Two, I recognize that most of the “self-sacrifice” in my life is directed towards people who I am inclined to love–my children, family, and community. Even the high school boys in our house are “like” me. We all went to boarding school. We all are relatively high-achievers and even with our disparate cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, we all share a common experience. Jesus exemplifies another level of self-sacrifice, and he challenges all of us to follow his lead. It’s the self-sacrifice of that famous parable, the Good Samaritan (found in
Luke 10:25-37<\/a>). It’s the self-sacrifice of helping the one who is not<\/i> like me. It is self-sacrifice that transcends boundaries and recognizes not only our common humanity, but our common nature as creatures, created “in the image of God.” I suspect that this type of self-sacrifice also brings joy. But I can’t say I live in that place yet. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two follow up thoughts on the previous post. One, driving up I-95 with two screaming children on Thursday night made me wonder whether I was delusional in writing about the joy of having children. Of course, what I wrote about was the joy that comes in self-sacrifice, and the drive wasn’t exactly self-sacrificial (we were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}