Life can wear us down, and we question if we are worthy of love. But we need to look to a deeper story going on than feelings of the present.

It was gone. Something had gone from them. And they felt it.

No longer caring about their appearance, their diet, their health. Something deep in their existence had whispered away, or at least that’s how it felt to them.

‘Did they have worth?’ they wondered. And especially were they worthy of love and self-care?

They couldn’t see anything of love or worth in themselves. Others seemed to show scant regard for them too.

They wondered if they died today would anyone come to the funeral. Would anyone say anything?

What worth would be attributed to them?

Worth is 

Worth is such a value-based measurement. So how can you measure one’s worth?

Some measure it by dollars, some by fame. Then there are the medals of achievement, contribution to society, raising a family.

Do younger people have more worth than older people?

Do certain lives #matter or have more worth than others?

How do you measure worth? How do you measure your own worth?

And what about God? How does God measure one’s worth?

But there is Amando

I remember a story from Larry Crabb in his book Becoming a True Spiritual Community.

There once was a small eight-year-old boy called Amando. Small because he had been abandoned by his mother and was dying from the lack of food. Amando wasn’t able to walk, talk or eat by himself. In addition, he had a severe mental disability.

In an orphanage, he found people who loved him and held him, and as they did, he gradually began to eat again and develop.

But when carers picked him up, his whole body would ‘quiver with joy and excitement and say, “I love you.”

Amando was a lover. 

What was his worth?

In our worldy measurement of success, fame, and value, perhaps he had no value.

But to those that held him and knew him, there was a worth that kind of celebrated true love. It was like the Christ shining through his eyes.

Amando’s shake the familiar world of worth that is based on human-based values.

Worthy of love

If I was to ask you and many others if you are worthy of love, then I am sure that I would get many well thought out logic-based answers.

Many of my Christian friends would cite scriptures and give theological answers. Books would be given to read.

Yet, good as all this is, it can leave me cold.

No one has gone to the heart, which can be like a dry, empty well.

The heart can only be entered through deep listening, not logic and law.

Perhaps you’ve been cast out of the group because of a spot on the skin – leper.

Maybe stones are being picked up to throw at you until you die.

And you pick times to come out into town so that you can avoid meeting those nasty tongued neighbors. You go to draw water when no one else is around, but you meet a man.

Now he [Jesus] had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) John 4:6-9

Jesus cut through the conventions of worthiness. Instead, Jesus would associate, connect with, pour out love to anyone thirsty.

He himself was thirsty.

It’s a pretty simple thing to give someone a drink of water isn’t it. To lower a jug into a well and draw some droplets.

I’m not sure she ever got to do this because, well, a conversation began. Perhaps the words exchanged swept them both into a moment of refreshing delight that expressed the worthiness of love.

She saw in Jesus an ‘Amando’ delight flowing towards her.

Your worth

How do you measure your worth, your worthiness to receive?