Since moving home, I’ve started to get involved in a young adult group at church. It’s only been a few weeks since I started attending different events, but the group has already been a huge blessing and answer to prayer in my life.
In addition to weekly small groups, everyone gets together on Sunday evenings to share dinner, play games and just spend time together. When I first heard about this, I had two initial, conflicting thoughts:
1. I would love to go and use that time as an opportunity to get to know others better
2. I don’t want to be the weird/new girl who doesn’t eat anything or brings her own crazy food
So for a few weeks, I decided not to go. This week though, when a friend asked if I wanted to come, I explained the situation to her. It’s not that I didn’t want to be there, but I just wasn’t sure I new how to handle it yet. When I told her I had Celiac Disease, meaning I can’t eat anything with gluten, her response caught me off guard.
“Wait, is that it? It’s just gluten you can’t eat?”
“Well, yeah.” I answered, secretly thinking, “ummm that’s kind of a lot of stuff.”
It turns out that one of the guys who hosts these dinners actually has Celiac too. My friend was already familiar with what the disease entails, so to her it didn’t come as a surprise. I was afraid everyone would think my eating habits were weird, but they already understand. I wouldn’t have to explain it to a bunch of different people AND there would definitely be g-free food for me to eat.
I can’t even explain what a huge relief this was to me. Thinking about it now, I hate that I was going to let Celiac hold me back from doing something I really wanted to do. I can’t believe I was going to let it control my life.
It’s true that Celiac will always be a part of me, but I don’t want it to define me. I don’t want it to even prevent me from living the life I want to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment