How Sacrifice Sweetens a Marriage

To those who don't know Christ, "sacrifice" might seem like an ugly word, something you'd never want to connect to marriage. But for believers whose eternal life depends on Christ's sacrifice and who are called to make our lives a living sacrifice to God, we trust Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Talking about sacrifice in abusive marriages can be dangerous and inappropriate, but for others, the notion of sacrificing to make your spouse's dreams come true can be one of the most effective tools to make your spouse feel cherished and to make yourself feel blessed to live with such a happy, fulfilled spouse. Helping your spouse do something outside of their marriage that God has uniquely gifted and called to do can greatly benefit the marriage itself. It certainly has for Donnie and Jaclyn, and Dennis and Barbara, as you'll read about here.

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When Donnie and Jaclyn lived in Nashville, they had so little money they depended on food stamps. Jaclyn was pursuing a career in photography, which can take a long time to launch, and she started to feel guilty about not contributing more to the family budget.

One of her good friends worked as a waitress at a restaurant, and Jaclyn thought maybe she should do that as well.

When she brought up the idea to Donnie, he was forceful: “No, you’re not doing that. Keep pursuing your photography. One day, it’s going to become lucrative. I just know it.”

Donnie explains his thinking: “I grew up hearing women talk about how they gave up their dreams once they got married, and that’s not what I wanted to have happen with Jaclyn. I didn’t care what her dream was, to be honest. If she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, if she wanted to get a master’s degree, or if she wanted to pursue a career in photography, I was determined to help make it happen.”

This commitment came at great cost to Donnie. He had to work two jobs to make up for the lack of Jaclyn’s income. He did his regular job during the day, ate dinner with the family, then started his second job in the evening.

When Jaclyn finally got her first “bite” at a commercial photography job, she didn’t have the right equipment and was planning to pass it up, but Donnie went out and spent $2,000 on a camera lens so Jaclyn would have the tools she needed.

“And this was when we really didn’t have $20 to buy groceries.”

Today, Jaclyn does have a lucrative photography business. Her work is featured on billboards all over Houston. In fact, she has a lot of other photographers working for her now. “I pay them to do most of the shooting and I do a lot of the editing now.”

Even more than what this sacrificial attitude did for Donnie and Jaclyn’s bank account, however, is what it did for their marriage. Jaclyn feels cherished. She even told me, “Sometimes I feel guilty that we have it so good.” She feels she will forever be in Donnie’s debt for his commitment to make her dream come true. Donnie made an investment that cost him a couple of years of extra work, but has resulted in a couple decades of extra intimacy in his marriage.

When it comes to marriage, sacrifice like this is an investment that usually pays fantastic dividends. The “natural” man or woman in us tends to drift toward, “Am I getting what I want out of this marriage?” Maybe it’s our natural selfishness that leads us there. Maybe it’s spiritual warfare. But it’s a constant temptation for many.

Consciously sacrificing on behalf of your spouse to make his/her dreams come true crucifies that selfishness and unleashes the spiritual secret Jesus referred to when he said it is better to give than to receive.