Love Stories

Teaching Your Child About Love and Sacrifice

By Jonathan Rogers

likE NO OThER STORY, the Easter story draws attention to the value of sacrifice. It was through sacrifice, after all, that Jesus unleashed the overwhelming power of God to conquer sin and death. Here the paradoxes of the Christian faith come into sharpest focus: he who loses his life shall find it; the first shall be last; God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

The story of Easter is the story of the world turned upside down — or rather right-side up again. Worldly might is conquered by love and sacrifice — the prevailing values of God’s kingdom.

Truths like these are not readily apparent from a casual observation of the world. If they were, we would not call them paradoxes. How, then, do you as a parent convey to your child the idea that love and sacrifice — despite all appearances — really are a better way to live?

The most important way, of course, is to nurture a family environment in which love rules the day and self-sacrifice is not a foreign concept. But I would suggest that the second-most important thing you can do is to be constantly telling, reading, and watching stories that model the value of love and sacrifice.

S tories that model self-sacrifice abound in both books and movies.

go of your smaller wants and desires in order to lay hold of something greater and infinitely more valuable. The goal of self-sacrifice is not less happiness, but more — for yourself as well as others.

As the writer of Hebrews wrote, the reason Jesus endured the pain and shame of the cross was “for the joy that lay before Him” (Hebrews 12:2). Even for Jesus, suffering and sacrifice were not the real point, but joy. That is a hard concept to grasp. I believe you cannot grasp it at all unless you see self-sacrifice as part of a larger story.

A Warning

When you speak of self-sacrifice, always be diligent to point out that self-sacrifice is never an end in itself. You do not demonstrate your holiness simply by denying yourself the things you like or desire but in your willingness to let

Sacrifice Bunts

Here is a “story” I have used when talking to my kids about self-sacrifice. The sacrifice bunt is one of baseball’s great tactics. The batter denies himself the opportunity of swinging for the fence in order to advance a teammate. It is a given that he will be heading back to the dugout while his teammate remains on the base paths.

There can be genuine glory in the act of giving up your at bat for an out. The glory, however, is not in self-denial, but in the fact that in denying yourself you change the story of the baseball game. The man who gives up a run for an out — who endures the lonely walk back to the dugout for the sake of a victory celebration at game’s end — is no fool.

26 PARENTLIFE MARCH 2008