I keep notebooks filled with quotes and sayings that inspire me. When I’m reading a book, I almost always have a notebook in hand while i read so I can jot down the lines that pop out of the page to me. I could just highlight the sentence like most people, but I like to have all of these inspiring words in one place. So notebook/quote books it is.

I was leafing through one of those quote books last night and came across a beautiful quote by Mother Teresa saying:

“Sacrifice, in order to be genuine, has to empty us of ourselves.”

Pretty huge, huh?

Complete emptying of self. It’s so difficult to do. Die unto myself. I must let go of all of my perceived needs and wants in order to give (in the deepest sense) of myself.

I used to think of charity (love) as giving of oneself in any capacity. But to truly be charitable in every sense of the meaning, we have to eliminate our motives from the equation. In a world that focuses so much on self and keeping up with the Jones’ (or is it Joneses??? If you’re going to use a “common phrase” in a blog post, it’s probably best to know how to write out that common phrase, but heck, I’m using it anyway…you get the point) it’s difficult to step outside of ourselves and focus solely on others.

Sacrifice.

That’s a big word. Not because number of letters, but big because of meaning;-)

Next time you are running through the “woe is me” spiel in your head, remind yourself what sacrifice truly means and then realize that focusing on yourself (and all of your woes) means you haven’t yet been emptied of yourself.

Sacrifice.