April 2 Devotion

I Love You This Much

 

            I'm going to make a confession; I like country music.  Don't get me wrong; I'm still thrilled by Paul McCartney's Yesterday, and Handel's Messiah still sends chills up my spine, but I'm drawn to the lyrics of country music like a moth to flame. 

            It wasn't until recently that I would have admitted to such a thing. We West Virginians are constantly fighting against the stereotype of bad teeth and worse grammar; therefore, many of us don't want it to be known that we listen to such an unsophisticated genre.  But now that I have passed over into what my friends and I call "the dark side" (fifty and beyond), I find that I care less about appearance and more about substance.  I just don't have time for pretense anymore.

            One of my favorite videos features I Love You This Much, a song written and sung by Jimmy Wayne.  It tells the story of a little boy who is neglected by his father but continues to love him anyway.  At the end of each stanza, the video shows the child, pleading with arms outstretched:

 

I love you this much

And I'm waiting on you

To make up your mind

Do you love me, too?

 

How ever long it takes

I’m never giving up -

No matter what

I love you this much.

 

            At the end of the video, the boy, now grown into a man, attends his father's funeral.  We gather from the lyrics that the father never changes, nor does the boy's love.  As the grief-stricken man grapples with his feelings, his eyes fall upon the crucifix above the altar.  He asks forgiveness, for it is then that he realizes what Jesus, nailed to the cross with arms outstretched, had always been saying to him:

 

                                    I love you this much

                                    And I'm waiting on you

                                    To make up your mind

                                    Do you love me, too?

 

                                    However long it takes

                                    I’m never giving up -

                                    No matter what

                                    I love you this much.

 

We Christians have a tendency to think of Lent as a time of sadness, but we have it all wrong.  While it is sad that God had to go to such extremes to assure us that we are loved -- even when we're unlovable, what could be better than total forgiveness and eternal life?   All we have to do is ask.

            It shouldn't take a country music song to remind us that Jesus loves us this much; He gave up His life.  How much can we sacrifice?  How much can we love?  We need to make up our minds -- He's waiting on us. Amen.                       

 

Becky Warren

 

http://jmlent.blogspot.com