A year ago I told a friend "I think diabetes would have been easier to accept if I didn’t have a relationship with God."
God is probably one of the biggest issues I have with my diabetes. I can’t understand why my Lord and Savior let me get it. I didn’t, don’t understand how such a loving, merciful, benevolent being could allow something like this to come upon me, something I didn’t cause, something I didn’t deserve. But don’t we all wonder that about all the bad things that happen in the world and the higher beings at power that just watch and let it be.
I have a lot of anger over it. I have a lot of pent up anger at God. He could take it away, He has that power.
I’ve always hated it when people say "everything happens for a reason". I can handle the things that happen for reasons that I caused, choices that I make. Things that happen with no assistance from me, those are unacceptable. Difficult to put my mind around, difficult to put reasons to. At least, with things like getting hit by a drunk driver, there is a known cause, an idiot was drinking and driving. But with diabetes, we don’t even know the root causes, there’s just these theories. And without a root cause, finding a cure is pretty tough. (That doesn’t make me any less hopeful for a cure though.) But right now, as I see it, diabetes happened for no good reason, no explainable reason, there’s just God’s reasoning and that may never come into the light. It’s tough to swallow.
One of my goals this year was to let go of the hate and anger I have at God and to come to terms with having diabetes. I’m on that road right now, and I often want to veer off of it, because it’s a lot of work to stay on this road and it’s far more easier to be angry and hateful. But I’m working on letting it all god, my latest revelation was when I decided that even though He can make it go "poof" it’s not on "His will to do" list. It makes it a little easier for me to handle and digest that way. It’s almost acceptable that way, but then my other issues with acceptance get in the way, like the one that says acceptance of diabetes is like admitting defeat to it, but I suppose that’s something for another day.
But for now, I’m taking small baby steps towards finding peace with God and with my diabetes, and they’re very much tied together. And with those small baby steps, acceptance may one day come.
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Courtney, this is a great post. I think it is something that many of us living with diabetes deal with. I certainly do, and have not “figured it out” yet. I guess what I often come back to is that I understand that I will often not understand God’s work. I also humbly think to myself “who the heck am I to question God’s plan for me?”.
I know, I know. Cliche and SO “heard that crap before”. But it is what it comes back to for me.
You’re often way more open and deep than I ever want to get on the internet, Courtney. Thanks for being out there.
I think I have acceptance without understanding. You seem to want to understand why you have diabetes before you accept it.
There may not be a reason. There may be a reason we don’t understand.
To me, “knowing why” is something I’ve decided I can’t do anything about. It is what it is.
Have you seen “Slumdog Millionaire”? That may seem like an odd question, even if you have seen it. Anyway, I think there were some profound things in the different ways the two brothers related to God.
Depending on your perspective, you could have seen it as pro or con religion, faith, God.
I always wish I could hold someone’s hand and lead them to acceptance, but I’m not really sure how I even came to it. I can look back and see lots of those baby steps though, things that didn’t necessarily register with me at the time as having much significance. All those little insignificant things eventually added up to something pretty great.
As for defeat, I felt most defeated, the harder I fought. It’s one of the ironies about learning to make peace with diabetes.