No greater Love

"Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13, Douay Rheims Version)
Recently, I saw that a man was killed during a tornado outbreak in Oklahoma.  He was 30 years old, and protecting his niece and nephew.  
I don't think we think of these people as heroes.
We usually have in our mind, soldiers, and police officers, and the like. And while those are representative of sacrificial love, they are not the only examples.
Now, I was born in Davenport, Iowa, and have lived in Iowa, Illinois, South Carolina, and Georgia, states that get tornadoes. Here in South Carolina, we have the added "benefit" of most of us not having basements (the water table is too high in a lot of southern states).
But I HAVE seen this in my own life. Not in any state I just mentioned, oddly enough.
But in Tennessee.
We were travelling, I believe we were coming back from my Great Grandma's in Georgia, MAYBE we were coming back from Florida, and stopped at her house on the way back, I don't remember. But, anyway, we were in a more hilly area in Western Tennessee (this was during an outbreak in 1998, cops kept telling us to go different ways), and my mom saw a funnel cloud.
She's from the midwest, she knows what they look like.
And she IMMEDIATELY got us in a ditch. Which very quickly filled up with water. My face was cut open by hail (I've always been very sensitive emotionally, but I didn't even know I was bleeding until someone pointed it out). I lost my shoe. But my mom was willing to die, to risk her own life, to protect her (at the time) four kids.
THAT is the kind of love we should be willing to have.
Actually, interestingly, an elderly couple let us stay the night at their house. I think they have both since died, but I am VERY thankful for them!
So, going full circle, are you willing to die to save others? Are you willing to have that sacrifical love? If not, what love do you have?
I have no idea what that man's religious beliefs were. But he laid down his life, to save those who couldn't do it themselves.
He died a hero.