Joy

I've been thinking recently of the idea that Christians are called to self-sacrificial love, to carry our cross, etc. And I look at my life and wonder--do I do this? On some level, I'm sure the answer is no. But on another level, yes. I just don't think of it as self-sacrifice.

When William cries in the night, or when I miss a day of classes because Penny needs surgery, or when I slowed down for a few years so she could get extensive therapy, or when my dad is in the hospital and we go visit him... All of those things are, from a certain vantage point, self-sacrificial. I put aside my wants (maybe my needs) for the needs and wants of another. And yet I don't experience it as self-sacrificial. I experience it as joy.