Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

I was supposed to be a girl. I had two older brothers. My dad wanted a girl. He wanted both of my brothers to be girls. I wore girls’ baby dresses for the first six months of my life. Mom had all these clothes that she never put on my brothers. It was my responsibility to use them.

She taught me to sew, crochet, and cook. This is the reason I have been an advocate of women’s rights and breaking gender barriers. Our daughters had toy cars. They played with boys’ toys. We gave our oldest astronaut Barbie.   I taught her to love science and space and built a spaceship for her doll.

Our youngest daughter worked with me in my shop. She liked the drill press and the saw. She is a handywoman today. Our middle daughter will try anything you tell her that she can’t do. Isn’t this usually a male response?

My first girlfriend was when I was in second grade. I do not remember her name. I dated only one girl through high school. During my sophomore year in college, she announced to me that she did not think we should see each other anymore. I was all right with that. From that point, I dated a few ladies.

I wanted to find someone to love. I just needed to pick the correct one. I accepted a call to the full-time gospel ministry, changed colleges, and met my future wife the following year.

At that time, I did not know as much about love as I do today. I know that love is a verb. It is not an emotion. It is a choice. You decide who you will love and if that love will last. We do not fall in love or out of it. We stop caring about those we once cherished because of several factors. One of these is that we all change.

In marriage, we should be changing together. Growing apart needs to be recognized and avoided. We need to learn to communicate our needs, wants, and love better. The books “Five Love Languages” and “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” are two volumes that discuss the differences in the way we communicate.

Gary Chapman identifies five separate ways of speaking. Not all of these are verbal. Men and women can share these. Some couples accidentally know what the other means because they speak the same dialect.

John Gray separates the miscommunication between men and women into differences in culture. He also believes that once we learn this, we can have meaningful dialogue. Both men are correct as are hundreds of others that have written books or taught marriage seminars.

I knew I needed to be in love. The Carpenters song adds that believing there is someone for me was hard. One of the steps I learned from Karen was that it wasn’t simple and that freedom made it more difficult. I am not perfect, and neither is Cindy.

We married because we wanted to work at loving each other. We still understand that it is for life. That life is not easy. We work at it every day. She has changed. I am not the same man she loved at first. Good intentions were a foundation. That was not where we placed our faith.

I believe that she loves me. I know her love language. I know that as a woman she cannot always understand what I try to say. I say I want to be with her. I prove it by being with her. When I put business ahead of us, she told me about it. She had the patience to let me learn the lessons at my own pace. Sometimes I can be a slow learner.

Our love has grown. It is not what it was forty-seven years ago. We are still together and love each other. Do not stop growing in your relationships. Have the courage to work hard on it.  Do not miss the opportunity to say I love you. And use all five languages when you need to. Happy Valentine’s Day.

©Copyright 2023 by Charles Kensinger