You know when you’re sitting somewhere doing something and all of the sudden you get a craving? That’s been me. I crave food…mostly because I’m not eating a whole lot these days. But they question always arises when I say I’m craving something: “are you hungry?”

This time, the craving was for Golden Grahams. I can’t remember the last time I had Golden Grahams. I can barely remember the last time I had cereal. (I think it may have been October.) I texted a friend my need for Golden Grahams and the question came “are you hungry?”. My response was: I don’t know if I’m hungry. My stomach hurts but I don’t know if it’s regular pain or hunger pain.

I followed up that conversation with a trip to Walmart to get me some Golden Grahams and as I was heading towards the cereal aisle thoughts started flooding my head. I want pickles and bacon and peanut butter jelly sammich and spaghetti and meatballs…and then it hit me, I’M HUNGRY! Those are the thoughts that hungry people have. Hungry people that go to a grocery store and want everything in sight.

I fed my hunger and my craving with Golden Grahams. It was sooooooooooo good. The blood sugars didn’t like them, but boy, I sure did.

The snow was falling and at one point there was a beautiful layer on the ground, but the winds picked up and ruined the layer of snow. They swept it this way and that way. Building up spots and destroying others. Leaving vacancies and voids in it’s wake. You could see the shadow of the wind as it picked up the snow. It was like a black gas sweeping over the area, this way and that way. It made me think about how even the best laid plans can be ruined by something unexpected.

I had great plans when I started this year, seeing my doctor every six weeks to help me stay on track with my numbers. What I didn’t expect was severe stomach issues that were going to hinder the digestion of my food that would in turn have a bad effect on my blood sugars that would inevitably push me into push me into ruin because when the going gets tough with diabetes, I have a tendency to cop an attitude (a massive attitude) and throw in the towel.

Once I throw in the towel, whatever was happening has come to ruins. The unexpected puts holes in my (im)perfect little world, it moves things out of place, problems build up and we no longer have a pretty picture…we have…holey snow…batman…

But there’s always that one piece of coolness that accompanies ruin, like the black shadow of the wind…the one cool thing right now with my stomach is looking forward to radioactive eggs, the hope of glowing, the possibility of super powers…

So much of life is unclear, we cannot see start to finish. But then, if we could see start to finish would we want to go through life that way. Would we want to know everything that was going to happen and walk through it like drones. I don’t think so, even God didn’t want us to walk through life as drones. That’s why He gave us choice. We don’t always know where we’re headed in the long run, but one thing is clear, and that is the present.

When we look at life at a higher level we can also see life at a lower level. The unclearness of life trickles down so much lower, into the everyday things we experience.

Diabetes is unclear. I’ve got the clear, more like a clearing, a heading, a direction I need to be pursuing. Tight diabetes control. It is clear that I need that. What is unclear is how I get there. I’ve got an outline, a general heading, I have a general idea of where the obstacles are, but I can’t see through to the end. I can only see what I’m closest to…the here, the now, the present. This moment.

I have a hard time living in the moment. I’m a forward thinker. I’m always thinking of the next thing. Okay, not always, I have my moments of spontaneity. But mostly, I’m thinking forward. I think the worst place I do this is with the D. With the exception of my anger and frustration, I’m not in the moment with it. I see a high and I think about how it’s gonna affect my A1c. I see a low and think about how it’s gonna affect whatever I wanted to do. The future is unclear, and it’s unclear because of the present. We can’t predict and control what’s going to happen in the future, we can only control what’s happening now.

I know that I need to clear my vision and focus on what’s happening right now…and, it’s a hard task to do that, but it’s what I have to do or everything is always going to be unclear.

Sometimes we have to let loose and do the unexpected. It makes life more interesting and sometimes more fun.

We’ve grown up in a manner that we’re set in our ways. We’ve done things throughout our lives that establish patterns and so there is always something “expected” of us. If we deviate, it sometimes throws things into chaos and other times, the unexpected can make things so much better.

The unexpected happened when I was babysitting my friend’s three boys. They came home from school and immediately disappeared to the backyard. They so quickly disappeared that I was like “where’s the boys”. Within a few minutes they came tromping into the house for a snack. Their jeans were covered in mud but they had the biggest smiles on their faces. When they went back outside they asked me to watch them. They took their tonka trucks up the hill in their back yard, planted their butts in the bed of the truck and came flying down the hill. They’d put their feet out to stop themselves before reaching the wall. Sometimes they’d launch from the truck when they hit the wall and fly a little before hitting the ground.

Then they asked me to join them. I looked at them with a raised eyebrow and the excuses started “I’m too big for the truck…I can’t sit in it”. Then the memories rolled in. Several years ago when the middle child was little and the youngest wasn’t born yet we used to go down the hill in the wagon. The only difference was that back then there wasn’t a wall that we could fall off of.

I eventually grabbed a truck and started heading up the hill. When I got up there and sat on the truck I said “what the heck” and quickly laid on it with my belly knowing full well that if I didn’t stop before I got to the wall I was gonna get royally jacked.

The boys and I must’ve spent 2-3 hours outside with those dump trucks going up and down the hill. It was a blast. There was some bruising and some scrapes but no one was complaining or whining. Doing the unexpected was awesome.

You’re probably wondering…how does this related to diabetes…that was almost a hard question to answer, but then it came to me… it’s not so much about us people with diabetes doing the unexpected (I mean, sure we can, we can do something our doctor didn’t tell us to do and shock them when we show up for our next appointment, like logging our numbers) but I think there’s greater room for the people in our lives to do the unexpected.

For example:

We expect that if we have dessert you’ll ask “should you be eating that”. Do the unexpected by sitting down and having some dessert with us.

We expect you to think that diabetes can be managed by a book…the same method for everyone. Do the unexpected by not telling how to do something but asking us how we handle that situation.

We expect you to get concerned when we slack off from our care…Do the unexpected by not expressing that concern and realizing that every now and then, a little vacation can go a long way.

We expect that you are most likely confused about the differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes (as media breeds this confusion). Do the unexpected and either ask us a question about something you heard or do a little extra digging and find out if what you heard relates to the type of diabetes we have before you go rambling about something like…oh I dunno, the most common one “diet and exercise can help get you off your medications”.

If you’re a person that doesn’t have diabetes but you know someone that does, there’s a lot of little unexpected things that you could be doing that could really put a smile on a that person with diabetes in your life face

I’m a female, I have emotions. I don’t like that I’m emotional, but I am. It comes with the territory. I have diabetes, that makes me emotional. Not only does the condition make me emotional, but the blood sugars can cause emotions to run high as well. And then there’s the normal life events that make me emotional.

Today, it is the sad execution of my dog. My friend. The one being on earth that loves me unconditionally. He’s been going down hill for a long time now, over the past year or so. Two weeks ago he went to the vet to get a sticker pulled out of his infected foot and blood tests were done. We found out his kidneys were failing and his thyroid was shot. The poor thing was going blind and deaf and was peeing everywhere.

I argued for months that he was peeing everywhere because he was pissed at my parents. I argued that he wouldn’t ever pee in my room. My room was the only room he hadn’t peed in until last night. What’s worse is it’s very much my fault that he peed in my room. I left the room to run my bath water and closed the door behind me. I heard him scratching on the door and I didn’t rush to get to him. He peed on my floor. It was the last straw. Mom was done with him. She said he had to live out the remainder of his days in his kennel. That is no existence for any creature, it’s like putting someone in a nursing home for the rest of their days. It’s sad.

This morning my mom called me for something and I asked what it would cost to put Dominic down. She said she’d call and get a quote. A quote was all I was expecting. She didn’t have money, I didn’t have money. We really couldn’t afford to have him put down. She called me back and said “we have a 10:45 appointment”. I fell apart.

This was my best friend that I asked about putting down. He’s been in my life for half of it. There will never be another creature that can live half my life…Dominic, we got him when he was a little itty bitty pup. Dad would put him in his boot on his way to bed and Dominic would peak his head over the top. This is the dog that would tolerate me dressing him up and using the doll cribs for him. This is the dog that was so smart that he figured out how to open chap stick. This is the dog that was sensitive, I had little miniature pound puppies that kept disappearing from my bed and were found in his kennel. This is the dog that made bacon out of his stuffed pig one year when he put it by the space heater. This is the dog that could’ve been a lizard if we got him a heating rock. This is the dog that for the past several years I’ve woken up to with him on my bed because dad would put him in my room before he left for work. This is the dog that knew when I had low blood sugars. He was my dog. He loved me and I loved him. When I got home from work he wanted to be with me. If I was in my room he wanted to be with me. He got sad when I left the house for work in the morning. This was my dog. We’ve had 5 dogs in my lifetime and he was the first one that I was truly attached to. Two others have died and been buried and I was sad but I wasn’t heart broken. One we had to give away, I can’t even remember being sad about him. The pup and I don’t have the relationship that Dominic and I had.

I had to fight to be with him because my mom didn’t think I could handle watching him die. But I fought that I needed to be with him and I be the last person he see because he was mine and the last thing he didn’t need to see was her or the vet.

It broke my heart to do that to him. It made me cry. A lot. I cried all day. It was sad and heart breaking. My best friend is gone. Thinking about it makes me cry. Walking into my house causes tears to well up. Looking at his rug at the end of my bed causes tears to flow.

as a side note, all the emotions are wreaking havoc on my blood sugars…

When the natural doctor gave me the slippery elm he told me to get some Recharge. He said that it would help make sure that I don’t get dehydrated. Recharge is an all natural fruit juice drink with electrolytes. I ignored what he said. I was not interested in an electrolyte drink.

Electrolyte drinks and I have a history and it’s not a good one. Gatorade and powerade have always ripped up my stomach (all by themselves, I don’t need stomach issues for them to cause issues). They just don’t sit well in my stomach and will cause me a couple days of discomfort if I drink it during sporting events. The sad thing is, events are sponsored by gatorade or powerade and because I refuse for the most part to be a pack horse while cycling or running, it happens to be what I drink. Given my history with electrolyte drinks I wouldn’t even give Recharge a chance.

One morning when I was in our health food store I stood in the drink aisle and stared at it. I stared and stared for quite some time. Finally I picked up a bottle of orange flavor and turned it to the back to see what was in it:

ingredients: filtered water; white grape, orange and lemon juice concentrates; natural flavor; sea salt; beta carotene (for color).

The ingredients looked great, there is nothing artificial in Recharge.

Next I looked at the nutrition information: there’s only 18 carbs per cup and all the sugars are natural. My skepticalness was waning. I put the bottle back on the shelf and stared at it some more…I stared and stared.

I finally picked up a bottle of lemon and a bottle of orange.

The lemon was what I tried first and I didn’t like it because I could taste too much of the white grape base that’s in each of the drinks. The orange was much better. So much better in fact that I went back for more, I got the grape and more orange. The concord grapes in the grape drink cover up the flavor of the white grape and I’m cool with that

The best part about Recharge for me, is that it didn’t upset my stomach. My stomach not being upset is a huge win.

A couple weeks ago at youth (The Influence at Church Alive) on Wednesday January 6th, Pastor Kanoa shared with us a message that Craig Groeshel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv had given.

The basis of the message was that we’re starting a new year and often we set goals and resolutions to help us change many aspects in our lives. It’s been my experience that multiple goals don’t work well, there’s a bit of overwhelmedness that accompanies the goals we set and many of them get tossed by the wayside. The message focused on the concept of focusing on less to accomplish more.

The message of course was God centric and it was really good. We discussed 4 areas of “One Things” and there were examples in the bible which was awesome. I encourage you to go and have a listen, I don’t think you’ll regret it. You can listen to it on Mevio.

What one thing do you desire from God? (Psalm 27:4 shows us where David asked God for the one thing he desired the most.)

What one thing do you lack to move forward with God? (Mark 10:21-22 showed us where Jesus told a man the one thing he lacked.)

What one thing do you need to let go? (Philippians 3:13-14 shows us where Paul tells us to let go of the past and focus on our future with God.)

What’s one promise you need to claim? (Psalm 56:9-13 shows us where David stands on a promise to get rid of the fears he faced.)

Last year I took care of the letting go of one thing. I let go of my anger towards God for letting me get diabetes. Things have improved since then a bit.

But, that’s really not what this blog entry is about. There’s rarely a time when I can’t take a snippet of a sermon and apply it to some other area of my life and when the words “One Thing” came out of Pastor Kanoa’s mouth they stuck in my head.

One Thing.

We always talk about one thing. What one thing would make [insert something here] better? What one thing couldn’t you live without? What one thing would you take to a deserted island with you? If you could visit one place before you die where would you go? If you could meet one famous person who would it be?

The problem with “one thing” is that we’re never satisfied.

Case and point:

The one thing to making me happy was getting me back on my bike. So I moved my bike into the house.

But then I was missing the magnet for my speedometer and couldn’t tell how I was doing.

The one thing to know my progress was to get a new magnet.

But then as I was riding I discovered that in all my weight loss that I’ve lost the padding on my bottom and so riding my bike hurts. BAD.

The one thing to fixing the aching bottom is to get a new seat (I’ve not done that yet).

You see, one thing is never enough, we’re not satisfied.

It’s like when we go to the doctor and we’re disappointed with our A1c and the doctor asks “what one thing can you do to help it?”

And we respond “have tighter glucose control”.

But we quickly become dissatisfied with that answer because having tighter glucose control isn’t really one thing is it?