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By Daishaun Hardnett
One of my favorite movies in the entire world is a 2003 comedy-romance film by the title of "Love Don't Cost A Thing." Even though I've watched this movie too many times to count, I always learn something new when watching it. What shocks me most is the title of the movie—it totally contradicts what the movie portrays. The entire movie portrays that love (actually) does cost something! I personally believe that love does cost a thing; but, at the same time, I believe that it doesn't cost a thing. Confusing, right? I'll explain what I mean in a second, but in the meantime: I have a question for you.
Do you believe that love doesn't cost a thing?
…Or do you believe that love does cost a thing?
I wish I was able to see a poll of how many of y'all voted "Yes, it does" or "No, it doesn't."
First, let’s think bigger—let’s widen our perspectives a bit and then we can answer the question again later. Yes, the movie is referring to love as in the romantic type. Since the start of 2020, I've asked random people what comes to mind when they hear the word "love," and most of them responded with words that summed up love as in romance. This is often the type of love my brain instantly thinks of when I hear the word "love." (Hmmm.... I wonder if this has anything to do with me being single, hahaha) I feel so guilty.
But even people who are in a relationship or marriage think this way, too.
I'm not saying that it's bad to think of this type of love, but if that's the only type of love we think about when we hear the word "love," then we need to re-evaluate our ways of thinking. We must understand that love is far more than just the romantic type. There are so many types of love that a human desires outside of the romantic-relationship type of love. A human craves love from his or her friends, wife/husband/partner, children, family, God, and even pets. Obviously... receiving love from these sources would look very different. This is why I believe that a relationship cannot be healthy if a partner relies completely on the other (partner) for all types/forms of love. For example, a wife cannot and should not try fulfilling the love area of a mother, brother, sister, dog, etc. towards her husband. Although we are arguably the most advanced and intelligent beings on earth, we are still limited in our human capabilities. We were created in a way that shows we need love and support from more than one source, more than one person.
By no means am I a love doctor or anything of that nature. I'm just giving the spill from my thoughts, observations, and experiences as a 20 year old male.
And, what about cost?
As much as we use the word "cost," it doesn’t only refer to money/finances. WOAH—that just flipped somebody's world upside down—my apologies. It's the truth though, a lot of things in our lives cost us our time and energy, and not our money (—this thing called "college" costs all three of these). A prime example would be the cost of our lives, it didn’t cost cash. The price of our lives was the life of Jesus Christ. And when Jesus paid the cost so that we may live, the total wasn't in dollar form—it didn't come on a long, wrinkled white receipt with each of our names next to an outrageous price. Jesus paid the total price with His life! Something worth way more than any amount of dollars. Now, that was the ultimate picture of "love!" And that was the ultimate picture of "cost!"
We see that love costs things such as time, energy, care, attention, and so many other things that aren't finances/money. Similar to in my favorite movie, we see that love does cost things other than money. Nick Cannon, in the film, shows that love costs time, energy, and some type of human-related investment. It's true that love does cost a thing(s). But if we're referring to cost as in "money," then it doesn't cost a thing.
Love surpasses any earthly thing that we can think of. I know it doesn't always feel this way for all of us, but it's the truth.
If it wasn't for love—if Jesus didn’t love us—He wouldn't have died for us. If it wasn't for love, some of our parents... nevermind—I think you get it.
Without love, we wouldn't be here.
Spread love, people.
GALATIANS 3:13a -- “Christ bought us with His blood and made us free from the Law.”
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