sacrifice

this life is an experience. you only get to live it once. most of us have enough time to get some things right and to stuff some things up. i am hoping to get more right than i stuff up. trying.
i have learnt (and am still and probably awalys will) to continue to learn what the word sacrifice means. until you experience it in different ways, that word can have a vastly different meaning. i remember when i was about 7ish and i wanted a ring (i think) and mum and dad wouldn't buy it for me, when we got home, i ran away. ok, so i was 7 and it was winter in scotland, the house we lived in had double front doors, and so i made it to between the double front doors. i sacrificed watching the muppets that night to prove my point of how unfairly i had been treated that day. now that i am much older and wiser, ha ha, i have realised that most likely no one else in the family really cared that i missed the muppets that night and my sacrifice, or stubornness didn't really was pretty pathetic. i mean, if i was really serious about being mistrated, i could have at least gone and hidden in the bushes somewhere around the house and at least got them worried as to my whereabouts. my sacrifice was pathetic. but at the time...
the more i have wanted to serve God, the more i have learnt about sacrifice. i remember once facing the idea that not having my family around was a sacrifice. it was and it is. then i faced the idea of giving up my 'home', family, good job, good car, etc for a short time, and thought that was a sacrifice. it was and it is. and i could go on, but the more i learn about sacrifice, the more i learn and appreciate (though i don't think that word describes it properly) the sacrifice that Jesus made for me.
tonight we went to a salvo church next to where we are staying. they sang lots of old hymns. not my favourite one. but i want to leave you tonight with the words to my favourite. verse 3 is my favourite.

HOW GREAT THOU ART
O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power through-out the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee; How great Thou art, how great Thou art! Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee: How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in; That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin:

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration, And there proclaim, my God. how great Thou art!