My Africa

I read a quote on a friends blog regarding David Livingston's calling to Africa and the amount of time he devoted to that country and I haven't been able to get the thought off my mind all day.

This is the quote I read;

"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa...Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in, and for, us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which HE [Jesus] made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us."

I think it is beautiful.

And then I think of my calling. 

To be his mother.

And his mother.

And then suddenly the quote is no longer simply beautiful but entirely challenging. 

I will never face dangers like David Livingston faced - but my calling - my "Africa" - is my home. My husband. My boys. 

 

And I wonder - am I cultivating an attitude of joy in my service to God that at the end of my life I can say with all honesty "It was never a sacrifice, it was a privilege." 

Linking to Tuesdays Unwrapped