Thankful

     A friend of mine, Marjie Aldom Smith, took this compelling photograph. I can't stop looking at it, and more importantly, I can't stop thinking about it.
     The Dad and I have been running a hospital around here. A particularly nasty stomach virus has been making the rounds. We even had to take The Daughter to the emergency room one night at 3am for IV fluids while her husband was out of town on a business trip. After I drove her and the Little One back home yesterday, I ran over to the Eldest Son's home, loaded him up on groceries (he has the virus, as well), cleaned his kitchen, fixed him some rice, and then headed to the pharmacy back on my side of town because Son Number Three was coming in from out of town earlier than expected because....you guessed it, he, too, has come down with the virus. Rather than returning to his apartment, he is at our house for a little R&R. I am weary to the bone, but thankfully sleeping great when I manage to fall into a bed somewhere.
     I have been thinking about the meaning of sacrifice because that's what the picture above is all about. Sacrifice. There isn't a mother alive who doesn't understand putting the needs of her children above her own needs, and being a mother is a job from which we never retire. But who am I kidding. That is sacrifice with a little "s." While the picture above is Sacrifice. I am so thankful that words like selfishness or retirement or self-serving are simply not in God's lexicon. And to boot, He never sleeps, never slumbers. Never forsakes or abandons those He loves. Never turns a blind eye or a deaf ear. All of which I wanted to do the past few days.
    But the picture. The picture. It is in camping out in my head, and it brings me up short. The level of sacrifice it represents, while so very faithful to reveal my selfishness, my sin, and my inability in the end to do nothing but serve my own ends, also speaks volumes to me of the incomprehensible Love that compelled the One to take it up. Despite our unworthiness, Love for you and for me. So today I am especially thankful for the Sacrifice and for the Grace and the Mercy that accompany this Cross. Each and all were once and for all poured out for you and for me.