God once spoke the clearest word to me. It was a defining moment. It was permission. It was direction. It was promise of hope, of better days.
That word was ADOPTION.
When I was told I had type 1 diabetes nine years ago, I was elated and crushed, simultaneously. I had been sick for a year and a half. Diabetes stole. It mocked. It taunted. It confused. It teased.
I was emaciated, depressed, and hopeless.
While curled up on a hospital bed, barely listening to a diabetes nurse educator talk to me about counting carbohydrates and injecting insulin, I was just me: broken and sick. My tiny frame was covered by an oversized hospital gown. I was covered in wires and tubes and bruises and anger.
But when the conversation turned to family-building, when the nurse asked me if I planned on being a mom, everything changed.
As she went on to talk about diabetes and pregnancy, a word popped into my mind. A word that changed the trajectory of my life.
God spoke.
I listened.
As I spend this month thinking about my disease and its mysteries and intricacies and tricks, as I think about how far I've come, as I think about the surprising gifts my disease has given me, I notice glimpses of color. Quiet reminders of how God has used my diagnosis to bless me, change me, teach me.
It's the veggies left on a highchair tray.
It's the ballerina twin-size sheets on top of the laundry heap.
It's the beads in my girls' hair.
It's the scraps of construction paper strewn about, a project half-completed, and abandoned, all in the name of creativity and childhood adventures.
Reminders of how God sent a rainbow after the rain. A promise. The flood was bad. Devastating. Seemingly endless. But the rainbow came---gloriously, brightly.
Where is your rainbow today, Sugars? Where has God placed color to remind you that He's there?
Thank you for sharing your beautiful story. It is always great reading someone's unique story.
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