What is the Worth of My Sacrifice?

Pondering the idea of the quality of my sacrifices or if I truly do make ‘sacrifices’ I was struck by what President Young said of members living the law of consecration. He stated that some did it right while others gave their defective surplus. This made me consider my contributions, and what category I am in based on the contributions/sacrifices I have made.

More often I am closer to the members that gave the defective cow than the greatest that I have. Thinking of contributions to food banks, can food drives, etc that I have done I am usually giving the things that I don’t really enjoy but have on my shelf, that I don’t care if I give away. It becomes more a motivation of clearing my shelfs of unwanted food than it is of sacrificing things I cherish to benefit others.

The other great example was of Abraham and Isaac; both are willing to give up their most cherished things for the Lord simply because he asked it. Made me stop and think would I be willing to do as much for the Lord or my spouse. I really loved how this question was asked in terms of our marriages and this excerpt really brought home the point to me:

“Do we bring our greatest generosity and richest forgiving to our marriages? Do we offer our whole souls and our best efforts as an offering?”

This made me stop and pause because I feel like my husband gets the leftovers; I put a lot of my energy into work, and my callings and my husband gets what remains. The priority according to my actions is everything outside of the home and my relationship with my husband and by the time the weekend comes we are both so drained that we stay in bed and have very lazy around the house days instead of enjoying quality time together and building our relationship.

While our current pattern hasn’t become an issue yet I can see that we are creating a pattern that can turn into feelings of disinterest towards one another down the road. We are not investing our best into each other. Life is only going to become more hectic and busy and if we don’t start making a habit of putting our best efforts into each other now we may find down the road that we had unnecessary hurt and heartache.