Sacrifice=Surrender

Source

I have never been one who is into the study of words and their meaning. Although I have to admit, I was very curious to see the etymology of this word. Sacrifice comes from the Latin "sacrificium" meaning the act of giving up one thing for another; something for the sake of another. It can also be in the sense of "offering up something."

Here's the kicker. Sacrifice in its root form means to surrender, give up, suffer to be lost. Sacrifice is all about surrender. Ahhh surrender. One of the most difficult and complex words in the English language to understand, let alone live out and put into practice. Sacrifice is scary and just down right difficult! It means something has to die, to be let go of for something else to happen. To be honest, I hate this concept. And more often than not I royally suck at it.

Life presents us many opportunities to sacrifice for other people but also let go of things in our life we are desperately clinging to. Sure my sacrifice is not a slaughtered lamb like in the Old Testament (ewww gross!), it looks a lot different than that. 

I have to let go of the dreams/plans I made for my life and work to embrace God's plans...

Instead of clinging to perfection, I have to embrace leaning into the imperfections and difficulties of life...

I have to give up what I "thought" my life would be or look like and embrace what God has given me...

The of process of sacrifice/surrender/letting go or whatever the heck you want to call it is a life long journey...it never ends until the day you're put in the ground. Yes sometimes I hate it and would rather keep doing life my way. But no matter what deep down, I know the grace that comes when I can let go and surrender what I love or love to control most.

Each day is a new opportunity to sacrifice; to surrender whatever is holding you back from becoming the best version of yourself and living the life God has destined for you.