A mushy and yet slightly textured bowl of mashed cauliflower and a box of elemental nutrition sit right next to my Bible. Let’s be frank, the average person isn’t reaching for these items on any given moment of the day and much less the early morning. Truthfully, me neither. I haven’t the choice though for the nutritional aspect. I am almost entirely dependent on elemental formula for my daily nutrition because of my disease, eosinophilic esophagitis. Say it with me EE-O-SIN-O-FIL-ICK-EH-SOF-UH-JY-TIS. I love making my kids say that. Anyway, my body attacks my esophagus when I eat most foods in response to their proteins and I have to eat simple foods with no seasoning, which has been quite the experience for an ex-epicurean and self proclaimed amazing cook. The damage in my throat and sphincters and such make it hard for me to swallow textured foods and I have to eat in very small amounts. This prevents me from getting the nutrition my body needs so I have to back up any eating with a formula made up of amino acids (broken down proteins) in order to thrive. Fun times. I went through a time before I was diagnosed where I was literally starving to death. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep from hunger and–as anyone can imagine–I was miserable and suffering immensely in a way that I had never experienced in my life before. Genuine physical suffering. So to be able to eat something and feel satiated, for me, is a gift. I welcome the mushy bowls of food and the tangy drinks. It gives me energy to do the things I need to do as a mom and wife and friend and church member. I haven’t too much energy but enough to be present and do the best that I can.

But there is a third element to this powerful triad resting on my table that took me longer to appreciate. My bible. I have always known the importance of that daily bread, reading my bible every day and getting close to the Father’s heart, feeding my spirit before the day begins. Girding up you know? I knew it but I did not live it. Where I would get up every day and make myself an egg and bacon sandwiches and a bowl of oatmeal loaded with cream and turbinado sugar and drink an overly sweet cup of tea, I surely forsook opening up my bible and feeding on and drinking up manna from the word. Some days I would, and then some days I didn’t, and the fruit of that inconsistency and negligence was ever-present. It manifested itself in a constant struggle with the same sins and the same thought patterns that kept me depressed, angry, and from consistent spiritual growth. But like that DC Talk song from my teens says, some people got to learn the hard way.

The intensity in this season is revealing so much to me. I have to think about my nutrition constantly. Eating is not easy for me anymore. I do not have the luxury of putting it out of my mind and quickly grabbing a wrap at Quick Check or ordering fries at McDonald’s. There are no quick fixes with this disease as there are no easy routes to grow spiritually. This wretched disease has taught me something about my spiritual life that I could have learned a long time ago if I had learned to submit my strong willed spiritual laziness to God. Just as I have been forced to focus on working hard to survive each and every day physically, I have to work that way to feed my soul. I cannot push it to the side and tend to it when I feel like it. I have to engage in the practice every single day of opening up my Bible and reading it–not in a religious sort of way where I think I am pleasing God and earning my way to heaven–but in a relational and longing way where I read like I drink my nutrition drink, to survive and to thrive and to get to know the heart of the father who loves me more than I have ever loved myself. In contrary, I have abused my body and my spirit terribly. And this humble triad sitting on the left hand side of my laptop has become my manna in the desert, my daily nutrition, my morning bread. What is your morning bread?