A man in his fifties sat next to me on the
train to London and told
me about his 'year of hell', during which his
wife underwent several bouts of surgery and
radiotherapy for cancer, and he too spent
time in hospital for an operation on his
heart. Listening to his story, I mentioned
that there were often gifts to be found in
adversity that we can't always see at the
time, and he surprised me with his
willingness to acknowledge this aspect.
Having been forced to change his work pattern
so he
could attend to his wife, he found that he could
achieve the same income in three days as he
used to
earn working seven days, freeing him to spend
time
with his wife and grandchildren.
A self-confessed former workaholic had
recently enjoyed a holiday for the first time
in years. And now he and his wife were moving
home, from a large house in a not very
pleasant area, to a small house in a lovely
area where they felt much happier. In short,
they were doing all the things they had
wanted to do for a long time but had always
made excuses as to why it wasn't possible.
It set me thinking about the necessary role that
sacrifice plays in the transformation
process. In order
to grow, we usually have to give something
up, and it
is often something we have held dear.
Consequently it
is life itself that forces the change, often
in the form of an illness, loss or some other
apparent misfortune.
The word sacrifice means literally 'to make
sacred',
and by surrendering something that we have
cherished,
we open ourselves to the divine realm from which
unseen new possibilities can and do emerge -
if we let
them. The difficulty, of course, is that we
don't usually get to see the potential gains
until we have given something up.
When we suddenly lose a portion of our
health, wealth, security or self-identity,
there is always the likelihood that, in the
midst of the crisis lies an opportunity to
grow and transform our life in exactly the
ways that were needed. If only we could keep
this perspective at the time we most need to
remember it.
