And do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. (Heb. 13:16)
In the middle of the night, thousands of miles from home and two weeks into my freshman year of university, I received a phone call that changed everything. My grandma had passed away. The news itself was not a complete surprise. She had been sick for a while, and I knew that a time would come when the cancer was going to take over her body. What struck me that morning was the timing. I had made a decision to sacrifice going to a school closer to home because I knew God was calling me to this specific university. What I didn’t expect to sacrifice was attending my grandma’s funeral. She was my best friend, my biggest supporter, so I went into that day prepared for what I thought was going to be the darkest week of my life.
While we all must face sacrifices in life that we have no control over, another type of sacrifice exists: an intentional one. After news that my grandma had passed away spread around our tiny campus like a wildfire, friends, professors, and people I barely knew sacrificed their time to make sure I was OK.
I can’t help but imagine these verses pointing to a community like that. People who knew the importance of sacrificing something of themselves to be present for someone else. That kind of sacrifice might just change someone’s life.
Think of a sacrifice you can make to benefit someone else.
Callie Kemmerer is an alumnus of Kingswood University and currently serving at Stroudsburg Wesleyan Church in Pennsylvania. She leads the hospitality ministry and loves to see Jesus work through that ministry.
© 2019 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
