New weblog tour question!
Sacrifices
What has been the most significant sacrifice you have made in your life, to date? Why did you choose to make that sacrifice? Was it worth it? Do you miss whatever it was that you sacrificed? And would you do it again if you had to?
The person who offered the question specified that we are not to answer with jokes about goats. 🙂
But let’s think about this for a minute: if you happen to belong to an agrarian culture where you can’t just pop over to Shop And Save and plunk down a denarius to buy dinner, a goat would have been a huge sacrifice to just give to God. Goats gave milk. Goats made little goats. Goats gave meat. Ivy, help me out here: would goat hair have been combed off and turned into yarn? After all, you only sacrifice good things for God. Important things.
So let’s start with a definition of “sacrifice,” and we’ll say that’s Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
When I look at it that way, then sure, I’ve made sacrifices, but they’re not the kind of thing I notice as I move along. Some people thought it an unbelievable sacrifice that I carried Emily to term after she was diagnosed with a fatal birth defect. After all, I was “giving up” four and a half months of my life. But the time I could have spent not-pregnant (and delaying a future pregnancy by being pregnant) was not a sacrifice when I considered it time well spent with her, loving her and being her mother.
I consider things to be sacrifices only if I’m not aware of any good to come from them.
And yes, I’ve done things like that too, but after initially posting about them, I’ve decided to edit the rest of my post to remove that particular story. Sorry. It just felt too private to put that out here.
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Other stops on the tour are:
http://meganeileen2005.typepad.com/ twinkletoes
http://thatsloanegirl.blogspot.com/ CathyF
http://wryexchange.com/ Wry Exchange
http://www.absentmindedhousewife.com/ beckygoesape
http://verycontrary.wordpress.com/ Contrary
http://amandagorby.blogspot.com/ amanda_tg
http://whatsmylife.blogspot.com/ grinningcomb
http://nolechica.livejournal.com nolechica
http://addierambles.blogspot.com andra
http://la-eme.livejournal.com MsMoonbunny
http://mischief0617.wordpress.com/ CrowGirl
http://www.housewife2000.blogspot.com housewife2k
http://fatgirlartist.blogspot.com/ Amy Rose
http://lulupop.wordpress.com Lulupop
http://chrisnada.livejournal.com/ Cnada
http://robandkrista.blogspot.com/ CelticGemini
http://anime-coroner.livejournal.com/. AllyKat
http://www.drunkenhousewife.com/ The Drunken Housewife
http://ladyj3000.blogspot.com/ LadyJ3000
http://heartstart.livejournal.com Heartstar1
http://hijinksshenanigans.blogspot.com/ Hijinks’s Shenanigans
http://deltatangosgbs.blogspot.com/ afbluebelle
http://sarahesperanza.wordpress.com/ SquishyMooMoo
http://www.dutifuldanielle.blogspot.com/ dpbenson
http://sinkingtent.blogspot.com/ ladiedeathe
http://divine-misse.livejournal.com Shotochick (only readable by those that have a livejournal account)
http://mrsbart.blogspot.com/ MrsBart
http://rainhaville.blogspot.com RainhaDoTexudo
http://kimberlysstories.wordpress.com Kherbert05
http://sisterlilbunnythecorpseflinger.wordpress.com/ Lil Bunny
Goat hair provides two luxury fibers. The angora goat gives us mohair. The cashmere goat gives us cashmere. These are strong, water-resistant, rot-proof fibers, both of which stay warm even when 50% soaked through. Cashmere is one of the softest fibers around. The industrious spinner can spin cashmere fine and keep a child warmly dressed from just one goat. To give you an idea how warm, this craft was perfected in Russia.
Sacrifice is becoming a lost art in this country. It’s become a society of “I’ve got to do what’s best for me”. Imagine if Christ had thought that way.
Instant gratification can never satisfy as deeply as true sacrifice.
And I think you did sacrifice for Emily – your love just made the choice easy for you. I think that’s how it was for God, too. After Adam and Eve disobeyed, He became one of us and sacrificed Himself to reconcile with us. I don’t think He pondered that other gods wouldn’t do that (hehe) or considered the cost too great.
It’s a very humbling thought that you considered Emily worth it as He considered us worth sacrificing Jesus.
But with Emily, I was receiving more than I was giving. When you compare four and a half months (how long I carried her after her diagnosis) versus my likely lifespan (80 years) then you see how little I was really able to give her. It’s not sacrificial if the consequences are all good.
Whereas God doesn’t benefit from having us in Heaven with Him. It wouldn’t have harmed God in the slightest to have wiped out Creation and started over again with smarter, better, more obedient models of creatures.
I totally agree, btw: Americans aren’t good at sacrifice. We don’t even like to pay for the good things we have, let alone sacrifice some of those good things but pay anyhow.