sacrifice - [sak-ruh-fahys]
verb (used with object) :
to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.
This word, this three syllable word, has been on my mind this week. A LOT. It has so many different definitions (12 to be exact if you look it up on dictionary.com), but this one is the definition that has weighed heavy on me this week.
Maybe it's because it's Memorial Day weekend and I think of all the lives sacrificed so that I may have freedom.
Maybe it's because I've been working really hard, so that my kids can go to college without owing their first-born child to the college when they graduate.
Maybe it's because I see how many things my own parents gave up for me so that I had their time and attention when I needed it most.
Maybe it's because I finally see that there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done that I want done, so I have to pick and chose.
And maybe it's because this week I've submerged myself into Christian music and I'm reminded of the greatest sacrifice.
Here's a thought:
You know how you're all excited about buying a new car and you know the kind you want and the color and you just can't wait because NO ONE has one yet? Then one day you start driving and looking at cars on the road and just like that, you see one....no, two.....no, THREE cars exactly like you had picked out?!?!? Where did they all come from?!?!? They weren't there before! Maybe you didn't notice them until you knew that's what you were going to get and then, BOOM! they are everywhere because that's where your focus is.
That's how God works with me. Funny, huh?! He puts a thought in my head, and then suddenly everything in my path works around that thought. I might be just for a day, or it might be for a week, but that's always how it goes. This time, it was a week and it was in subtle ways.
Like seeing a Facebook post my friend Jeni put on her page about losing her husband in the Middle East and knowing she was going to celebrate this weekend like he would want her to.
She knows sacrifice.
Or listening to my children make choices about friends and values.
They know sacrifice.
Or just today, when spending time on the lake I dropped a very important piece of our bimini top into the blue depths of Miller's Bay and without thinking, jumped in after it, losing my sunglasses, the piece itself, and my watch (which had tremendous sentimental value).
I felt sacrifice today.
Phillipians 3: 7-14
verb (used with object) :
to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.
This word, this three syllable word, has been on my mind this week. A LOT. It has so many different definitions (12 to be exact if you look it up on dictionary.com), but this one is the definition that has weighed heavy on me this week.
Maybe it's because it's Memorial Day weekend and I think of all the lives sacrificed so that I may have freedom.
Maybe it's because I've been working really hard, so that my kids can go to college without owing their first-born child to the college when they graduate.
Maybe it's because I see how many things my own parents gave up for me so that I had their time and attention when I needed it most.
Maybe it's because I finally see that there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done that I want done, so I have to pick and chose.
And maybe it's because this week I've submerged myself into Christian music and I'm reminded of the greatest sacrifice.
Here's a thought:
You know how you're all excited about buying a new car and you know the kind you want and the color and you just can't wait because NO ONE has one yet? Then one day you start driving and looking at cars on the road and just like that, you see one....no, two.....no, THREE cars exactly like you had picked out?!?!? Where did they all come from?!?!? They weren't there before! Maybe you didn't notice them until you knew that's what you were going to get and then, BOOM! they are everywhere because that's where your focus is.
That's how God works with me. Funny, huh?! He puts a thought in my head, and then suddenly everything in my path works around that thought. I might be just for a day, or it might be for a week, but that's always how it goes. This time, it was a week and it was in subtle ways.
Like seeing a Facebook post my friend Jeni put on her page about losing her husband in the Middle East and knowing she was going to celebrate this weekend like he would want her to.
She knows sacrifice.
Or listening to my children make choices about friends and values.
They know sacrifice.
Or just today, when spending time on the lake I dropped a very important piece of our bimini top into the blue depths of Miller's Bay and without thinking, jumped in after it, losing my sunglasses, the piece itself, and my watch (which had tremendous sentimental value).
I felt sacrifice today.
Phillipians 3: 7-14
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Paul SAW sacrifice... and left us these words.
Yes, it's painful to lose loved ones to a greater cause....
Yes, it's hard to watch our children have to make tough choices...
Yes, it's frustrating to know our limits and decide what gets our focus....
Yes, it's heart-wrenching to realize something you treasured is now gone...
But isn't it amazing, that, in the "grand scheme of things" (as I like to say), all those losses lead us toward the ultimate goal?
Maybe I need to focus on losing more things.....
