Sacrifices

2 more days and we will be celebrating Christmas, the birth of Christ. Other than Easter, it is another significant event in the Christian calendar.

This year, strangely enough, I don’t “feel” anything significant about Christmas and I am not too sure why initially. After thinking about it, I would say that it is because of the journey that I am on, the present of Christ in my life had become more important than celebrating the day that He was born. His birth may be important traditionally or historically and I will continue to celebrate it in remembrance of the sacrifice that He had made in becoming man and dying on the cross. However, His presence in our life, my life bears witness to His birth and death and that to me is probably the more significant reason for celebrating and not just on 2 specific day of the year but on a daily basis.

This particular blog entry is also a kind of confession as the New Year is coming and traditionally, we reflect on the past year and make resolution(s) for the New Year.

An incident happened today that really bothered me. I won’t reveal the details out of “shame” but Josie knows what it is as she was there. Essentially I did something I should not have done and could easily not have done it but I did it anyway. When I had done it, I had actually psyched myself beforehand to do it.

I may blog about God, Christ, love, grace, etc but there are still a lot of things in my life that needs changing. I am not perfect and still very far from it. Anger management is probably high on the list of things I need to work on including my aggressive style of driving since it makes Josie really uncomfortable.

So… I will remember Christ, His birth and His sacrifice on the cross, remember it daily and not just during Christmas and Easter. In remember His sacrifice, remember also to sacrifice myself as living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is my spiritual service of worship (Roman 12:1)

In know all these but they were never high on the “serious” scale until I was diagnosed with cancer. Life’s perspective really does change and having to sacrifice some of the “nice” things in life proves to be a good training in what it means to make sacrifices for God.

Maybe it is also God’s reminder to me concerning the above that my next chemotherapy is on New Year’s eve, a reminder that He is with me as I cross into a new year.

He provides, He takes away but He stood by me and In Him I Trust.