The widow's might.

My greatest act of sacrifice isn't what the news cameras made me famous for.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a widow. But I know what it’s like to be the son of one. And that has given me a new appreciation for a story in the Bible that has been haunting me lately.

Nearly five years ago, my step-dad (who had been in my life since I was about five) died unexpectedly. A stroke in his brainstem ushered him into the arms of Jesus. Since then, I’ve watched my mom courageously navigate life as a widow who not only lost her husband but lost her daughter (my sister) two years earlier. (I love you, Mom!)

And while my mother has been strong, there’s a reason the Bible consistently talks about taking care of widows. It is not an ideal existence. It can be lonely. It is hard. It requires much faith.

It’s against that backdrop that the story of the widow’s sacrifice in Mark 12:41-44 has taken on new meaning. A meaning that has led me to today where I can say that the greatest act of sacrifice in my life isn’t what I’ve become semi-famous for. No, it’s something much smaller but much bigger than that.

And it’s time I said it.

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As a quick refresher, here’s the story from the Bible. It’s short:

Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”

A “mite” is a coin. If the American penny could be separated into a smaller denomination, that would essentially be a mite. In other words, she gave the least possible amount of money.

And yet…

What Jesus saw was something completely different. He didn’t see the amount of money, he saw the value of the money. The value of the sacrifice, really. The heart of it. And it had nothing to do with the actual monetary value.

The widow—someone likely broken and destitute, maybe even full of grief—gave a lesser amount of money than the rich people, but she gave something of more value than they did.

I know we know that, but do we know that? Like really understand and embrace it? Today, I can finally say I do. But in order for me to explain why I have to start by showing you two pictures:

The first picture is me meeting a stranger. He’s not a stranger any longer, but he was at the time. His name is Ken, and at this very moment he has one of my internal organs filtering the blood coursing through his body.

See, in October of 2020 I donated one of my kidneys to Ken. I had never met him until the day we got to the hospital. It’s a long story, but the short version is that my step-dad was the recipient of a donated kidney, and so in 2020 I signed up to be a kidney donor for someone I knew. When that fell through, I heard about Ken and I ended up donating to him.

And everyone thought it was the most altruistic thing I could ever do or have done. Maybe there’s even part of me that thought that. The national radio interviews happened. The news cameras showed up. And I heard from everyone how “sacrificial” I was.

And yet they were wrong. I was wrong. And here’s why.