Sacrificial Love

It’s Valentine’s Day—a time to share hearts, flowers, chocolates, and words about romantic love. Just like every other female, I like that stuff.  But the best gifts I ever received were not perishable like flowers and chocolates, but touched and changed my life in ways I never imagined. Three times when I was in desperate need, I received three amazing gifts of sacrificial love.

The word sacrificial is described in the dictionary as: “the act of giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else or to help someone.”

My first experience with sacrificial love occurred when I was 21 years old, and found myself struggling to make sense of my life and wanting hope for a better future. After searching in many places, I realized that God was offering me the free gift of his sacrificial love. He gave up all the glories of heaven and came to earth as Jesus to die on cross so that I could have eternal life. All I had to do was accept His life changing gift. I now have meaning and purpose each day that I never before imagined.

Sacrificial love came again into my life when I was in my early fifties and I was facing a bleak future because of terminal liver disease. For many years I had felt a sense of impending doom knowing that my life’s time clock was rapidly ticking down. I was widowed and an empty nester and at times felt very alone as I faced a very uncertain future and a scary liver transplant. No man in his right mind marries a woman with terminal liver disease, but that is exactly what happened to me. God sent Charles into my life at just the right time. We both risked it all not knowing how long we would have together and after almost nineteen years of marriage are convinced more than ever that we made the right decision.

Two years later I received the blessing of sacrificial love again when I was admitted to the hospital to wait for a liver transplant. A family of strangers in the midst of their grief and loss made a decision to donate their daughter’s organs. My transplanted liver enabled me to regain my health and have a second chance at life. The thank you letter I wrote anonymously to my donor family could not adequately express the overwhelming emotion of gratitude that I still feel even to this day. 

I am challenged every day to show sacrificial love to those around me, so that they too can pass it on to others. Those deeds will last long after February 14 has come and gone.

You can read the rest of my story in my memoir “Born Three Times–A New Life, A New Liver, A New Love.” 

Order it from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Born-Three-Times-Life-Liver-ebook/dp/B00A3UBK9C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423938011&sr=1-1&keywords=Born+Three+Times