Sacrifice for True Love

When I think of the term “sacrifice,” I think of giving up major desires. Not just those little things that I kinda want or like a little. I mean MAJOR desires – like giving up the opportunity to travel overseas once a year, or live in a 5,000 square foot house, or buy a hundred thousand dollar car. I realize there are small sacrifices like temporarily putting off buying new furniture or buying a new 2006 model car instead of the higher priced 2007, but I am not sure I would call these small things real sacrifices. Especially when you think about making sacrifices for love, and surely when you are talking about the love for your children.

I believe that most single mothers would agree that the love we have for our kids might be the only love that we truly consider “true love,” and might be the only love we would consider making sacrifices for. Sometimes I wonder if this is part of the reason that we are single. Maybe we are not willing to work as hard or make big enough sacrifices for the love of a man, but that is another post on another day.

I had a conversation with one of my close friends today and she was explaining how she has to give up certain desires that she has because money is tight right now. This should become the single mother’s anthem because we can all relate to being here at one time or another. But she said something that really stood out to me. She said:

I am letting go of a lot of my outlandish dreams I had. I have to face a cruel reality - I am alone and I am raising my kids alone and when it comes down to it all they really have is me. I have to be in a position to provide for them and give them a chance at a decent life. So that means giving up on some of my dreams.. That just comes with the territory of being a single mom. I had to make myself be ok with that.

After she said that - completely being able to relate - I thought about my outlandish dreams. And I realize that I really didn’t have any outlandish dreams. Of course I have dreams, but I wondered if I too at some point given up on all my big dreams as a result of being a single mother.

After giving this idea some real thought, I have come to the conclusion that basically this is true. See, I believe that our children become our biggest dream and desire, and they somehow automatically outweigh all the tangible dreams and desires that we once had. We naturally make sacrifices for the true love we have for our children, and while we are raising them we get our pleasure and desire from being a good mother.

My advice in this situation is to take those outlandish desires and dreams that we are not able to do right now, and understand that these are really just small sacrifices compared to our babies. Most of the outlandish dreams that we once had, will become small potatoes by the time we are in a position to actually enjoy those things after we have finished our most important job of raising our children.

So, single mother, hold your head up high and enjoy the true desires of life, and that is the blessing that you tuck in every night!