwelt you. You know, you've got the Holy Spirit now and you go to the bus stop and Bo walks up. Tell us about Bo.

You know, the bus stop is where all the children from the first grade through the 12th grade would gather to get on a public school bus to go to the public school because the schools are all in one location. So here I was, you know, just accepted Christ, 10 years old. Bo Gulledge walked up to me. He was a senior in high school. He walked up to me. He had on a white t-shirt and he had cigarettes wrapped up in his arm, you know, up at the top. And he pointed his finger at me and he said, Somebody told me that you're a Christian.

Is that true? Man, I was frightened. And I was silent for a moment and he said, Well, are you? And I said, No, no, no, not me, not me, not me.

He said, Well, good. And he walked away. And my heart sank because I knew I had denied Christ. And I thought about Peter.

Immediately, Peter came to my mind because I knew that story where Peter denied Jesus three times. And that night when I finally got home, I mean, I got on my knees beside my bed and I confessed to God my failure and asked God to forgive me and to give me the courage never ever to deny that I was a Christian. And so God forgave me. Now, I did not go back the next day and look up Bo Gulledge and tell him what I had done.

I've often regretted that I didn't do that. He never came back into my circle, you know, with my age group. He never came back again and I never knew what happened to him. As a matter of fact, several years ago, I went back to China Grove and I asked several people in the town if anybody remembered Bo Gulledge and no one remembered him. And through the years, I've often wondered whatever happened to Bo Gulledge.

I don't know. I would hope that somewhere along the line he came to know Christ, but I don't know that. The only thing missing in that story, Gary, is the rooster crow.

Yeah, right. Yeah, it was a Peter experience for sure. And you know, again, God used that to build into my heart and my life and my lifestyle a willingness to share my relationship with Christ, not hitting people over the head with the gospel, but to be open and honest about sharing my relationship with God and inviting others, you know, to join the family of God. So even that failure deeply, deeply impressed me that I didn't ever want to do that again. I wanted to do the opposite.

I wanted to be open and loving about sharing my relationship with God. As I listen to that story, there's something that bubbles up, and there are a couple of other stories through the book, and you tell me if I'm wrong about this, but it sounds like you had to process an awful lot on your own, that there was no one that you could go to and say, or you chose not to go to anyone and say, you know, Bo said this to me, here's what I said, and I don't know what to do about this. You had to kind of work that out internally.

Is that true? That is true, Chris. Now, you know, I could have gone to my mom and dad, and I don't know why I did not, but I didn't. And I don't know if that was just a part of my personality, you know, that I was more internal in my thoughts and feelings and processing life. My parents, I'm sure, would have been very open to hear that and maybe even suggested something that I might do, but I didn't. I wrestled with it in my own heart, in my own mind, and with God.

Right. But I wonder if that's not why you're a writer. You are a person who internally struggles with these things, and of course, you and Carolyn talk about all of this, and your family will get to that love story here in a minute, but internally, the struggle that goes on kind of leaks out onto the page, and even the discovery of "The 5 Love Languages" themselves is kind of this internal work that was going on in you and observing the couples in your counseling office.

Yeah, I think there's some truth to what you're saying, Chris. You know, my wife is an extrovert, and I'm an introvert. By nature, I'm an introvert. Now, people see me in our church, in the lobby and all, they would think I'm an extrovert because I'm talking to people, you know, and taking the initiative to reach out and meet people and all that sort of thing, because you can learn to do that. It doesn't come natural for me, but you learn, and now it's very natural and normal for me to do that. But yeah, I've been an introvert in holding things inside and processing things in my mind and listening to people, because sometimes an extrovert who is a counselor has a hard time not talking and waiting and asking questions and listening and empathizing with people before they talk, you know.

Our personalities impact us, but we're not controlled by our personality. Our program is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. You can find us online at 5lovelanguages.com. There you can take an easy assessment of your love language, your language of apology, and more. Plus, find our featured resource today, the new memoir by Dr. Chapman, titled Life Lessons and Love Languages, what I've learned on my unexpected journey.

You can find out more at 5lovelanguages.com. All right, Gary, so you're through high school. You finish high school. What are you going to do with your life? All the people that are asking you, what are you going to do with your life? Was there a moment where you made a conscious decision that, I need to go into a Christian environment, Christian work?

Yes, Chris, I was a senior in high school, and I was having those questions. You know, what am I going to do with my life? And what's the first step?

What's the next step? And I had the sense that maybe God wanted me to do some kind of ministry full time. And so one Sunday afternoon, I simply asked a group of my friends, because our youth group was very, very active, and I was active in that group. And I just picked out several friends and said, would you guys just meet with me for an hour this afternoon and pray with me? And then I shared with them what I wanted them to pray about, that God would give me direction on what my next step in life should be, because I was coming up for graduating in high school.

And so they did, and they prayed, and I prayed. And by the time that hour was over, I knew in my heart that God wanted me into some kind of full time ministry. Now, Chris, I only knew of two things that you could do full time in ministry. One is to be a pastor. The other was to be a missionary. And I visualized missionaries as being in the jungle, and I didn't like snakes. So I reasoned in my mind, I think God wants me to be a pastor. Makes sense to me. Oh, but that was my mindset, but I knew that God was leading me into some kind of full time ministry. So yeah, that was a significant turning point in my life because it really gave direction to the rest of my life.

Yes. Well, maybe that was one of the things you were scared of, snakes that you didn't mention before. Had you run into any snakes there in China Bay? Yeah, I had seen snakes. I had seen snakes, yeah. I hadn't been bitten by a snake, but I'd seen them, and I didn't like the way they looked.

Didn't impress you. Okay, so you've told us a little bit about the teacher and Moody Bible Institute. Folks, it is so fascinating to read about you getting on a, was it a Trailways bus and going from North Carolina all the way to Chicago?

Yeah, absolutely. And here's what happened. She mentioned that in class, Moody Bible Institute, and my friend, Jerry Wright, my friend wrote and got a catalog. Now remember, this was before computers, okay? He wrote and got a catalog. And one day in study hall, I borrowed his catalog, and I read the whole thing. And at the end of reading the catalog, I knew in my heart that's where God wanted me to go. So I went to my pastor.

Well, first of all, I wrote and got a catalog and application forms. And when they came back, I noticed that you had to have a pastor's endorsement. So I went to my pastor and asked him if he was familiar with Moody Bible Institute. He said, well, I know it was started by an evangelist, D.L.

Moody. He said he was kind of the Billy Graham of his day. And I know it's in Chicago, but I don't know much about it. And I knew that I knew more than he did about the school because I had read the catalog. And I asked him if he would give me an endorsement. He said I'd be happy to. So he did, and I was accepted.

So, yes, I got on a Trailways bus in Salisbury, North Carolina, which was a town about 10 miles north of China Grove. And I looked out the window, and my mother and dad were there, and my mother was crying. And I wasn't quite sure why she was crying. But I didn't dwell on that because if I did, I was afraid I'd start crying.

You see, in those days, of course, I knew nothing about the emotions that a parent feels when their child is going off to college. But anyway, I put that aside, and I don't remember much about the bus ride to Chicago. But when I got there, I got off the bus, took my two suitcases, and walked out on the sidewalk. And I saw a cab, and I waved at the cab because I'd seen that on television. And the cab stopped, and I said, I'd like to go to Moody Bible Institute.

He said, surely. So he took me to 820 North LaSalle Boulevard in Chicago, and let me out in front of the Arch, which is the way into Moody, as you well know. And I walked in and said, I'm Gary Chapman, I'm a freshman, been accepted, and da-da-da. And that began my three-year journey at Moody Bible Institute. In those days, it was just an institute.

They didn't offer degrees in those days. So I spent three life-changing years at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. And then you went to Wheaton College, and you studied. As a matter of fact, your dad said something about, when are you going to get a job, right? Every time I got another degree, he would say, you're going to get a job now, son, right? I said, well, dad, there's one more degree I want to get. My dad only had an eighth-grade education.

He couldn't figure out why anybody would go to school as long as I was going to school. Now, when you went to Wheaton, then, you studied anthropology, which was the same thing that Dr. Billy Graham had studied, right? Yes, and the reason I did is because by the time I finished Moody Bible Institute, I had the sense that God was leading me to be a missionary. Of course, by then I realized, not all missionaries work in the jungle, okay? I had the real sense God was leading me to be a missionary. And I was the president of Missionary Union, which was the student-led mission group on campus at Moody Bible Institute.

That's how strongly I felt about it. And so anthropology, cultural anthropology, is a great background for missionaries, because you're studying cultures and how they're organized and what their religions are and how their family works and all those kind of things. So yeah, that's why I majored. I didn't realize at the time that Billy Graham had majored in anthropology, but I learned that out later. But yeah, it was a good background in preparation for being a missionary. See, all of these dots, though, as younger people are listening right now and they're asking these questions, how do I become Dr. Gary Chapman? How do I have "The 5 Love Languages" ? How do I stay at the same church for 50 years?

How do I do all of these things in my life? And that was not even on your radar at the time. And one of the life lessons that you talk about is making one decision at a time, taking one step at a time, and being fully there, fully invested in what you're doing right in front of you, rather than having to look down the road to the future.

Is that true? Yeah, huge, huge lesson, Chris. I'd never heard of Wheaton College when I went to Moody Bible Institute.

And I didn't know what the word anthropology meant when I went to Moody Bible Institute. So yes, you take one step at a time. God doesn't give us the whole plan as to where we're going. He shows you the next step. You take that step. You learn everything you can in that step. And by the time there's to be another step, he shows the next step and you walk through that door. And that was my educational journey from school to school in my education. But it's true in the whole of life. If God gave us the whole picture at the beginning, we would probably be overwhelmed. But he gives us the next step, and we take the next step and the next step. Yeah, that's the story of my life.

I think the story of all of our lives, basically. Well, let's deal with the love story, though, because we've talked about this here before on the program that you got a Dear Gary letter, a Dear John letter, from the girl that you thought hung the moon. And she said, I'm out of here. And that was just a deep wound for you when you were in Chicago. Yeah, that's right, the first year, my freshman year. We had dated the last three years of high school, and I was deeply in love. Man, I had these strong, strong feelings for her. And she had feelings for me, at least I thought she did. But I hadn't been in the moody.

I was in the first semester, as I remember, and I got this Dear John letter. And she said, Chicago is a long way from North Carolina, and I just think we're at the place where you need to go your way and I need to go my way. Man, I was devastated. And I prayed. I said, God, help this girl. Open her eyes. Show her.

I love her. We're meant for each other. Incidentally, it's a prayer I'm glad God did not answer in retrospect.

I even wrote a letter to help God and tried to explain to her how much I loved her and how much I sensed this was God's will for us, to no avail. So yeah, I was brokenhearted. And maybe some of you are too old to remember, but you probably were brokenhearted somewhere along the line too.

And young people need to know. It's a traumatic experience when you're rejected by somebody that you felt this was the real thing. And I was having trouble studying and concentrating on my studies. And one night I just said to God, I can't go on like this. I'm just torn. I came here to learn. I came here to study. I came here to grow in my life with you.

I've got to have help. You've got to help me to let this thing go and give me freedom to dig into what I need to be doing now. And God answered that prayer and gave me the ability to let that be history and to say, okay, that's past.

Now we don't know what's in the future, but let's spend your time doing what you came here to do. So yeah, it was a huge thing working through the trauma of that. You met Carolyn and was it love at first sight, would you say? It was attraction at first sight, for sure. I was at Moody. This was a couple of years later. And I came home one Easter and went to church. And I had known Carolyn before. We grew up in the same church. In fact, she was the best friend of my girlfriend. And once in a while, we double dated in high school. But I saw her that morning and I thought, man, how did I miss her? I was very attracted just looking at her, you know.

So after church, we had a good long conversation just catching up with each other. I found out she was working as a telephone operator, which modern young people would not know what that is, but that's another subject, in Greensboro, North Carolina. And she was at home. She was living in Greensboro.

But she came home every other weekend or so. So we had a great conversation and found out she was thinking about going to college. And she wanted to go to a Christian college.

And man, I'm thinking, wow, this is sounding good. So that night I went back to church. I could hardly wait to get back to church. I don't know what the preacher said, but I wanted to talk to Carolyn. And so after church, I engaged her in conversation and asked her if I could take her home. And she said, well, I'm with my mother. And I said, well, I'll take your mother too.

I knew they did not have a car. Her father was deceased. And so I said, I'll take your mother too. And she said, well, we have a ride. She was very cold.

And I thought, what happened between Sunday morning and Sunday night? This morning she was so friendly and open and now she won't even let me take her home. Well, I gave her time to get home. And I drove up to her house and knocked on the front door. And she came to the door and I said, I just came by to see if we could talk. And she let me in. And we talked for three hours.

And I found out what had happened. That afternoon she had told her best girlfriend, my former girlfriend, that she had talked with me that morning and that we'd had a good conversation, et cetera, et cetera. And my old girlfriend told her, leave him alone.

I am in love with him. And she told me that that night. And I said, I haven't seen her in two and a half years.

How could she be in love with me? And I didn't say it like that. I said it kindly. And then I said to Carolyn, listen, you can do what you choose to do, but I'm not going back to her. She broke my heart one time. It's not going to happen again. And there's no chance that we will ever, I'll ever go back to her.

But you can, you can do what you want to do. Well, we agreed that when I went back to school, we would exchange letters. And so we started a long term letter, letter writing relationship that lasted really for longer than either one of us ever thought it would last. But we wrote letters for a long, long time, which is all a part of the story as well.

Yeah. How many years do you think? Because on the program, you are not a big fan of dating for a long time or being engaged for a long time. But you and Carolyn were writing back and forth for years, right? Yeah, it started that senior year at Moody.

It went all the way through the two years at Wheaton. And then, yeah, after those two years, I was going to seminary, had decided to go to seminary. And so because we were at least, you know, writing and felt like the relationship might go somewhere, I decided to go to seminary in North Carolina, even though that was not my preference. And she agreed to transfer to a college near our home so that on the weekends we could spend time together. Because we realized, you know, we had this letter writing relationship for two and a half years, but we hadn't spent any time together or very little time together. So we did that and every weekend we spent time together.

And then it was by the end of that year that we realized, yeah, I mean, we're going to get married, you know. But a lot of letters. I don't know that either one of us saved all those letters, but they were sure meaningful at the time. Yes.

Yes. And we don't know, you know, there's no text then. There's no fax machines, you know. And phone calls were a lot. You had to pay a lot for a long distance phone call at the time. We couldn't afford phone calls. No, we couldn't afford phone calls. So it was letters, only letters. You say that you would not be you without Carolyn. What does that mean?

Yeah. Well, in that section, I look at the impact she has had on my life. And I started to say in spite of all the problems we had in the early days of our marriage, but maybe because of all the problems we had in our marriage, I was greatly impacted by all of that. I probably would, on the human side, I probably would never have gone into counseling if we had not had all of our problems. But going through all of our problems gave me great empathy for people who are struggling in their marriage.

And one of the lessons I learned there is that being a Christian, I mean being a sincere Christian, does not exempt you from having marital problems. And because we went through that, you know, eventually God led me into counseling couples. So not only, however, did she impact me in that way, but she impacted me once we got things together in our marriage.

She's greatly impacted me. She's been super supportive of everything I've done through the years. Because I went on to school after we got married. In fact, two weeks after we got married, I went to start in seminary.

And I was in seminary for two years then, and then I pastored the church for two years, then went back to seminary for three more years. So, you know, she was very supportive through all of that early educational journey that I made. I guess, Chris, the one thing in my mind that stands out to show you who Carolyn is and how committed she is to me, and I deal with this in the book, is when cancer came. One morning she said, honey, would you sit down? I want to share something with you. And I sat down and she said, I talked to the doctor yesterday and I have uterine cancer.

And we're going to do surgery next week. And she explained the whole thing to me. And I said, I'm shocked.

First of all, I'm shocked. And she said, I didn't tell you last night because I didn't want to interrupt your sleep. And I'm thinking, girl, what a girl. And then I said, OK, Carolyn, I'm going to cancel all of my speaking engagements for the next year. And I'm going to be here with you every step of the journey. And she said, you listen to me. You are not going to cancel anything that God has put on your schedule. You're going to do everything that you've scheduled to do. You'll be here when I need you.

If you happen to be away and I need some help, I have friends who will be here in five minutes. And I knew that was true because she has many girlfriends. I said, well, honey, well, let me pray about it. So I did pray about it. We talked further about it. And finally I agreed.

OK, Carolyn, that's what I'll do. And I didn't cancel anything the whole year. And I was there at crucial moments, you know, there for the surgery and all that, went with her to chemo treatments and all that. It was a whole year. And of course, she went through everything. I mean, lost her hair, lost weight, couldn't eat, everything.

She calls it her lost year because it was very, very difficult. But that's who she is. You know, that indicates her attitude of support toward me and my ministry.

And I know that a lot of pastors don't have that kind of support from their wives. And I feel for them. But I do know I would not be me without her. It is such an insightful story to the book, Life Lessons and Love Languages, what I've learned on my unexpected journey.

And we haven't even touched on, you know, how "The 5 Love Languages" came about. We've talked about that here before. Could you just tell us, you went to hospice recently and you met this couple. Can you tell us that story as we close today?

Sure. Yeah, I went to hospice. The man, the husband was in the hospice and his wife was there. And I walked in the room and he said, Dr. Chapman, you can help us. He said that we're sitting here planning my funeral. And he said, you can help us.

So I took out my pen and pencil and my pen and paper. And I just started asking questions about things they would think about for the funeral and made notes and all. And when we finished all of that, I said, well, let me let me pray for you. So I stood up beside his bed and took his left hand.

She went on the other side of the bed and took his other hand. And I reached across the bed and held her hand and I prayed for both of them. And I prayed for God's hand upon him and God's will in his life. And I just, you know, just poured my heart out to God for them. And when I finished praying, I released his hand and I released her hand. But he held onto her hand and he brought it to his face and he kissed her hand. And when he did, I wept.

Tears just flew down my face, rolled down my face. Because I remembered 35 years ago when that couple sat in my office and said to me, we have no hope for our marriage. Too much has happened. It's gone on too long.

We have no hope. And the only reason we're here is because a friend of ours told us that we should come and talk to you before we separate. And I said to them what I've said to many couples. I'm not going to ask you, do you want to work on your marriage? Because it's pretty obvious to me you've lost the want to. I said, I'm going to ask you, will you work on your marriage? You see, want to is an emotional word.

Will is a choice we make. I said, if you will work on your marriage, then I'll meet with you and we'll try some things and we'll see what can happen. And they chose to work on their marriage. They weren't excited.

They didn't have any hope. Nine months later, they walked out of my office holding hands and said to me, if anyone had ever told me that we would have love feelings for each other again and be where we are right now in our marriage, we would never have believed it. And here they are 35 years later at the end of the road. And I walked out to the car with tears in my eyes.

I said, oh God, how I wish every couple in the world could come to the end of the journey like this. You know, that's the reward that counselors find in spending hours helping people when you can see that kind of reconciliation over the long haul and see lives and marriages saved. It doesn't always happen, to be sure. But that's what we hope for as pastors and counselors when we deal with people who are struggling.

And this book is filled with those kinds of stories. It will warm your heart. It's the best thing I've read all year, Dr. Gary Chapman.

Life lessons and love languages, what I've learned on my unexpected journey. God bless you, Gary. Thanks for sharing your heart through this book. Well, thank you, Chris. I'm grateful that God brought to my mind all of these things that I could share with others. And my hope is that those who read it are going to find great encouragement for their own journey because God has a plan for all of us. Well, our thanks to Janice Todd and Steve Wick for their production work on the program. And thank you for listening. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.