VERSION 2.0
A New Update for a Timeless Tool
John Trent, Ph.D.
WHO DOESN’T LIKE UPDATES? Okay, I know some people loathe them, feeling they’re just profit driven, a shining example of built-in obsolescence.
I love updates.
If it’s the right kind of update, you get something new. Something filled with incredibly cool features. And it makes you faster, which makes you seem even smarter. I think you’ll find all that in this update of our book.
You’ll find “cooler” features in this updated book and in the supporting materials at www.encouragingwords.com. All this can help you understand more quickly the power of a word picture. And it will help you be better able to carve out the very word picture you’ll need to make a difference in your own life and the lives of others. Plus, you’ll benefit from years of feedback and instruction that have poured in as this concept has been taught at seminars, to graduate counseling students, and to workplace and military teams. We’ve also heard from hundreds of people who’ve shared with us their stories of how words can, in fact, mend, change, and strengthen hearts and lives.
But for all the helpful updates and additions to this updated book, there is something missing that I wish wasn’t the case.
When my friend Gary Smalley and I wrote our first books individually, we each wrote them by hand. Then Gary and I teamed up to help families. The first book we wrote together was called The Blessing. I typed it on an IBM Selectric. Believe me, that loud electric hum and the cool spinning typing ball were a huge upgrade from handwriting.
But that was nothing compared to the upgrade that happened next. It took place right before we wrote the first version of this book, The Language of Love.
At that time, our ministry had (and mine still has) a great friend in Jim McGuire. Back then, Jim was working toward becoming the head of IT for American Express. He would leave there to become the head of IT at eBay. And he recently ended a long and distinguished career as head of IT for Charles Schwab. In other words, he’s a tech pro’s pro.
Throughout his career, while he worked on every kind of computer and server, Jim was a huge Mac fan. And for as long as we’ve been close friends, he and his wife, Pam, have been huge fans of helping families.
Which meant that in 1989, Jim showed up at my house with an incredible new upgrade. He was convinced I should junk the typewriter I was planning to use to write the book Gary and I were starting. He thought he’d found something transformational that could help me capture the words we wanted to share far more quickly. Something that would allow me to edit sentences without having to type the whole page over.
When he put that “something” in front of me, it was jaw-dropping. Space age. Inconceivable.
It was an Apple Macintosh SE. Model M5011. It had a screaming 1 MB of RAM. An incredibly huge 20 MB hard drive. And . . . wait for it . . . a sweet nine-inch monochrome (meaning black-and-white) screen. All this weighing in at a measly 17 pounds!
For 1989 —believe me —that 1 MB of computing power was fast! Forget that your smartphone today likely has more than a thousand times as much computing power. Back then, this desktop was an update beyond belief! It was heaven for your fingers —the ones wearing out from using a typewriter and smeared with white paint from “whiting out” all your mistakes.
Gary and I did, in fact, get this book written far quicker than our first book. And this book helped more families than we ever dreamed it could. (And we had dreamed and prayed big prayers!)
More than a few years have passed since Jim showed up with that upgrade to help in writing the first version of this book. And on March 6, 2016, my good friend Gary Smalley passed away after a long illness.
Gary was, hands down, one of the most loving, important figures ever in Christian counseling, marriage ministry, and writing. Being totally objective, if there were a Mount Rushmore for people who “lived it out” at home, and who helped thousands of marriages and families be more loving and lasting, Gary’s likeness would be carved right up there.
All this means that I don’t have Gary, my fellow “Otter,” to help me update our books. But we talked about this when my daughter Kari (named after Gary’s oldest child and daughter, Kari) and I went to Houston to see Gary and Norma toward the end of his life. His name will always be on this book and any future edition. And you’ll notice, throughout this book and any of our other joint projects that may get updated, that I’m going to keep saying “we.” Gary’s voice and love are still a part of me and the books we did together. You’ll hear his words still coming through loud and clear.
I am grateful I can still talk to Norma, Gary’s wife, and with his son Greg, now the head of marriage ministry at Focus on the Family. (I also stay in touch with Michael Smalley and Kari Smalley Gibson, who are carrying on Gary’s ministry.)
And I’m incredibly grateful for my wife, Cindy, and her continued love for me and our family. Our daughter Kari Trent Stageberg works with me at StrongFamilies.com. And our younger girl, Laura Trent Morris, is a trauma nurse and wonderful daughter, sister, and wife. Both of them work alongside their husbands, Joey and Chris, to change the world for Jesus.
Finally, I’m grateful for one more thing that hasn’t changed.
The same Jim McGuire who showed up with a 17-pound Mac in 1989 showed up again a few days ago at the time of this writing.
This time with a 2017 iPad Pro.
It’s space gray. Two hundred fifty-six GB (1 GB is 1,000 MBs). It has a 10.5-inch LED-backlit multi-touch retina display showing off thousands of colors with beyond-crystal-clear resolution. It processes everything so fast, it’s what you find when you look up the definition of screaming. It’s got incredible cameras and speakers. And all that weighs in at a whopping 1.03 pounds.
As I hold my new iPad and type these words, I think back to how Gary and I stared at that first Mac that Jim McGuire had set in front of us and marveled at the future in our hands. Here again, another Apple arrived just in time, just like the last time, to help me finish this updated version of a timeless communication tool.
Version 2.0 of The Language of Love for a new generation.
And remember, at encouragingwords.com you’ll find additional resources, including another 101 word pictures that others have used successfully. You’ll also find a section on how word pictures can be used, unfortunately, to harm others. For those of you who have experienced verbal abuse, you’ll gain insight into why such “pictures” have been so lastingly hurtful. You’ll also find a study/discussion guide to help you go deeper into the themes of this book on your own or in a small group.
My prayer today, as it was years ago when Gary and I would pray together, is that this book will prove timeless for you as you learn to handle well one of God’s greatest communication tools. May the Lord cause your words and word pictures to explode with help and hope for all those you seek to love like Jesus, helping you grow closer to them than ever before, starting today.