Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. Growing up, we attended church in a variety of denominational settings: Baptist, Church of God, "full gospel", non-denominational (which is somehow its own denomination?). These were all places where, aside from Easter and Christmas, observation of the liturgical calendar simply did not exist. To me, Lent (albeit spelled differently) was something that collected in the dryer or that you got in your bellybutton if you didn't wash it. It wasn't until I discovered "high church" during my days as a college music major with a church music job that I really began to hear about and appreciate the Lenten season. Of course, I didn't fully understand it even then, as it was always painted as a time of suffering, sacrifice, and mourning. This was when you gave up chocolate or alcohol or some other wonderful thing (like french fries) and spent 40 days feeling sorry for yourself, until the glory of Easter finally arrived and you got to have french fries deep fried in lard, soaked in vodka, and drizzled in gooey melted Nutella. (And no, I don't think that really exists. Surely.) So like everyone, I always picked something that made me happy and removed it from my life for 40 miserable days. I wasn't sure what the point was except that maybe we owed that to Jesus for the suffering he did on our behalf. Jesus doesn't want me to be happy right now. Check.
But then, I heard a sermon that changed my entire view of the whole thing. This was probably the sermon I should have been hearing all along but somehow never did. (Thanks St. Peters Episcopal Church for setting me straight on this.) Lent IS a time of sacrifice, with maybe a dash of mourning, but it isn't meant to be a time of suffering and misery. The point is not to be unhappy until Easter, but rather it is to spend that time reflecting and analyzing things that have somehow taken your focus away from God. It is an opportunity to "right the ship" so to speak and remember the joy of living your life and trusting your life to the One who gave his life for you. It's so easy as we go through the year to become sidetracked. The imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday reminds us that we have mortal bodies that came from the earth and one day will return to that state. It is a time for us to recognize and appreciate the sacrifice made so that our souls will continue on in eternity. Many people choose to give something up as part of this. When you do, it shouldn't be something easy, just for the sake of giving it up, but it should be something that somehow gets in the way - for me, it is usually something that I turned to in times of stress or something that had become a crutch to deal with life, something that somehow took the place of prayer and focus. Of course, you don't necessarily have to give something up - perhaps you actually add something to your life to help bring you back into that place of equilibrium. In either case, the Lenten season should be a time of quiet joy and reflection, leading up to the ultimate celebration.
That's what I'm choosing to remember today and for the next 40 days. For me this year, it isn't about giving any particular thing up, but rather getting myself back on track so that I am taking the best possible care of myself and using that self ultimately to do good - to do God's will - in the world. In some ways, trying to be healthy can bring about its own sense of sacrifice - it's expensive to buy fresh non-crap food, it can feel like a chore to exercise, and sometimes all you want to do is lay around instead of being productive in some way. I'll get back to that in a minute.
Two years ago, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that stems from insulin resistance. I'm not diabetic, though many with PCOS eventually develop diabetes if they don't treat the problem. Insulin is a hormone, and when your body doesn't react to it, your blood sugar gets completely out of whack. When your blood sugar is off, your body tries to produce more and more insulin to correct it, and your other hormones get out of whack. In the case of PCOS, most of your hormonal issues affect your reproductive system, and things get really unpleasant really fast. It all made sense. I fit most of the symptoms pretty closely. (There's one about having thick coarse hair all over your body - mercifully, I've not had to deal with that one.) My doctor put me on a medication to help regulate my body's response to insulin production. This was going to be okay. But a number of things continued - abdominal pain and cramping pretty much all the time, to the point where it was pretty unbearable. I also felt like crap ALL the time. Fatigued, tense, restless, irritable. A real joy.
Shortly after receiving the PCOS diagnosis, I also learned that I have endometriosis, another reproductive condition affected by high levels of estrogen that makes your body create endometrium (the same stuff that lines the uterus) outside of the uterus. It latches on to stuff like your other organs, soft tissue, and even your intestines. It can cause major scar tissue, internal rupturing (yikes), and is the leading cause of infertility. There's also no way to cure it completely - even women who have all their reproductive organs removed can still have new endometrial cells form. That diagnosis was the one I almost couldn't handle. I've never been overly romantic about the notion of having babies. I'm an only child, and I turned out awesome and not rotten or entitled. I don't see any reason to have 12 million children. I also think birth is kind of gross. I've lived with "lady pain" since I was 17 years old, and I just don't think the idea of something worse than what I've already experienced is so very appealing. But that was always my choice. Now that choice felt like it was being taken away from me. And that was the hardest part for me. There's just this sense that you're damaged and maybe even a little unworthy or something. Even in today's modern society where women are allowed and even encouraged to have a life outside the home, it still seems like your worth as a woman is measured by whether or not someone wants to marry you and re-populate the earth with you. I place a lot of value on my education, my God-given talents and skills, and the support system of my family and friends - I feel incredibly blessed every single day by the opportunities those things afford me. But damn, it's hard not to feel like you suck when your ovaries are funky and covered in scar tissue. But it is what it is. The only thing you can do is try to treat it and recognize that everything is part of a greater plan. So, I had surgery to remove the endometrial cells that had already formed (they gave me awesome pain killers after), and I'll probably always be on some kind of hormonal therapy to keep myself regulated.
But in the way that I do - and getting back to the point here - I started doing my research. I read all about blood sugar regulation and hormonal regulation and how those two things are so intimately connected. Turns out that everything in your body affects something else in your body. It's like it was designed that way or something. Who knew. And if you fix one thing, you at least have a good chance at feeling more normal and getting the other stuff a little bit more balanced. So thus began my quest for an eating-living plan that would help me keep my sugar, and therefore my hormones, more regulated. (I will never call it a diet - a diet is something you "go on" which implies that you can also "go off" it. These conditions don't go away, so you have to plan to live this way forever.) I found a great one - the glycemic index is no joke. I know the foods I should and shouldn't eat, how I should pair them, and how often I should have them in order to maintain a constant balance throughout the day. Throw in some exercise and you've got yourself a plan. This is vastly oversimplifying it of course, but it has made such a difference in my life already. That's not to say that eating salad every day will cure endometriosis, but it can certainly help a person not feel the spiraling effects of all the connected symptoms of lots of sugar -> blood sugar -> insulin spike -> hormone freak out -> body unhappy -> feel like crap and get depressed -> get stressed and gain weight -> eat more sugar... Not cute. So I started this plan back in June. I feel better, I'm in much better shape, and I feel better. It was worth saying it twice. The pain and fatigue have been replaced by actually feeling stronger and more energized - and when I'm tired it's because I've earned it, not because I just feel that way no matter what. Of course, the holidays made it difficult to stay completely on track, and the past 6 weeks or so at work have kind of kicked my butt and forced me back into some of my old choices. So as I said before, I'm taking this time to focus on getting back into that routine, and knowing that by taking better care of myself, I'll
feel more like doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And in the end, I know that this isn't a sacrifice - it's me letting go of the stress and coping techniques that take my focus away and instead turning my focus around and truly appreciating and finding joy in what God has provided for me. I hope you're able to do the same. May the peace of the Lord be
always with you.
