Messy Sacrifice....are they ever really clean?

Sacrifice by the very nature of the word seems messy but so often I want a clean sacrifice, I want to walk away with minimal damage and pain. As I have been reflecting this week so far on sacrifice I realize that although I understand sacrifice am I really grasping how messy true sacrifice should be. When we follow Christ in sacrifice for people we must remember that people are messy and so is sacrifice. Even though it may be more painful that you could have imagined or harder than you could have even guessed, once we are connected to people we must sacrifice for them. It should be in the very core of who we are and the very nature. It should become a lifestyle. I know all of this is no new idea but what a great and fresh reminder of the daily sacrifice I am called to have, like in Romans 12:1-2, "Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve God's will. His good, pleasing and perfect will." Every day we are called to sacrifice our lives, the world would tell us to look out for number 1 but God breathed word tells us to daily give our lives to Him and sacrifice for His kids and our brothers and sisters.