And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16
“Sometimes one feels that there is a discord between the cross and beauty. But there really cannot be, for God is found best through those two doorways. This grey-blue rolling water tinged with whitecaps, hemmed with distant green hills and crowned with colored clouds and baby-blue sky reveals God’s love of beauty – and God is so lavish with his paintbrush in the tropics. He is lavish everywhere if one only has eyes to see Him at work.
But when one comes to personality, one demands more than a pretty face or even a soul that sings for joy. There is in the universe a higher kind of beauty. It is the beauty of sacrifice, of giving up for others, of suffering for others. A woman has not reached her highest beauty until she lays down her ease and chooses pain for bearing and nursing her child. A man has not found his highest beauty until his brow is tinged with care for some cause he loves more than himself. The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty.”
Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty.”
I read this and started to draft this post on the train from Lviv, Ukraine, to Przemyśl, at the border of Poland.
Then I shot this new header photo while walking through the peaceful apartment complex in Warsaw on the way to dinner with my wife, GTP Financial Controller and soon-to-be CFO, Dr. Olena Hetman, and her mother.
Imagine yourself after running a long race or finishing a huge project, you collapse. You left, as the saying goes, nothing in your tank. You drop with exhaustion from your sacrifice.
That’s how I feel today, and this reading from Laubach affirmed that there is nothing more beautiful.
The world says not to go to dangerous places, not to put yourself in harm’s way, and not to move toward broken people. You have to take care of yourself, they reason.
What if God wants something different from us? I think He does.
He wants us to taste the beauty of sacrifice. To have our brow tinged with care for some cause beyond ourselves. It does not leave us empty, though we might fee physically exhausted, we have been enriched by God.
Click here to read my trip report from Ukraine. When you read this I will be on my flight home.
Thanks for your prayers for recovery from this trip. And thanks to all of you who emailed me in response to Laubach posts from Ukraine. He has provided inspiration for my service. I pray also for you. Many have testified to tinged brows.
I praise God for this news. I will respond to your messages in time. I have had limited wifi to respond to emails.