Wrangler Dani

Sydney Carton.

That’s who I instantly think of when I think of self-sacrifice. The self-loathing, drunken lawyer who’s life reeks of what could have been. He drives us to tears of aggravation for most of a Tale of Two Cities, but at the end, in true Dickens-style, he redeems himself in a bold act of self-sacrifice and we find ourselves crying over his unjust and beautiful end, despite his less-than-exemplary life.

I’m admittedly a bit of a bookworm, so most people may not relate to thinking of a dramatic Victorian tale when challenged with giving of oneself.  But I do think that we tend toward more dramatic endings. We think of self-sacrifice as a big, sweeping gesture – the Nathan Hales, Mother Theresas, and countless martyrs around the world.  People who believed so strongly in a person or a cause that they laid down their life for it.

But what about the kind of self-sacrifice that is daily – unnoticed, unthanked and oftentimes, misunderstood?

I’m wrestling with this right now, because at my job, I see this very kind of self-sacrifice daily.  As I blogged before, I’m a Therapeutic Riding Instructor for special needs individuals. One young man, Jose*, really struck me. Jose has Cerebral Palsy and developmental retardation. He is about 17 years old, has an awesome smile, and is a great sport about being lifted from his wheelchair onto the horse’s back.  He laughs loudly and often as we go around the arena, smiling at the volunteers on either side and yelling unintelligibly to get the instructor’s attention when he feels he’s done well.  His mom and sister are both tiny Latina women, hoisting Jose in and out of their old SUV and calling encouragement in Spanish to him as he rides.  When he is done with his lesson, they wipe his mouth, arrange his body in the wheelchair, and smile down at him with a love that stops me in my tracks.

I wonder about myself. Am I capable of this kind of love? Could I lay my life down daily in sacrifice to someone’s needs who will always need and can never repay?  I’m humbled just watching these families do their normal routine.  Especially in a culture that increasingly devalues human life and strives for perfection in heinous ways, this is a love that is often misunderstood and injustly scrutinized. This is self-sacrifice, in a way that I have never seen it before. This is the “greater love” that Christ talks about, in a real-life, unapplauded and everyday way.

*Jose’s name is not actually Jose. Just in case.