A Time I Paid: A Lesson in Love
How I Keep My Heart Open
Well, well, here we are at another Valentine’s Day. I’m not usually one to get all mushy about the holiday. But I do usually take note when something comes to mind that seems to be at the right time to share. That’s always fun!
The piece I wanted to share today is actually something I wrote back in December right after my friend, Glenda, passed. I wrote about that here. I wasn’t feeling upset at the time, but I think I must have been in that heart space when I wrote this. Writing always helps to process things that maybe we don’t even realize we need processing. I’m thankful for showing up to this writing session when I did. And now I’m thankful to pass it on…
When the writing group moderator gave us the prompt: “A time I paid”, there’s wasn’t anything in particular that came to mind. So, I asked Jesus what I should write…There was indeed a message of love that evolved…
Here’s the piece…
Oh Jesus, what would You have me write about? You are always known as the One who “paid the price for our sins.” Paying the price for our sins? What does that mean anyway? Maybe— it’s the price of those who haven’t felt love, didn’t know love, didn’t show love, didn’t receive love. That’s what I think this “sin business” is about. It’s not really about what you did or didn't do.
It’s about being loved, feeling loved, giving love. Oh how I wish people understood this, knew this, were aware of this. The price we pay when we don’t love, when we don’t allow our hearts to just feel what it needs to feel. Even the pain. Maybe most important the pain, because the pain lets us know we had the capacity to be hurt, to be vulnerable. It’s an indication, a reflection of that connection we wanted, we strived for, we hoped about, we allowed.
And isn’t that the kind of openness that we truly all desire most. Like the wide, wide, wide open sunflower- allowing in ALL those rays of sunshine. Maybe the birds come peck at the seeds or the rain comes and wilts its petals. But oh how that breadth and span of petals spreads open SO wide.
That’s what I want. It’s the kind of joy, a love that comes with a price of the potential to be hurt. It’s the kind of pain I want to allow. The pain that causes wells in my chest and heart to spill open and tears and tears to water the very hurt that I wished would go away.
But when I allow that hurt to take its path through my shaking, grieving body, it creates paths for more love to come splashing through like a new stream after a rainfall. This is what we all need. A love to feel that it is okay to pay the price- which really is just price-less, because its value, its fullness and expansiveness I feel in my body and being is truly unmeasurable.
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Won’t you join me? And especially when things seem hard and full of lots of opportunities to close ourselves off, let’s see if we can just be curious about continuing to let love in. Because that indeed is what we need to keep going…Sending love to all my readers, today and everyday…
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