Sacrifice

¿Qué significa para ti Sacrificio?

               So let me start off with saying that I’m not a regular church go-er. I am a firm believer in a higher power, particularly God in my case but I’ve yet to find a church that calls out to me. I believe in the law of the universe. The whole you put good out and you’ll get good back, put bad out there and you’ll get bad. Karma’s a bitch and I believe in that wholeheartedly. I believe that God communicates with people through means we don’t usually expect, so imagine my surprise that on the day where I was feeling completely horrible I get a question from an old college friend through Facebook:

What does ‘Sacrifice’ mean to you?

               To be honest, I don’t even know how to answer that question. This happened on Wednesday September 5, 2012 and I’ve spent the following days after reading that thinking about a possible way to answer that question. It’s very interesting because while I haven’t found the answer to it, I have come with multiple examples in my life where sacrifice has been a key thing. Before I start talking about things, I need to give a little of a back story to how I was feeling on that day prior to seeing the message.

               If you’re a fan of mine or if you’ve chatted with me you already know but for those who don’t, I’ll let you in on my current situation. I currently started studying graduate courses in a college that’s two hours away from my home town. The thing is that I’m not entirely sold on my choice of studying here. I keep thinking that I should’ve followed my dream of studying abroad but I understand that there were some circumstances here that impeded me from doing so. At that moment, I just put my problems in God’s hands and he answered with the acceptance letter from my current college.

               I have a slight problem with the new college: after a year of being back home I can’t stand the idea of being away from my family, I am currently on edge because it’s not exactly a safe place in Puerto Rico, I have yet to adjust to the loneliness of it since my neighbors are pretty secluded and they appear to not like me even though they’ve yet to know me, and the situation with the campus is daunting to say the least. I feel like a guppy in a shark tank: everyone else just seems more prepared or more into the whole master’s thing compared to me and that is very scary to me.

               Ever since I was a child I would see these tiny Bibles around my aunt’s houses or my grandma’s or my own. The awesome thing about these Bibles is that they have a section of which Biblical Passages you should read if you’re feeling a certain way. If you’re happy or thankful, read X passage; if you’re angry and need calming down, read Y passage, so on, so on. This past Wednesday I was feeling anxious well before leaving on that two hour drive to the apartment. I spotted one of these Bibles, took it, and put it away in the suitcase I take to my apartment. I get to my apartment and, after calling my worried grandma to reassure her that I arrived safely; I am feeling anxious and sad because I’m far away from anyone who cares for me. The fact that I keep thinking about worst case scenarios that could happen to me and knowing that no one would find out or come to help doesn’t exactly help.

               Nervous beyond comprehensible reason, I take out my bible, look for the anxious section on it and I start to look for the passage that it says I should read:

-        Matt 6:34

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

               Immediately I start to laugh and weep at the same time. The Spanish version of that passage changes “mourn” for “weep” and weeping openly was the thing I felt like doing the most. I am driven by my feeling at the moment and I start to weep; I was sorry a plan I had that day had been cancelled but that seemed like a trivial thing then. I am starting to feel comfort wash over me but I’m still crying and repeating to myself about how much life over in my apartment sucks. So I take out my small Bible again and I look for a passage to read under the “if you’re feeling sad” section: