Today I walked narrow alley-ways praying for women who sell their bodies for a living in India. They were marketing something that looks like love, but really isn’t love at all.
So what does this love look like and why does it hurt? Well I think it is when love costs you something that makes it real. Like Jesus on the cross or forgiveness.
Today love smelled like burning trash, it tasted like curry, it was hot and muggy.
Today love felt like losing the feeling in my arms on a hard tile floor as two children raised in the red light district fell asleep in my arms. It felt like an aching back from throwing, spinning and dancing with children who rarely receive love from their mother because she is always working by giving “love” to other men. It felt like an upset stomach from eating food I didn’t care for so that the woman who was formerly trafficked could feel gratification in her service. It felt like having a child upset at you because you were the only one who cared enough to discipline her. Today love felt like having my hair ripped out of my scalp by a two year old who was trying to make it beautiful. Today felt like stepping in pee from the little boy who didn’t make it to the bathroom.
Love today was painful and it cost me something, but it was also the truest form of love I have ever given.
And in the same way today my numb arms kind of felt like angel wings, my aching back made me stand a little straighter, my upset stomach felt kind of like butterflies, and my raw scalp almost felt like a crown. Because the love that I was giving, was returned, ten-fold by a good God.
And today, as I found myself lying on a hard tile floor with two children cutting off the circulation to my arms, God asked me to be still, to soak it in, because I was on Holy Ground. I found myself painfully and unexpectedly in a place where heaven meets earth and I got lost in the beauty of it.
I guess what I am saying is what is love costing you? Is it costing your time or your comfort… because if it’s not, is it really love?
Everyone can give love when it is easy, when they feel like it… people can even pay for “love” that isn’t love at all.
I propose that true love always costs something, whether it’s the feeling in your arms or your pride, true love always has a price. True love loves when it doesn’t feel like it, it loves in spite of flaws, it overflows with grace and forgives.
True love has a real cost, it causes us to sacrifice things we want, do things we wouldn’t normally and sometimes it breaks our heart. But just like the pearl in the field, it is worth everything you have.