The Sacrifice of Opposite Day Things

“Mama, you’re the best cook,” my little guy says, sitting at the counter.

As he sees the smile spread across my face as I pull dinner out of the oven, his eyebrows rise and a saucy smile releases the words, “Opposite Day.”

I think as little boys move into the moody blues of elevenses, Opposite Day Words allow them to say, “I love you. You’re awesome” – when the little guy within who adores his mama battles with the emerging man who so doesn’t want to.

Opposite Day, when slow means fast, when pink means blue, huggable means squirmmy, when sacrifice means gain.

The universe has order – God made it so – how our blood flows, how my grandmother’s coffee cake bakes, how cells divide, how coffee brews – it is all orderly process. Yet, what He wants from us is sometimes like an Opposite Day Paradigm.

To give ourselves up – our dreams, our hearts, our time, our identity, our dignity – to beggar ourselves until we’re empty with nothing left to give – that is the great deception.

In God’s Opposite Day Paradigm

when we give up ourselves in marriage, we become whole

when we give up ourselves in the mothering, we become more

when we give our gifts and talents, they come back some how pressed down, shaken together and running over

It boggled my me-ness when I would read about becoming more like Him. Why would He create me if He just wanted more of Him? Until I realized in this “Opposite Day Paradigm” – when there was more of Him in me, I became who He designed me to be – I became the authentic me. I cannot be that without Him.

When I hold on to myself, I become less. Yet, when I sacrifice my dreams, my time, my pride to Him, I don’t become less.

This Opposite Day Paradigm take Sacrifice and turns it into gain.

Sacrifice reminds me of Mary weeping at the foot of the cross. Sacrifice reminds me of nail piercing pain. Wailing? Sackcloth? Weeping until there’s only hoarseness with each breath?

Yet that is not sacrifice.

The grace of sacrifice comes through choice.

Jesus chose to sacrifice for us. Lived sacrifice – from his birth in the manager, to every daily sacrifice that led Him to the cross.

Sacrifice never acts impoverished. Sacrifice never acts victimized. Sacrifice never resents.

Sacrifice overcomes. Sacrifice loved enough that death could not be contained in a tomb, in burial wrappings.

To sacrifice is to gain – an Opposite Day kind of thing.

 

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