There are no words that can adequately describe the feeling I had, the first time the doctor told me, “Your blood sugars are normal” I couldn’t wait to test out my new pancreas. For the first time that I can remember, I was able to drink regular soda, not diet. I was able to eat cake and pie with no change in my blood sugar level.

    I was 2 years old when I was diagnosed with diabetes. The only life I knew up until that time was what I wasn’t allowed to eat. While all of the other children ate popsicles, cake or candy, my treat was celery with peanut butter or cream cheese. The discipline of a diabetic diet was not where I experienced the most freedom. I experienced the most freedom in my day-to-day living activities. I did not realize how much bondage I was in by doing all of the activities that I had to partake in just to be “normal.”

      I no longer had to wait to eat. Or stop an activity to eat. When I decide to eat a meal I no longer have to count the carbohydrate exchanges and adjust an insulin pump. I no longer had to watch the clock and get home to do a dialysis treatment. I no longer suffered from low vision. So I have a driver’s license and can go where I need to go. These were freedoms that my mind could not entertain while I was faced with the obstacles of blindness, kidney failure and diabetes.

   Sometimes we get so caught up with what we are experiencing, we miss the promise. Each one of us has a right to be free. Some of us are bound to debt, so we are in bondage to a job we don’t like. So to numb the pain we drown our sorrows in drugs, alcoholism, spending money we don’t have, or sex. The words of our naysayers ring in our ears. Someone we trusted violated that trust by destroying our self-esteem and they’re condemning words haunt you to this day. “You’ll never make it”, “You’re a failure”, “Nobody’s ever going to love you.”

   Let me remind you that “You can and you will overcome”. I know this because God did it for me. He is not a respecter of people and what He does for one He will do for another. When Adam and Eve committed the first sin, God told our adversary the devil that He was going to send His son. God desires a relationship with you so much that He gave His Son as a sacrifice. He wants you to walk in the garden with Him again. Come join Him and experience a freedom that you never knew existed. I did, and let me tell you, it’s incredible.