Authentic Love and Sacrifice
How could love amount to a sense of self-denial and acts of sacrifice?
We often hear people say that when you love someone, you put his or her needs over yours. Loving someone is about having able to sacrifice for him or her, I suppose. However, seldom do we think about what it really takes for one to be able to do this genuinely. Perhaps, we are left wondering why it is not always easy to sacrifice for the ones you love.
Love is simple.
We might be used to the view that love is complicated, for most people believe it is. Well, it may feel complicated, but many of us might just be having wrong views about it. Love is overrated in wrong views and is underrated in ways it ought to be viewed. Love starts with truly loving yourself. You cannot give love to others if you leave yourself empty of it.
You have yourself as the first person to pour in the love that extends to others as it overflows.
The only way to make that love overflow easily is by being simple enough to need less. You cannot give what you think you’d need nor what you feel of lacking.
The simpler you are, the easier for you to feel sufficed.
The simpler you are, the easier for you to give.
The simpler you are, the easier for you to sacrifice.
Love is full of simplicity. In this simplicity, you can find freedom. Love hurts only in ways it should. It hurts in ways it can be expressed and recognized, as well as in ways it is expected to be received. The more you let go of your wrong views about it, the less you’re hurt in ways you shouldn’t be.
Sometimes, it seems so hard to sacrifice, especially when you don’t feel appreciated. Now take a moment to reflect on this, authentic love and sacrifice is about giving without expecting something in return. Having the need to receive something in return can be a sign that you are giving what you want to receive, not what you are genuinely capable of giving. More so, you might be only giving what you’re imposing someone to give back. That is the very reason why you might be feeling that your sacrifices are pointless.
It takes a genuinely selfless heart to deliver acts of self-effacing sacrifice.
Giving authentic love and making genuine sacrifices is a matter of self-denial. It’s about denying your own desires when it means betterment for the state of the ones you love. It’s a deep sense of discipline that allows you to turn your back on the things that you may want, for better things that would lead you to better places — as you want your loved ones to see. More often than not, this is the battle between the material things and the priceless things…the battle between the temporary and the permanent.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” — 2 Corinthians 4:17–18
