Is It a Sacrifice or a Choice?

Sacrifice or Choice?

There is a difference. Sometimes we think we are making a ‘sacrifice’, but often we really aren’t. We are just choosing how to live our lives. I know I’ve felt this way in my own life. Sometimes I choose to over-extend myself; I get too busy with church, writing, and job responsibilities and I slack off on “self-care”. But that’s not really a sacrifice, it’s a choice.

When I stayed home with our children when they were young, that was also a choice. Sometimes it felt like a sacrifice since we couldn’t afford to buy them new toys and bikes etc. We relied heavily on hand-me-downs and second-hand purchases. Their bikes came from garage sales or their older cousins, and you can bet that everything filtered its way down from the eldest to the youngest. By the time certain items got to child number four, they had seen better days. In many ways, growing up this way taught them important lessons about being satisfied and taking care of their things.

At the time, homeschooling might have been perceived as a sacrifice since it extended those stay-at-home years. there were financial repercussions, but more than that, the time commitment on my part was pretty significant. Still, we chose to do this for our kids, and not necessarily for the same reasons that many other Christian families did. Yes, we wanted them to be well-grounded in our values. (The worst way to do this is to put them in a fishbowl of their peers and expect them to become little evangelists. That’s not fair nor is it smart!)  When they were ready, they each went back into the system. More than that, however, I was also very interested in giving them a well-rounded education. I like to teach and I like to create, so much of our school work was designed by me with their needs in mind. I also wanted them to have a strong foundation in the classics, the arts, and history. (We read at least one or more Shakespearean plays together a year – and they loved it.)

When we went into ministry, there were sacrifices, too. I had to take on a bigger role in supporting the family while my husband went back to school. It was tough working while also running an outreach center (part of his internship and training) and still ‘choosing’ to homeschool the kids. Then when we went into ministry full-time, we continued to be on a shoestring budget.

Most of the ‘sacrifices’ I’ve talked about are financial and they really weren’t sacrifices, they were choices. A true sacrifice means you give something up for the betterment of others. Right now when I think of the ‘sacrifice’ of time I give to my writing, I realize it is actually a choice. It’s one I am making freely and without reservation.

Next time someone asks you about a sacrifice you may have made, think long and hard about whether it really is a sacrifice or a choice. Often the two are indistinguishable, but still, it’s worth consideration.