Am I Worth It?

“Am I worth it?” I asked, only half-joking, as I looked over at Christi. She was standing over the kitchen sink, cleaning up the mess from making yet another protein smoothie to help me gain some weight. She has been doing so much for me: flushing my PICC line twice daily, cooking, cleaning, making smoothies, taping up my PICC with Press N’ Seal so it won’t get wet in the shower, chauffeuring me to appointments, waiting and sometimes worrying with me, rejoicing with me that Monday’s lumbar puncture was negative, and so forth.

I voiced the question that had been probing my thoughts almost hourly: Am I really worth all that trouble? Add her efforts to the support from her parents, friends from church, fellow Soldiers in the Guard, doctors, nurses, and multiple others and you’re talking thousands of man-hours spent because of one person’s sickness. Is any one person worthy of this amount of effort?

And then there are the medical costs. To date, my treatment—chemo and other medications, hospital stays, ER visits, and numerous tests and procedures—has cost nearly a half-million dollars. The stem-cell transplant, which may happen at the end of August, will add another quarter-million. When it’s all done, the total charges for my health care will approach ONE million dollars. We thank the good Lord and the Department of Defense for quality health insurance. Thank you, too, dear taxpayer. Without it, we would be up the proverbial creek!

Is any one person worth this amount of money, work, and worry? I mean, we will all die someday anyway, right? It’s not as though I have done anything to deserve all of this—I haven’t saved the world or invented a cure for cancer (though if I had, it would be for leukemia). I have lived a wonderful, blessed life for the last 36 years and I have no regrets, so why not call it good and put me out to pasture?

Upon hearing this question, Christi looked over at me from the kitchen and said matter-of-factly, “God sent his Son to die for you on the cross, so what do you think?”

Touché.

One succinct response removed all doubt. Not to belittle everyone’s efforts to get me healthy, but they pale in comparison to the Creator of the Universe giving up His son to torture and death in order to pay my sin debt. He only did that because He placed such a great value on each of us, including me. Including you. And we did nothing to deserve it, just as I’ve done nothing to deserve this second chance. It’s called grace, and it was God’s idea.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1a

Just as I wrote previously that my identity comes from being a son of God and co-heir with Christ, so does my value. In fact, you and I are priceless to Him. What are a million dollars and a few hours in God’s estimation? Nothing. What are you and I in His eyes? Everything.