"Love requires sacrifice"
A meditation from my Catholic imagination
“Love requires sacrifice,” a wise friend mentions offhand as we wrap up a conversation about our families.
The very worst part of me rises from her seat. Let me tell you about sacrifice, she says as she rolls up her sleeves and starts a list: this many hours spent listening to children’s music in the car; this many pounds of food prepared (and this many thrown away when someone didn’t like it); this many years since I slept more than six hours in a row…
I want the tally to make me feel better. I want it to serve as evidence that I’m a good wife, a good mom, and a good person, or at least to justify the love that I have in my life: I worked hard for it, I earned it, I deserve it.
Instead, it just reveals that I’m turning into the exact person I never wanted to be: bitter, resentful, jealous.
These three words haunt me for months. I think they have a message for me, so I sit with them over and over, again and again, holding them up to the light and examining them from above, below, and all around.
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Love requires sacrifice.
It sounds like Love is an ancient god, demanding gifts to appease her wrath and draw her favor. Should I offer her the best of my hands and my heart hoping that she will choose to bless me? Should I continue to present these offerings month after month, begging her to stay?
I’ve lived that life. If I stop talking about this so much, maybe they will want to hang out with me. If I can get my hair or body to look this way, maybe I’ll get noticed. Maybe I’ll feel worthy. Maybe I’ll be loved.
That type of sacrifice turns love into an idol, something to be possessed and controlled. And I’m old enough now to know that love isn’t like that.
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Love requires sacrifice.
To demonstrate my love for someone requires sacrifice. When I bought you this gift, I could have used the money for something else. When I wrote you a letter, I could have been doing something else with my time. When I was with you, I could have been somewhere else with another – or with no one at all.
This type of sacrifice involves a value judgment, a choice: what is love worth to me? What am I willing to give up in order to show my beloved I care?
But does it still count if I continue to count the cost?
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Love requires sacrifice.
What of the spontaneous love that bursts forth when a baby is placed in your arms?
It doesn’t always happen for mothers, even after the sacrifice of pregnancy and labor. You can’t guarantee it or predict it, deserve it or earn it.
But when I remember the first weight of a soul on my chest, I can almost reach out and grasp it: in the softness of their skin, in the smell of the hospital room, in the quick quieting of their cries, in the rush of adrenaline in my veins.
Even with my body broken by birth, the sacrifice I offered in that moment was of my heart: to weep when they weep and laugh when they laugh for all the days the Lord will give us.
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Love requires sacrifice.
God is love, the Scriptures tell me. And the sacrifice he requests is not burnt offerings, but the gift of my heart.
I can see it more clearly now. He wants me to give up my pride, my resentment, my growing tally of all the ways I sacrifice for others. I love this list so much. I cling to it as proof of my righteousness, and I truly do not know if I can let it go. Because who will I be without it? Will I still be good and worthy? Will I still be loved?
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Love requires sacrifice.
And the sacrifice has already been made. Once. For all. And most miraculously: while we were still sinners.
We are not worthy, you or I. But we are unconditionally, unfathomably, unmeasurably loved.
If you liked this essay, would you forward it to a friend? Thanks for your kindness!
What I’ve been reading and writing lately:
I’ve been reading up on the organization Well Read Mom since a friend invited me to help her start a group in our area this fall. If you’ve been part of a Well Read Mom group, feel free to DM me your thoughts!
My sweet kids played independently for about 30 minutes straight the other day, and the ideas just kept coming! I have several pieces in the works right now, and I’m so grateful for that. Be on the lookout for more in future newsletters!
Coming up…
This post was very different from what I usually publish here, but it was something I needed to write and felt called to share. Next time, I’ll go back to my usual format by writing about one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Can you guess who it is?
The part about holding a soul to your chest and more so birthing a child made me realize I’m kind of jealous that I’ll never experience that lol an obvious thing to say but it is pretty amazing to think there is like an entire hemisphere of love designed for women only
“And most miraculously while we were still sinners” … I could try to say how deep that hits but some sacred mysteries are better experienced and left unspoken. 👏🏼