Dear Friends,

Since Hugh’s diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes, I have had a restlessness. An uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. A sense that words were trying to escape my lips, but I was squeezing my lips tight and refusing to let them free. I could not exactly tell you what those words were or why I refused to speak them. But now I know. It’s a simple word, really. A simple word that I could not utter.

Hallelujah.

In other terms, praise God.

Let me explain –

Our family was driving in the car recently when Hugh asked me what the famous movie Steel Magnolias was all about. (For those of you who did not grow up in the South, we women reference Steel Magnolias at least once a week. It’s as sacred to us as our family Bible and Junior League Cookbook.) As I was about to launch into why it was possibly the best movie of all time, I froze. What should I tell him?

Well, son, it’s a movie about a girl who has Type 1 Diabetes – like you. And a mother who loves her children more than she loves herself – like me. And well, the girl dies before her time. Because of her diabetes. And it breaks her mother’s heart.

How can I tell a 7 year old all of this?

So as I sit silently in the car, trying to think of something to say with tears streaming down my face, the song “Hallelujah” begins to play on the radio.

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord”

The lyrics begin to chase after me and I find myself silently screaming “No, no, no! I refuse to say Hallelujah. I will not, I cannot praise God for something as awful as diabetes happening to my child. My lips are closed. I will not allow those words to pass through them.”

And there it was. I had finally named it. Hallelujah was the word trying to escape and I had been fighting it for almost three years.

I wasn’t refusing to say it just for myself. I was refusing to say it for all the mothers and fathers out there who did not receive the good news they were hoping for. I refused to say it for the child who does have cancer, for the wife who just lost her husband, for the awful prognosis that a loved one only has weeks to live.

Every time I would hear someone say “Hallelujah – the tests came back negative. It’s not anything to worry about”, I would think “No, no, no. Hallelujah for you maybe. But there’s no hallelujah for the one whose test results came back positive.”

I felt that for every Hallelujah spoken into the universe there was crying on the other side. For every person rejoicing in good news, there was someone receiving bad news. When a mother would say her child was healed from a sickness, I would think about the mother whose child was not healed. It just didn’t seem right to say Hallelujah when I have seen the pain and I know the suffering.

I just couldn’t say it.

Until one day, when our family was on a hike in the mountains – a hike that we did not realize would be quite so long or quite so strenuous. As we see the end of our hike approaching and a much needed place to get warm and rest up ahead, the kids both shout out “Hallelujah!”

And it that moment, it was as if the fog had lifted and the words could finally be set free.

“Hallelujah – we made it!” I laugh with them, and as we collapse on a bench I realized I didn’t need any big hallelujahs in my life. All I needed were these moments – and I had been having them all along.

For the warm place to rest after a 3 mile hike.

Hallelujah.

For the laughter of friends around a kitchen table.

Hallelujah.

For the babies shared between arms.

Hallelujah.

For the noise of breakfast dishes and morning conversations as the jelly and syrup are passed around.

Hallelujah.

For the coffee cup and spoon set out the night before.

Hallelujah.

For the hands that still want to hold mine from time to time.

Hallelujah.

Dear friends, I am not saying that we should rush around finding Hallelujahs in everything we do and in every circumstance. I’m still not at a place where I can praise God for Hugh’s diabetes and I’m not sure I ever will be. But what I’m saying is there are Hallelujahs all around us.

We just have to wait for the fog to lift so we can see them.

As we begin a new year, friends, will you make a promise with me? Let’s promise that we will say Hallelujah for those who cannot right now. Let’s say it loud and strong, realizing that there are many around us who are squeezing their lips tight.

That’s ok. We can say Hallelujah for you until you can say it again for yourself.

The fog will lift. The words will come.

Hallelujah.

com·mun·ion
noun
1.
the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

2.
the service of Christian worship at which bread and wine are consecrated and shared.

 

The first trip Scott and I made to the grocery store after Hugh’s diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes lasted two hours. We read every label on every item we thought we needed for Hugh. Where once we could breeze in and out of the grocery store in twenty minutes, now we carefully plan and scrutinize every purchase, making our trips last much longer. It’s just another thing that diabetes controls in our life. Another thing I didn’t think about before.

Our town is big enough to have more than one grocery store, but small enough that there is always someone I can chat with when I frequent mine. And since we Southerners love to cook and eat, our grocery stores become the places where we socialize, share recipes, and swap stories.

I make weekly trips to the store and can navigate the aisles with my eyes closed. I often direct people wandering the aisles to a specific item they are looking for. They should pay me, really, for all the time I have saved their staff in helping customers. I know when the fresh produce is put out (Monday mornings), when the best time of day for sushi is (11:00), and when to avoid the canned good aisle at all costs (whenever there is a 10 for $1 sale). I know to NEVER wear yard clothes or go sans make-up to the store, as that is always the time you run into your neighbor or your husband’s ex-girlfriend or your old boss. One time I ran into an acquaintance who is an exercise and healthy lifestyle enthusiast, and I threw the first healthy thing I saw into my cart just in case she was looking – broccoli and kale salad. I had a hard time explaining that one to Scott.

Our grocery store is also a place where we cannot hide the truth. Our carts speak for us. If you look under my broccoli and kale salad, you will see sugar free popsicles and no sugar added Nesquick. You will see a list of carefully planned out meals and juice boxes for lows and protein snacks. You will see someone desperately trying to control a disease that is never controllable. You will see me clawing my way into a reality that I still sometimes don’t want to admit is there.

I once stood in line behind a couple whose cart held one loaf of bread, a package of sliced cheese, three cans of pinto beans, two kool-aid packets, and a small jar of mayonnaise. I heard the woman tell the man, “This will have to do until our next paycheck. I hope it will last.”

Our carts don’t lie. There are carts with a bottle of wine and flowers. There are carts with food stamp approved items. There are carts with soft drinks and hot dogs and chips and cookies. There are carts with plenty. There are carts with nothing.

And there we all stand, in our neat little check-out rows, with all our items and all our lives out on display. There are days I fight the urge to turn to the woman next to me and say, “My son has Type 1 Diabetes. That’s why all this is in my cart. It’s really hard and some days I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I wonder what she would say to me. “My husband recently died from cancer. That’s why I don’t have much food in my cart. I just don’t eat as much now that he’s gone.”

Or “I just lost my job. I have to provide for my kids and I don’t know where it’s going to come from. All I can afford is in my cart”

Or “I’m getting off work early today. We are having a party for my daughter who graduated. She’s leaving for college soon and I’m really going to miss her. All that is in my cart is for her.”

As I was standing in line a few days before Easter, imagining what the tired mom beside me with two little boys would say if I asked what was in her cart, it hit me. This is our communion. This is our breaking of bread and sharing of wine. Right here in the grocery store check out line.

And I have to say, if Jesus were to come back tomorrow, I think he might pick a grocery store aisle to do it. As we are pushing our carts and our lives toward the frozen food section, we pass Jesus pushing his cart toward the ice cream. And he doesn’t even have to look in our carts to know who we are and what we are struggling with. He just smiles with eyes that already know our souls and he says, “Try the Rocky Road. It’s my favorite.”

In our lives where we tend to not notice others, where we rush in and out of grocery stores and each others lives like our very life depends on saving 5 minutes of time, let us slow down and practice communion whenever we get the chance. Let us notice the ones standing in line before us and behind us. Let us be kind. Let us love. Let us allow the mom with a crying toddler some grace. Let us have patience with the loud teenager. Let us smile at the check-out clerk and the one who bags our groceries.

Let us break the bread and share the wine with not just the ones we choose, but the ones who are standing in line with us. The ones who look different than us. The ones who are happy. The ones who are sad. The ones with plenty in their carts and the ones with nothing.

After all, we don’t know their struggles, but we can see what’s in their cart.