Sacrifice is Love

by Cheryl Hollar
(Franklinton, NC USA)

With Easter weighing heavily on my mind, and the fact that Jesus made the greatest sacrifice of all when He died for our sins and rose again, I wanted to write something this month about what it means to “sacrifice.”

In my quest for a subject, I thought about the many ways people sacrifice for each other - in time, money, and other ways. During this period of thought, I watched an episode of “Murder, She Wrote” – does anyone else watch that show? – about a woman who worked three years so that her husband could go to medical school. That’s sacrifice. I was also reminded of my twin sister quitting her job a few years back so that she could move with me to New York so I wouldn’t be alone. That’s sacrifice. Then I thought of my dear mother who, many times I’m sure, gave up the notion of buying something for herself so that my twin sister and I could have the best Christmas possible. I am also sure most mothers do the same. And that’s sacrifice.

I also thought about my heroes. One of my missionary heroes is Amy Carmichael, who spent her entire life in service to others in India. Her books still amaze me – and she wrote several of them after she was bedridden for the last twenty years of her life! She is once quoted as saying, “One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.” That is so true.

Fanny Crosby was another missionary hero of mine that came to mind. She was blind but didn’t stop to think about her own needs. After leaving the New York Institution for the Blind when she was 50, she eventually wrote more than 9,000 hymns – 9,000 – and still found time to dedicate her life in service to the poor and needy. Though not quite the same thing, Billy Graham made many sacrifices when he preached God’s Word all over the world instead of staying home, leaving his wife to do most of the rearing of their children.

And, this past Wednesday night at Bible Study at my church, a visiting pastor spoke on Jesus, caring more about the needs of others than of His own needs, even as He hung on the Cross.

I finally came upon one lingering story in my thoughts that I want to share with you. I’m sure many of you already know it. I read it some years ago in an Arthur Maxwell BEDTIME STORIES book. I think it was entitled, “Mother’s Hands.”

The story goes that whenever this little girl – I’ll call her Peggy – and her mother went out in public, her mother always wore gloves. Many people, I am certain, wondered about the mental well-being of this woman who constantly had her hands covered, even on the hottest summer days.

Peggy was glad, though – because, you see, her mother had ugly scars on her hands. And Peggy was ashamed of them. In fact, she told her mother on many occasions – when she’d come to the school or whatever to see Peggy in a play or to speak with her teachers – “please make sure you wear your gloves to cover your ugly hands.” Peggy made no secret of how she felt about those hands.

One day, as her mother was washing dishes and Peggy was drying them, Peggy’s curiosity got the better of her. She had never actually asked her mother what happened to her hands, to make them so ugly. So, she asked.

Her mother told her the simple story of how, when Peggy was just a baby, she went next door to visit a neighbor – just for a moment. While there, the fire alarm of the town sounded, and she heard the approaching sound of sirens, of firetrucks. She didn’t really think anything about it until the sounds became near deafening. She peered out the window in shock! Her own house was on fire – with her baby inside! Her legs felt like rubber as she ran as hard as she could to her house, which was already completely engulfed in flames.

A fireman grabbed her as she ran past, but she was able to wriggle free from his grasp. Running without fear into her burning house, she headed straight for her baby’s crib. Her baby was crying, but alive and unscathed. She reached quickly in, took the child, and, cradling her gently, ran back toward the front door. But she was overcome with the smoke and fell to her knees.

As she struggled to breathe, she felt the arm of a fireman, who had made his way into the house with another fireman and a water hose. He helped her to her feet and led her toward the door as his partner sprayed water in their path. It wasn’t until after she got outside, when she and her baby were safe, that she realized her own hands were hurting and badly burned.

There was a moment of silence as Peggy tried to grasp in her heart what her mother had just told her. It didn’t take her long to realize that she was that baby. It also didn’t take her long to realize how much she must have hurt her mother over the years with harsh words, brash even, about those hands. Her mother had never said a word.

Impulsively, Peggy reached out for her mother’s hands, held them tenderly to her face, and said, “Oh, Mama, please don’t ever hide your hands again. They are the most beautiful hands in the world!”

I don’t know if this story is true or not, but it could be. I know I’ve never forgotten it since I read it years ago. And it shows me that we never truly know what people go through and what they sacrifice for others. And sacrifice is truly an act of love.