God at work V

Since we arrived home from our vacation, I have been under the weather.

Stupid lupus.

One of my biggest struggles is to eat.  When I feel this way, food is vile to me.  Even my old stand-byes, things I can almost always eat--like bananas and kefir--trigger gagging and revulsion.  Anything with lettuce is repugnant, anything sweet turns my stomach.  Milky things, eggs, cheese, the thought of putting any of it into my mouth gives me an unnatural urge to spit.  Being gluten-free becomes a curse, as the only thing I can imagine eating is toast.  Real toast.  Whole wheat toast.

My deepest apologies.  I do not say all of this to complain.  I'm trying to develop the proper backdrop for today's story.

After three days of being able to eat very little, crowned by intense nausea yesterday, I am hungry.  Yes, I am very hungry.  My stomach gnaws and gurgles.  But the worse I feel, the less able I am to prepare something I could actually eat.  Then, the less I eat, the weaker I become, and the worse I feel.  It's a bad spiral downward.

Today I felt less sick, though.  So I decided to make gluten-free muffins.  I prayed for the strength to complete the task.

It had been awhile since I made muffins.  I finally located the cupcake liners for the muffin tin, and I was powerfully short on them.  However, as I began carefully to separate them, rubbing hard between my fingers to wrest them apart, I found that there were exactly 12.  I found exactly 6 leftover paper liners, and exactly six leftover foil liners.  As I worked through the last of the foil liners, teasing one from the next, I kept thinking I'd reached the last liner, but they kept coming, like the fishes and the loaves, until my muffin tin was filled, and then they were gone.

This seems like a provision from the Lord to me, an encouragement when I was weak, a help. It was one thing that didn't go wrong, but worked out perfectly, despite my utter lack of planning.  Such things do not happen naturally, not in my life, anyway.  God is at work, and little miracles add up to big blessings.

So for a late breakfast that was more like lunch, I ate the leftover half of my grilled chicken breast that I was unable to finish last night, two muffins with butter, and a bowl of applesauce.  Today will be a better day, and that's a good thing, because it's Jon's 20th birthday.

Also, an observation:

Most people on this earth tend to one of two types.  There are those who suffer constant guilt and feel that everything is their fault.  And then there are those who accept no blame for anything and believe that nothing is their fault.  May the Lord give us wisdom to see what we are responsible for, and to see what we are not responsible for.  May He give us peace about the things that are not ours to bear, and may He give us grace to make right the things that are because of us.  Wisdom and grace, that is what we need.  I once tried to start a blog about that.