When you have type 1 diabetes, you don’t risk the supply chain, your access to insulin, test strips, constant glucose monitors, insulin pump supplies, glucagon, et cetera, et cetera. You play it safe. If a new job opportunity comes up, you don’t ask if it’s a good career move; you ask about health insurance. This is the normal state of affairs. People with type 1 diabetes rarely risk their health, their lives, on startups, freelancing, or mission work.
I grasped the concept when I was ten. Young, yes, but I suppose I’ve always been a thinker. I also think being diagnosed at such an early age — I was two — caused me to be a little more serious, a little more introspective, than the average kid. I had to be. There were little fingers to poke, injections to give, and food to consider.
By age ten, I understood type 1 diabetics didn’t go on the mission field, at least not the mission field found in unreached places. You couldn’t because you would die. Simple as that.
The reality discouraged me slightly, but it wasn’t, to quote Elizabeth Bishop, a disaster. It’s not as though I truly wanted to be a missionary. I didn’t feel “called” to the work. It was only that I had finished a book about Mary Slessor, a Scottish woman who served in Africa, a few months ago. She seemed like the most amazing woman ever. I wanted to be like her when I grew up.
But I couldn’t be. I had type 1 diabetes, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Growing up would not mean outgrowing it, not unless something miraculous happened.
The miracle didn’t happen. At least, not the sort of miracle that brings about physical healing. I still have type 1 diabetes. It’s fairly obvious to the person who knows a thing or two about the chronic illness—my insulin pump gives me away. If it doesn’t, the glucose meter and caution around carbohydrates does.
And yet, one could say miracles are happening. I took a risk two years ago when I started freelancing as a marketing content writer and consultant. The choice seemed like a huge risk.
It was, yet here I am, a few years later, risking even more. I’m moving toward a residency at the Austin Stone Institute. Nothing about that is certain because it’s support-based. That means I am reliant on people partnering with me, spiritually and financially.
How can I do that when I know type 1 diabetics don’t risk their lives on risky ventures? I don’t know. All I can do is point to God. He’s taken my little faith-seed and grown it into a monstrous tree. He has become greater, greater even than a chronic illness, and performed a miracle inside my heart. Because of it, I can risk everything and set aside the caution that comes with having type 1 diabetes, if only for this moment and the next.