“I was going to go to college, but my family needed my support, so I got a job instead.”
We’ve all heard sentences like that. Maybe we’ve said them. I sacrificed my personal life to raise my children. I sacrificed so my child could go to college. I took a second job. I went without so they could have more.
We say these things with such tenderness. We believe they’re the proof of our love.
A Course in Miracles sees it very differently. In Chapter 15, Jesus tells us:
“Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love without sacrifice.”
That’s a strong statement. Yet when I look honestly at how many of us were raised, I can see how true it is. We learned that love costs. We learned that love hurts. We learned that if it isn’t painful, it probably isn’t real.
Then he makes it plain: “sacrifice is attack, not love. If you would accept but this one idea, your fear of love would vanish.”
Not love. Attack.
No wonder so many people are afraid of Love.
This is why so many of us are afraid of Love, even while we long for it. If Love demands sacrifice, then opening to Love means losing something. The ego thought system will never let us walk toward that willingly. We hold back. We guard our hearts. We call it being careful.
ACIM points again and again to the only sacrifice there really is: the moment we set aside our connection with God in favor of the ego. Every other form of sacrifice is a misunderstanding of what Love is.
Here’s our relief from the pain of withholding Love: Love doesn’t take anything from us. Love is what we are, and giving it is how we come to know we have it.
Let’s set that intention together right now. We’re willing to accept this one idea, that sacrifice is attack and not love, so our fear of Love can vanish. We’re letting the Higher Holy Spirit Self guide us the rest of the way.
If you’d like to experience what it feels like to give and receive with no strings attached, I’d love to have you join us for my How to Love Freely Deep Dive Workshop this Saturday where we’ll practice loving without sacrifice together.
We don’t have to sacrifice for Love. We only have to accept it.
