Alchemy

My naked body is beginning to bring me pleasure. How is that for a "Stop you dead in your tracks, jaw-dropping, must read further" opening line? At the risk of disappointing any lecherous readers out there, this IS a Christian blog. (If you meant to go to a XXX site, maybe you'll find this one even better. Different, but better.)

Sooo, back to pleasure... there is little so pleasurable as to be significantly overweight and to see yourself shrinking and to revel in the body's alchemy of turning fat into muscles. Chemists in the Middle-Ages attempting to turn lead into gold failed; whereas the body has mastered this seemingly elusive wizardry when given the catalyst of good food and exercise. From leaden fat to golden muscles.

I look at myself and see losses! And this has me thinking how it is so often the case that losses are really gains. In the case of this loss, I am gaining muscle definition, a smaller clothing size, and increased stamina to name a few. Conversely, when I was gaining weight, the mounting losses were staggering. (Come on, I don't have to tell you what that means! You KNOW, don't you?)

Could it be similarly true in other areas of our lives that losses are gains and vice-versa? I know, for me, the old adage about "gaining the world, but losing your soul" was dead on. The more I achieved the American dream of climbing the prosperity ladder, the less I attended to matters of the soul. It was only with the losses that accompanied my disability that I gained precious gifts of vulnerability, inter-dependence, self-love, other love, compassion, and wisdom, to name but a few.

Paul, the late-comer to the Apostle's party, knew something of this. He lost everything he held dear, everything that had been the ground that supported his ego, and yet he wrote:

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." (Philippians 3:8)

These words bring me comfort in the midst of so many losses in my life. If these paltry losses result in gaining Christ, (and I trust they can, such is the chemistry of the great Alchemist in the Sky) then I have the potential to be wondrously transformed if I will but climb into the crucible and submit to the heat. What are the losses in your life that could similarly be gains in disguise?