the stopping place of sacrifices
Years ago, I read a quote by David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary:
“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”
When I first read this quote years ago, I was inspired. To experience such a life with God that I could say something similar was an incredible wonder.
I'm grateful he doesn't bury the realities of life – anxiety, sickness, suffering and danger — but expresses that “the compensations were so real and lasting that he came to see that giving up is inevitably receiving, when one is dealing heart to heart with God.” (
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Today, I am still quite inspired, but my curiosity is reaching, and I'm inviting you into it.
Because, the longer I'm a mom, the more I feel the stretching and weight of sacrifices I need to make. Sacrifices, momentary or not, of time, energy, desires.
I don't think I want to say I never make a sacrifice. But I can say I never make a sacrifice in vain. Never without deepening trust or without being changed.
And that is the privilege, I think.
We do make sacrifices. And the privilege in them is that God is an inexhaustible, good, merciful source that can make up every deficit we feel, whether in provision for us or transformation of us.
God has work for us uniquely to do, paths for us and our families to walk, mission and ministry to carry out. We will make sacrifices, but never without hope or faith, and if we are open to it, never without being formed into the likeness of Christ.
And that's the okayness in them.
The point is that we're living life with God. Whatever He gives and whatever He takes away, may we reach the surrendered place of considering everything else worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ. “I have put aside all else, counting it worth less than nothing, in order that I can have Christ (Philippians 3:8).”
PS - I also like these words from Rachel Jankovic,
"Those women who try to find themselves by stripping away the "others" will find that they are a very broken little thing. This will lead them to resent the people who they think made them that way. She may say, "I used to be so energetic, but all these people take, take, take from me and now I have no time to just be me!" And the world gathers around and comforts her and says she needs some time to follow her dreams. But the Christian woman needs to see, "I used to be so boring! Now my character has some depth, some people to love, some hardships to bear. Now I have some material to work with." A Christian woman's view is always forward and never back."
