Giving better.

Sacrificial giving requires just that, sacrifice. The kind of giving that hurts. The kind that helps deepen and mold our character. If I only give off the top, what is convenient and easy, how much shaping would it do? How does that strengthen me and help me grow? It's when I have to dig deep, when I have to sacrifice something...something that I want for myself, time, energy, resources or activities...that is when I am changed.

I often think of this in terms of the big picture. With things like money given to church or charity, volunteering time, adopting children, doing big favors etc. But recently I've become convinced that I could become much better at sacrificial giving every day, within the walls of my own home. With my children and my husband. I often feel annoyed by the abundant interruptions to whatever I am trying to accomplish, (or not accomplish) in any given moment. The life of a stay at home mom is a life full of necessary giving. They can not change their own diapers, they will not plan and prepare their own healthy meals, they must be helped, aided, tended to in the small and large ways throughout the day, and sometimes the night too. I have no choice to respond to these needs. I must care for them. What I can choose is my attitude of heart.

I can either look at all the need around me and I can let my service lend toward transforming me into the person I long to be, one that glorifies my heavenly Father, one that remembers the enormous sacrifice that was made on my behalf, or I can give and feel put out and just wish I had more time for me. Either way, I am giving. Either way, the work be accomplished. To an outsider it all might look the same, only I will know my thoughts as I go through my day. Only I will know if I was able to be inconvenienced physically without being mentally disturbed. Only I will know if in those moments, when I am alone with my family and in my sweat pants laboring away, if I did it with an attitude of loving service, giving of myself even when it hurt and it was hard and I wished I could do something else or if I just did it and learned nothing about sacrificing in the "small" ways...ways that no one but my Lord and my closest loved ones will ever see.