I was in graduate school full-time and I worked 40 plus hours a week in the field of social work. We had just given birth to our third child. I was missing in action from home. When I wasn’t in class or at my job I found myself in a library studying and writing papers. This life process went on for two and one half years. For two and one half years I watched my wife run the household, give birth to our third child, balance the budget while living on a “poverty” level income and edit, as well as, type (manually) all of my weekly papers. It was servanthood at its best, a genuine sacrificial love. I never once heard her complain about her life at the time. She believed in the goal and she sacrificed to help get me there. When graduation day finally arrived I confessed to her that the degree earned was as much hers as it was mine, we earned it. 

Sacrificial love is unselfish love. Unselfish love is mature love. To have a partner in the marriage sacrifice almost three years of “normal” family life for the goal of their mate…well, that is borderline supernatural. Love will do that you know. Love will give everything and at the same time sacrifice personal pleasure. Love will be patient and kind. Love will not be jealous of a life mate’s goals, nor will it be proud or rude when a life mate fails in their goal. Love will not demand its own way and through the process will not be irritable, give up or lose faith. Sacrificial love is always hopeful and never looks back in regret. Thank you, Mary, for your sacrificial love and exhibiting to me First Corinthians chapter thirteen. I am a blessed man!