What does it mean to sacrifice? The personal sacrifices are the hardest. For a tribe, for a people, for a nation. For someone who may never know your name. For someone who may never remember you. To sacrifice. To give your health, your youth, your energy, your soul. To give your children. To give them back to the hard red earth. For grass to grow over them. To water the grass with your tears. But for anyone else it’s just a dry piece of land. Maybe it’s under a mango tree. Maybe it’s in the front yard of a house you spent so many years living and loving in. And your screams rise up to the hot pale unblinking sky and bounce back down your throat and threaten to crush you.
And nobody knows but you what it took to take that next breath, that next step. And nobody knows but you what it took to stay. What it took to come back. What it took to love another child. No one knows but the earth and the sky and the grass and your God. And no one knows that some days you might not believe anymore.
These are the heroes. These are the people that give to strangers their last breath, their last chance, their last piece of soul. These are the people that get up every day and give more. These are the people no one will ever really understand. These are the people that seem hardened. The people that gave their tenderness to a harsh and burning landscape. These are the people who sacrifice the unthinkable, that which no one can ever fully appreciate. These are the people that gave their own blood to the rivers of a parched country. To a people who will continue to die. These are the people who fight for life anyway. These are the people that still will believe in impossible things. These are the people that take the greatest of risks without the promise of earthly reward. These are the people whose children speak in the wind. These are the people that change the world.
How far would you go for someone you didn’t know? How far would you go for someone that is statistically going to die anyway? How long would you breath for a child? 3 hours? 4? How many children would you give to a country? How many children have you saved in that country? Sacrifice. Most people have no comprehension of what that really means. Most people do not care to ever know. It is only God that can know the true depths of what you have given. And it is only God who will sustain you. And it is only God who can really understand what it means to sacrifice a son so that others might live.
----- the 6 month old son of James and Sarah Appel passed away this morning from Malaria. Please give them your prayers.
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