Day 24 – A Willing Sacrifice

John 15:13 (NIV) “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Knowing there was a shortage of organs available for transplant was a discouraging truth that kept running through my mind while Rod ebbed closer and closer to certain death. It was possible that a liver would not come available until it was too late. His predicted year had turned into months and now days.

Time was running out but there was a glimmer of hope and her name was Susan. Susan heard about Rod’s plight from some of our family members. She didn’t know us but Rod’s story touched her heart. Without hesitation, Susan volunteered to be a living donor. With living-donor transplantation, a portion of a donor’s healthy liver is removed and transplanted into the recipient in need. Usually the donor is a family member or someone close to the recipient. The liver has the ability to regenerate so the partial livers of the donor and recipient will grow and form a complete organ after transplantation.

Why was a stranger so willing to sacrifice and undergo surgery for someone she didn’t know? Why was she willing to give up a part of herself? There is really no way to explain it but to say God’s love was in her. Because of all God had given her, she was willing to give to others – even a stranger.

I have to ponder the sacrifice she was willing to make and ask myself if I would be willing to do the same. Of course I would! Ok, let’s be real…maybe I wouldn’t. Honestly, I can’t say for sure. But this I know. God sent a woman named Susan, to give us hope.

Thousands of years earlier, a sacrifice was made. God gave of himself for sinners everywhere. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a rugged cross so that those who believe in Him would live. Because of the sacrifice, we have the certain hope of eternal life.

Knowing he would be tortured and face certain death, Jesus went to the cross without hesitation. He gave of himself willingly. We can’t begin to know and understand the depths of Jesus’ love, but Susan gave us a mighty glimpse of it.

Romans 5:7-9 (NIV) “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”