Composting your Troubles

Last week was not so great, and it has yet to end. My heart is breaking right now, and yet I'm functioning. I think that God gives us enough for the journey (I really hate that word, but it fits here), and gives us special gifts along the way, because God knows how we need rest and joy and hope.

Sometimes I think about my diabetes in this way. I struggled with eating and compulsive exercising for a very long time. I was all or nothing; there was no middle-ground, no healthy behavior. It was extreme on both ends, and it was bad for me.

Diabetes has given me a reason to slow down and take care of myself, to stop long-distance running, and to  stop living on oatmeal and skipping meals. That's what grace means to me: God giving us gifts to help us work with what we've got, to keep us walking when we'd otherwise fall down in the dust from the weariness.

My whole life has probably been that way, and sometimes something hits me in a new way, and I see God in something I never saw God in before. God's grace helps me extend grace to others, to see that we are all weary travelers, and we're all just doing the best we can.