It Is Seasonal

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...
Ecclesiastes 3:1

The other day, I was out for my walk, going along one of my favorite routes. This route is alongside a pretty major road in town, and it leads to a major intersection. As I approached this intersection, I noticed a bunch of birds up on the wires above the intersection. As I got to the intersection, I found myself walking on their shit.

This shit, like so much other shit, is seasonal.

These birds only sit up on these wires in the Fall. I guess the winds are just right and bring those yummy bugs right to them, or something, but for whatever reason, there are the birds, up high on the wires, every Fall. And their shit lands below.

I began to think about the seasonal shit and how the seasons change in our lives. Some seasons are beautiful, wonderful, and full of all kinds of love and peace and harmony. And some seasons are covered in shit.

Notice I said they are "covered in shit" - not that they actually are shit. There's a huge difference. Sometimes, the beauty and wonder and love are still there, but they get encrusted, much like the sidewalks under the birds on the wires. Some seasons in our lives, we have to look through the shit in order to find the beauty or wonder or love underneath.

This is not a fun task, friends. It's icky and hard and takes some work and effort - and isn't it just easier to walk a different route for a while, avoiding the shit altogether? Well, of course it's easier. But where on earth did we ever get the idea that easier is always better?!

Sometimes easier is better. Easier is better when we are trying to be efficient, for instance. But easier doesn't always mean that we will learn as much as when something is difficult. Easier doesn't always mean that we will grow as strong as when something is difficult. Difficulty can be really shitty, but it is in difficulty that we learn how to be creative, how to persevere, how to find hope. It is in difficulty that we discover that we are stronger than we ever imagined. It is in difficulty that we learn to trust God.

When I was on internship, I had a parishioner - a retired pastor - who kept goats. One day, he and his wife had us over for lunch. He then invited me to take a stroll out in the goats' area - specifically, to walk in a circle in the area where all the goats would shit. And then he looked at me and said, "Sometimes, you're gonna have to walk through shit, and I wanted you to have some first hand experience."

How I wish every season was free of shit. But shit happens. Strap on some good shoes, and crunch on through. God is with you.

What Do You Fear?

My parents and their daughter.

Both of my parents died with tumors in their brains.

My dad died at age 29, which is too young. His tumors were of the glioblastoma variety. In the 1970's, the chances of surviving were almost zero - they remain low today, even with all of our technology and medical knowledge. Dad was sick for four years. He was diagnosed after Mom saw him having a seizure. I was ten months old.

My mom died at age 60, which is also too young. She had ovarian cancer, and fell into the very small percentage of women who have that cancer metastasize to their brains. It's like a 1-2% chance, and she got it. She was diagnosed after initially being told she had diverticulitis - which is very different than cancer.

I remember the weekend that we found out that Mom's cancer had metastasized. Hubby and I were in Little Rock, helping my grandmother pack up to move. Mom called us from the back of an ambulance. She'd been fighting off horrible headaches and finally went in to find out why. "They think I have a brain tumor," she said to us on speaker phone. The look on my grandmother's face was pure horror.

The words "brain tumor" had devastated our family enough.

When Hubby and I went to bed that night, I was somber. I was so somber that I actually found that dark sense of humor which sometimes emerges when we are faced with horror. "Well, I guess my chances of getting a brain tumor just went way up," I said.

He responded strongly. I think he thought I was afraid, but I wasn't. I was simply stating what was slowly occurring to me: that I would be orphaned, soon, by something that medicine couldn't solve. And it occurred to me, too, that maybe I would face the same fate.

I remember when Mom was diagnosed with cancer initially, so many people asked me if ovarian cancer runs in our family. "Nope," I'd always say, "Not that we know of!" I began to realize that people were asking if I feared for my own life. I began to answer that because there was no family history of ovarian cancer, I guess I felt that I had just as good a chance of being hit by a bus as I did of dying of ovarian cancer.

How do I know, really?

I don't.

The thing is, I don't really care, at this point, how I'm going to die.

What I care most about is today. I care a little bit about tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. I care about the people God has given me to love. I care about my dog and our house and the pansies that I just planted. I care about serving as a pastor faithfully. I care about matters of justice and fairness. I care about beautiful music and art and books that are well-written. I care about taking walks that are good for me.

And not one of these things has anything whatsoever to do with caring about how I die. I'll die...someday. But what is that to me today, other than motivation to live life today?

Turns out, Jesus knew what he was saying when he said this: "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today" (Matthew 6:34). Each day does have enough, and more than enough.

And that is just enough.

17 Things I've Learned in 17 Months

Hello.

I'm back.

It's been about 17 months since I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, and so, to get back into the swing of things, here are 17 things I've learned in those 17 months:

1. I can manage the disease. It's not always easy or fun or what I want to do, but I can manage this disease. It takes discipline. It takes medication. It takes mindfulness.

2. I'm a diabetic every day. Yes, every single day. On your birthday. On my birthday. On holidays and at funeral receptions. At church potlucks and Bible studies. When I make good choices and less-than-good choices. I'm a diabetic every day.

3. And that means I don't get a free pass some days. I've been on diet plans where I could "save up" my calories for later in the day, like for a big birthday dinner or a party. But diabetes doesn't quite work that way. If I try to do that now, I'm in real danger of my blood sugar being way too low, and then, when I splurge, way too high.

4. But sometimes I can splurge...a little. I'm still learning what a little splurge looks like, as opposed to the huge blow-out splurges I used to do. I'm still learning to limit the splurging, but one thing I've noticed is that I appreciate the little splurges much more than ever before in my life.

5. Diabetes comes with lots of baggage. LOTS. I've written about this baggage before, and that it often comes packaged in seemingly helpful tidbits of advice from others. They mean well (VOMIT). However, what they don't realize with one little comment is that it often is triggering in me some sort of response that goes way, way, back - before diabetes. It often goes back to childhood or teen years.

6. And years of shame are hard to let go of. Years of shame inform many of my decisions, even now. They whisper in my ear, they hide around corners, they sneak into my celebrations and leave a pile of shit for me to step in. And then, they laugh at me.

7. But the years of shame aren't all there is. I can honestly say I'm learning this, too, and it's so liberating. The years of shame have more to do with the past than with the present or the future. As I'm learning to take better care of myself, I'm learning to focus more on the present and the future, and leave those years of shame where they belong.

8. I can run. I still feel like a whale in stretchy pants when I run, but I can run.

9. I MUST walk. No ifs, ands, or big butts about it. This has become a non-negotiable, even though lately, I've tried to let it be negotiable. Walking is great for my blood sugar - but it's also great for stress relief (also good for blood sugar) and (of course) weight control.

10. I love to walk. I got back at it tonight. I've been on the road a lot this summer, and we've had visitors here and there. My schedule has been absolutely wack-a-doodle and my evening walks have paid the price. And so has my blood sugar.

11. It's easy to backslide. I had a scare on the last day of our vacation in July. I had way overdone it on eating while we were traveling, and I hadn't balanced it with enough exercise (although I was getting some). On the day we were supposed to fly out, my blood sugar was so high, I literally felt sick. I spent the day feeling miserable - more miserable than I've felt in a long time.

12. Backsliding is scary. I was scared that I'd slid too far - that somehow, I was beyond reach of what my meds and diet and exercise could do. (That was the years of shame speaking, BTW.) I was scared because of how miserable I felt because of how high my blood sugar was. Mostly, though, I was scared because I'd let myself get there. Again.

13. Mindfulness is the key. See #2, above. I have to be mindful every day now. It is exhausting sometimes, and it really pisses me off sometimes. But each day of mindfulness helps propel me into a healthier future for myself.

14. I'm healthier now than I have been in a long, long time. There is SUCH an irony to that, isn't there? I have diabetes, but I'm healthier.

15. I'm more assertive, too. If I'm in a restaurant and something comes with three sides that are all carb-loaded, I tell them to leave one or two off the plate. If someone is pushing me to eat or drink something and my carb-o-meter is flashing red lights in my head, I decline politely (sometimes explaining why). (Yes, fruit is healthy. It's also full of carbs, and maybe my sugar is running high.)

16. Asking questions almost always pays off. If I'm at my doctor and I don't understand something, I ask. If I'm at a restaurant and I need to know what's in something, I ask. I check food labels to answer the how-many-carbs question that's always rattling around in my head. Where diabetes is concerned, information is power, so ask questions and get answers for yourself.

17. I'm not alone. I have so much support - from other diabetics and those who know nothing about diabetes. From family, friends, parishioners. From people I know on the internet (HI!). The best thing I can do, it seems to me, is to offer my support to others who are dealing with diabetes and trying to do the best they can.

That's a lot to learn. And I'm still learning...and that is OK with me.