Springtime in Texas brings blankets of bluebonnets to cover the sides of the highways and empty fields. Texans love bluebonnet time - we stick our kiddos in the middle of them every year for pictures - and of course it's the state flower.
One of my favorite children's picture books (and I have MANY) is "The Legend of the Bluebonnet" by Tomie dePaola.
The story, in brief, is about a young Native American girl whose people are experiencing a great drought. She herself has lost all of her family and has only a much-loved doll with blue-jay feathers in its hair to remember them by. The shaman receives word that the people must sacrifice their most prized possessions for their drought to end. One by one the people decide that surely it is not their special possession that is required and nothing is sacrificed.
The orphaned young girl decides she must sacrifice her doll so as to save her people. She tearfully burns it in secret one night, scatters the ashes to the four winds and then falls asleep in that very spot.
When she awakens, the fields are covered in flowers as blue as the feathers in her treasured doll's hair. The drought is ended and the people are saved by the little girl's selflessness.
Sacrifice.
It's easy to require of others while digging our own heels in the dirt, sure that the Lord must not require our possessions, gifts, talents, time, resources, etc.
The story is a good reminder to me that the Lord will do beautiful things with great sacrifice.
Which brings me to a question:
Has someone ever sacrificed something for you? Have you given up something treasured (material or not) for someone else's benefit? What good resulted? Or is it something where the fruits have yet to be seen?
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