To Live for Christ is Gain

I remember one day stepping out of the shower and stepping in front of the mirror. I was taken aback by who I saw. I felt like someone took the real me away and left a counterfeit in my place. I stared at my bald head and hairless body. I touched the scars that were wrapped around my ribs and felt the port protrude underneath my skin. Bumps from the sternotomy wires from my first surgery stuck out down the center of my chest. I stepped closer and closer to the mirror as if I were trying to recognize something familiar about the person staring back at me. I had lost so many things. Yes my hair was gone and my physical appearance had changed, but I lost more than that. I missed time with my children and with my husband. Our entire lives had been put on hold. I had lost much of my identity, and dignity. I risked losing myself, my passion, my dreams, my desires, my hopes and everything I held dear. Standing face to face with the person in the mirror, I finally found something familiar. My eyes were still the same, and for some reason I was able to smile. Then the Lord brought a scripture to my mind found in Philippians 3:7. Paul was writing about all the things he could boast about, but how all of those things were rubbish compared to knowing Christ. “But whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” I thought about all the things I had lost through this cancer battle and I wondered if I could count them as rubbish in comparison of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. Have I gained Jesus through this ordeal? And if I have gained Christ, then nothing else really matters in the scope of my life. There was nothing more compelling than knowing Him more intimately.

I pray that through this difficult time you will draw closer to the Lord, growing fuller in the knowledge of His grace and love.

Mary