Allergic To Communion
When Life Complicates Your Faith
In the fall of 2012 I returned from my empowering summer in Europe full of wide-eyed wonder. The world had just been opened to me, and it tasted good.
It tasted of herb-drenched pizza, creamy pasta, soft bread with crispy crusts, flakey biscotti and dark beers on repeat. It was dense, it was rich, it was the last time I would ever enjoy these delicacies.
I inherited the beautiful autoimmune disorder that is Celiac Disease. This hereditary gene that was always present, but remained mostly hidden for all of my life, was triggered by that summer of gorging. Essentially I overdosed on wheat. My unbridled gluttonous spree forced me into permanent glutenless existence. (Etymologically speaking, there has to be a connection between Gluten and Glutton, right?)
The end of the World As I knew it
This diagnosis was the first of many major changes that would immediately unfold in my life.
In many ways the world I knew ended in the summer of 2012. I had my first major break up, my family began unravelling beyond what I knew I could fix, and I was raped. In response I spiraled, causing an additional wealth of hurt that I need not honor with words. I graduated college feeling more ostracized from the world and my faith than I knew was even possible.
As shallow as it sounds, one of the worst parts was that I couldn’t even drown my sorrows in Cinnabons or any of my normal comfort foods. I had lost my grip on any kind of familiarity or comfort.
I grew up in a family that was earnestly involved in church. I attended Fall Harvest Festivals instead of Trick-or-Treating, and I willingly let this religious tide carry me all the way to Bible College. I felt like I was part of the inner circle of this faith community, and I felt like I belonged.
Then I became allergic to Communion.
The Breaking of Bread
For those of you who have not participated in Communion, it is a religious sacrament established by Jesus for his followers. Simply put, it is a ritual practiced so that believers may pause and remember the sacrifice God made for us by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. This is done in a community of others and helps us to physically interact with and meditate on what is the core of our faith. To symbolize his sacrifice, Jesus broke bread with the disciples.
Bread broke me, so what happens when I cannot “do this in remembrance” of Him with the rest of my church community? What does it mean for Jesus to be the “Bread of Life,” but I can’t eat this bread anymore? (Just some food for thought.)
Yes it’s true- there is gluten free bread. I can still eat “bread,” but it’s not very convenient. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel “special,” or “high maintenance,” or immediately cliché for having this allergy.
Coincidentally it was during this season of discovering that I couldn’t eat bread, that my life's additional pain made me feel like I couldn’t commune with God. There was a separation- a reaction anytime I was in His presence.
How Things Used To Be
I still played church, I still ran through the motions. After all, Christianity was so tangled up in my upbringing and my identity that I didn’t know how to completely abandon it like I thought I wanted to.
No matter what church I was at, or whom I was with, I felt an internal barrier so impenetrable, so strong that I oftentimes felt nauseous. All I wanted was to go back to how things used to be. I wanted to lose myself in worship, to live a life of wonder and awe, trusting innocently in our Creator. As much as I wanted the Bread of Life, I could no longer digest it.
As anyone with an allergy will tell you, after that initial lifestyle change, you don’t really even think twice about not being able to eat certain things. This has been the truth for me over the last few years. Only just recently have I felt angry again that I can’t have cake batter ice cream, and that Guinness will never again coat my pallet with its frothy goodness.
Simultaneously I’ve felt angry with God. The questions pulsed through my brain:
Why can’t I force myself to believe that You are good without jaded doubt weighing down my hope?
Have I seen too much that I will never authentically trust You again?
Will my soul ever stop instinctively apologizing for You and Your church where I used to feel safe?
In my soul I was craving things that I could never have again. At least not in the ways I was used to.
Awkwardly Cut Off
After getting married, my husband and I explored a new church, and at the end of the service they offered Communion. I chuckled to myself- here it goes again. I’m unintentionally and awkwardly cut off from this universal observance, and therefore I’m subconsciously reminded of my present estrangement from this body of faith.
Life has happened to me, and I have been changed as a result. I cannot deny that nor can I reverse it. Looking back, I'm not even sure I would want to.
For a while this meant that Christianity made me flat out sick. I rejected it without any control. All the while I felt the simple truths I learned in Sunday School dragging up tears up from the back of my throat. The glory of the Gospel is that I can say with gusto that I am broken. But not beyond repair, and certainty not beyond God’s ability to meet me in my pain.
I cannot digest God in the same ways that I have in the past. I'm so thankful that instead, I have had to learn how to connect to him in a way tailored particularly for me and my scar tissue. I’m beyond the days of digesting wheat bread, but I can still devour rice bread and coconut flour pancakes and almond flour cupcakes. My walk with God is not as easy as it once was, but he has not abandoned me in this journey.
Change hurts
Wherever you’re at in your life journey, hear me when I say this: things change and change hurts. It is an awe-full adventure that leads you down paths of growth and redemption. You may find yourself allergic to old familiar ways, but there are always other opportunities; options that you might digest with greater ease.
Press on and acknowledge your ailments with mercy and grace. Don’t force what will not settle, and for Heaven’s sake, do not settle for what you must force. There is a God that weeps when you weep, and he will meet you in your pain.
Take ownership of your current woes in ways that will help bridge the gaps that others simply cannot. Pack your own gluten free crackers on Sundays, so to speak. Others cannot help you if you do not take time to learn yourself and what is triggering your pain.
Most of all allow the allergic reactions you have to spiritual things, the elements that sting from damage done, to remind you that there are many others out there dealing with their own hidden bruises and barriers. They just might need your love and patience in their process as well.
Epilogue
It was 2016 when I first wrote this blog. Since then I have joined a church, imperfect as all human-run organizations are, but fiercely intentional. As I built relationships, people learned I couldn't take Communion, even if I brought my own crackers, because the wine was cross contaminated. The first Sunday that the staff hoodwinked the Congregation into taking Communion with gluten free bread I cried and cried. This is the closest experience I've had to understanding what it meant for the veil of separation to be torn as Jesus uttered, "It is finished."
Never underestimate the power of meeting someone where they're at, in all their fears and fractures. Simple acts change complicated things. I believe that is what Jesus envisioned when he broke simple bread, symbolizing complicated things, and said, "Do this in remembrance of me."
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