What is Love Worth, to You?

He finds me here, at 3:00 a.m. with this question of love, this aching that says, “What is a soul worth?”

And the violent tornadoes that have stirred themselves recently, were ferocious and vicious and I question what love is worth…

How much does it cost to sacrifice, and give our lives away.

And from the pages of Facebook, the pictures on Pinterest, it’s easy to put life into some square, our hearts into letters.

In a world where a screen lies between you and others, we can forget Love is more than personas and images.

And, “What’s love worth?”

This question reels through my mind.

Is it worth our thoughts, our time, the current that shouts and pulls and rages just to feel something?

And if words were just love, wouldn’t our buckets be filled endlessly?

Or is love a question, needing answering? A dance that needs engaged in, an embrace that says your staying…and never letting go?

The earth has been scattered with snow lately. While fluffy flakes promising us hope…giving us light from the moon up above.

White stretches, and blankets, and lightens the earth in the darkness of winter…

And yet, we drive down our hill, and there is nothing but rain scattered, puddles, green and brown, plundering the earth…

And I question what love is worth.

Hollywood promises us romance, it lures with smiles and chocolates, and happy endings that makes hearts swell, taunting us to be fearlessly abandoned, without restraint or reservations…

But reality is, sometimes the one your trying to love steals the chocolates, then lies, and twists, and squirms away from affection and all efforts to show them what love means…

They hate the bitter thought of being broken and twisted inside, even one more time…

And to children in the system, love is a death sentence. Love means loss and brokenness, hurt, abuse, and leaving, over and over again…

love means distance, and echoes of pain wrenching through the core of their being. Questions and lies, and more pain…

When the reality is, no one but Jesus will actually heal or save you.

And I tell him, “The world will leave and forsake you (turn their back on you)….But God never will.”

And how do you communicate this Savior who is the Guiding Light, the only One whose Word will never fail you?

How do you show a little boy what it means to heal and trust Love, when the scars are visible and the hopeless taunts you with dark eyes, trying to suck you into the lies…

That no one is worth trusting, and love seems like a facade that will only betray us?

And yet, He lives.

In the wee hours of night, He awakens and speaks. He pulls and tugs, and whispers soft The Hope that says, “I am the first, the last, the beginning and he end…

I love the lost, I died NOT for your safe life behind some screen, but so that you might love, love those most needing it.”

“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire” …

I read from Ann Dunagan, while the sky is still black, the light of morning has yet, to made it’s way over the horizon.

And I see Love is action. It’s not stagnant, but races like a river going somewhere.

Love isn’t some picture or

position, but a quiet embrace, a reaching, the soul

connection, bound by a thing call trust.

It reaches when pushed, looks deep when eyes dart. It keeps reaching even when the doors slam and feet run in the farthest direction from you.

And I see Him on a cross. Lying there, asking, questioning what the cost of this man who gave His life is worth.

Did He die for our comfort? Did He give His life so that I might design a life perfectly orchestrated to my needs and interests?

Or did He lay there looking at me, sacrifice and shed blood so that the world might know the Redemption that comes through Him?

And didn’t He die so that His Spirit might live; fully, completely, moving radically with power, purpose, and healing?

I sit here tonight, thinking about what Love costs. And oh how sometimes, I want to package it and put in upon some shelf…

How it would be easier to design love to look like I want, manufacture it like Hallmark, or at least shrink it to be small enough to fit inside my hands…

But love, isn’t compact-able, comfortable, or containable. It isn’t small enough to deliberately try to refrain from it, so that we might dictate or control it.

Love is radical and daring, bold and tenacious, relentless and all consuming.

Love pursues us when nothing and no one else will. It moves like a raging river, and changes our entire being.

Love doesn’t leave us broken, but seeks and strives, and will sacrifice anything for our well-being.

“You can measure the worth of something by the amount of life you exchange for it.” I read on another friends post.

Yet, how much will we exchange for Love? Will we pinch pieces of it, give sparingly, offer safe portions in order to be the manager and careful dispenser of it?

Or will we Love wholeheartedly, with everything in us?

Will we give until it hurts? Trust that there is a man who died on a cross, so that we might know the fullness of what Love costs…

“No one has stronger love [or stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.” John 15:3

And will we lay our lives down for Love?

Will we show the world that safe Christianity is not existent? Will we let love be everything it was meant to be, causing us to risk, leaving the world much different that when we first entered it?

Will we open our hands to what God wants to give us as we give our lives away?

Love washes us like a river, covers us like the white that lays beautifully all around us. Love has no, “can’t”. Love stops at nothing…

Love gives when it hurts, and offers all for the sake of His full redemption.

And I want to know, Love that costs. Love that’s a verb, not a noun. Love that does more than sits behind some screen, and boasts at what it’s got.

I find Him here, at 3:00 a.m. And He whispers, “What’s a soul worth?”

And I am challenged…To keep giving…giving my life away….

All for the sake of Love.

Now, I must ask…“What is Love worth”…to you?