“Hello?” I answered the phone. The other line was quiet for a second.
“Hi, is Tami Nook available?”
“Sure, just a second,” I answered politely. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“Oh, hello, Makayla. This is Carolyn from Minnesota.”
My heart stopped. I had been waiting for over three weeks to hear the results from my first allergy test blood panel. I knew the results were not what the doctors had expected, simply by the slow, motherly voice across that long wire.
“Here she is,” I replied as I tried to keep a positive attitude. Maybe it’s not really that bad, I thought to myself. Maybe she simply has a little cold.
“No, no, no! That can’t be right. Did you check it again?” I heard my mom trying to keep quiet in the hallway. “But that’s all she’s been eating. That’s in everything... Okay. Okay, we’ll talk to her... Yes... That would be good... Okay, thank you for your help... bye.” She hung up the phone and sat there. I was too scared to walk over and ask what Carolyn had said. Part of me didn’t want to know. The other part was consumed with a desire for answers. I gave my mom a concerned look; she had tears in her eyes.
I grew up like a little princess. When I wanted someone to come over, they usually came. When I wanted to go somewhere, we usually left. When I wanted attention, someone usually gave it to me. I thought the world revolved around me, and I ignorantly believed that for a long time. People always say, “ignorance is bliss,” but, honestly, ignorance is plain ignorance. The past few years, God has used situations in my life that I was so sure I had control over to show me where I still needed to surrender to Him. I’ve given my college plans to Him, and I’ve given my future relationships to Him. But, I’ve never given Him the small aspects in my life - my diet. This past year has been a challenge. Through being diagnosed with twenty-eight food allergies, along with environmental allergies as well, God has pushed me to rely on Him through even some of the easiest tasks in life - eating.
When we finally understood that my health issues were related to the foods I was eating, my parents tried every solution they could to try and figure out exactly what was bothering me. We found a specialist, and we traveled to Minnesota for testing with my best friend, Emily. That helpless feeling of waiting in the doctor's office was almost excruciating, knowing that I would have to have blood drawn from that evil little tube was worse, but, by far, waiting three weeks for answers topped it all. That phone call, and receiving those results from my first specialist appointment in Minnesota, I was completely terrified. Imagine having the 24 hour flu... all the time. That was what my food allergies were like - every day.
I was disrespectful. I was selfish. I was immature. I finally reached the point where I didn’t even want to eat. I didn’t want this ‘so-called blessing’ from God. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to eat a piece of pizza. I wanted my life back, but God had a different plan. He had this awesome idea with which to show me what reliance on Him in every aspect of my life really meant. I became upset every time someone would come up and ask me why I wasn’t eating the same food as them. It’s not like I was angry at them, I simply did not want to talk about it. I wasn’t comfortable with the way God had made me, and that was a problem. I needed to learn how to deal with my life... all over again.
I realized that I needed to simply turn to God. I needed to ask Him what to do next, because I didn’t have the answers anymore. The question I asked myself: What am I supposed to do with my life now?
There’s a problem with the question though. I knew that my purpose in life was to bring glory to God in all I did, but how was that solution actually supposed to be applied to the problem in my life? Obviously, thinking only about myself was not a way to glorify God, so, again, the problem I encountered was: how am I supposed to bring glory to God?
Colossians 3:1-17 talks about the changes that a new man in Christ should have. It tells us, in verse eight, to put of “anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, [and] filthy language.” I understood that those vices were wrong; I knew that to be true. The problem was the same as someone how someone would not go take a shower, clean up, and leave the house without new clean clothes on, we must PUT ON the new self! Verses 12 and 13 of Colossians 3 say that we need to put on humility, meekness, longsuffering, and forgiveness. We should think of, care for, and forgive others rather than thinking of ourselves as an idol. Verse 14 says, “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” Loving others is the most important command! I had finally learned how to start putting off anger against others, but I needed to learn how to put on love. I could never officially ‘move on’ and accept this trial if I was focused on myself. I needed to focus on loving God and loving others.
1 Corinthians 13 talks about what true love really entails. Verses 4-7 say:
“love suffers long and is kind, love does not envy does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Love is selfless; love has no desires of its own. Verse 14 says, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Though we can glorify God through having faith and hope, LOVE is the greatest! To show love to the people around me, even the children that annoyed me so much at camp, I had to learn to be patient, kind, humble, and selfless. Matthew 22:37-39 says, “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” If I was loving God, then loving others would never have even been a problem! It shouldn’t have mattered if I had lost my family in a fire, had a loved one die of cancer, or lose my belongings to a natural disaster - my eyes should’ve been on Christ! It shouldn’t have mattered when God let my body be changed so that I couldn’t eat, and it still shouldn’t matter now.
I always thought that the world revolved around me; I was the most important person on this planet. God has showed me that HE should be the most important aspect in my life. He sent His Son to die for the sins of the world, and in return, all He asks is for our faith, hope, and, most importantly, our love for Him and for our neighbors. It doesn’t matter the trials that we struggle through, because God promises to always be right alongside us. God had, and still does have, a plan through this trial of food allergies in my life, and, somehow, this struggle will only make me more like His Son, Christ Jesus.
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