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Sacrifices


Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2) 
          I have been looking forward to getting to these verses. Chapters ten and eleven were tough, but I knew twelve was coming, and here we are, and we could not have reached it at a worse time. My attitude stinks. Normally, I write these publish that day’s post, but I’m looking at this one before bed instead of after I get up.
          Life gets irritating sometimes. Right now, Dad is being “difficult.” That basically means I’m not getting my way and he isn't listening to or understanding what I tell him. I’m not sharing this as an invitation either to a pity part or to counselling from anyone on how I should be treating him. Nor am I sharing it to complain. I’m sharing it because when I left my job to care for him, I knew there were going to be sacrifices involved. Whenever you make a decision, you have to accept the sacrifices that go with that decision. That’s just the way it is, no matter how often or for how long we stamp our feet or hold our breaths.
          If we try to not accept that, it leads to a mess. So, we can accept that, and make the required sacrifices with an attitude of sacrifice: “Oh, woe is me, life is so tough, I have to sacrifice so much,” or we can make the required sacrifices with an attitude of peace and acceptance.  
          The world uses two patterns when it comes to sacrifice. The first is “No, I won’t sacrifice” and the second is the “Woe is me.” Tonight, I’m in a MMA bout with both of those. So I’m going to go to bed  and me, myself, and I are going to go have a “Your daughter” talk with God and by the time it’s done, I fully intend to reject the world’s patterns, and to make the sacrifices I’m being called to make with an attitude of peace, because then I will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, and then probably tomorrow I’ll do another blog on this passage, because I like it so much.

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