No matter how you get around it, love is going to cost you something. The more you love something, the more you are willing to spend on it too (a higher price). I'm not talking about dollars and cents. I'm taking about sacrifices and emotional costs.
In friendships, love costs. It could be loaning your favorite CD or favorite pair of jeans and not ever seeing them again. Yet you continue to "loan" your belongings because you love them. You know that stuff can be replaced. You know that it brings them a lot of joy. Friendships can come with a high cost as you sacrifice your time and plans. You cannot invest in the relationship without sacrifice and time. The best friendships may have you doing things that maybe you didn't feel like doing it... but you did it anyway. Friendships can come in a high cost with a friend that betrays or hurts your family. Or even a betrayal to yourself.
Family love comes at a high cost too. For me, it's about listening to and respecting my husband. I'm so independent that it is hard for me to be under his thumb. I want to do what I want to do. But loving him means that I seek his opinion and respect it. Sometimes my pride, my wishes, my dreams get hurt. Loving my children comes at a cost. I know that they could leave me. Someday, they will.... either returning to their biological mother or growing up and moving out. I will have to trust that I raised them well to have wings and fly in life. It comes at a cost that no matter what I want for them... it won't matter unless they want it.
I see how love costs. I see it in my family and I see it with my friends. But I dare say that the things worth the most are going to cost us the most.
When I think about love and what it costs... I cannot help but think of Jesus. A babe born into this world. To suffer and feel the things we do. His only purpose in coming was to die. To pay the price of our sins and our separation. The cost of love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
~John 3:16
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