Cause and Effect

For those of you who may not know, or have forgotten, I live with type II diabetes.  Though it is a condition that "runs in my family", up one side of the family tree and down the other.  It is a condition that I could have likely avoided, or at least postponed further if I had made better decisions in regards to my health.

As I awaken this morning I did my glucose monitoring test and found by blood sugar level to be 123.  This is not an alarming number by any means, but it is 15 points or so higher than my current norm.  Why is it higher this morning?  Cause and effect, plain and simple.  Yesterday I made poor choices, and today those choices manifest themselves in my blood sugar reading. 

When you live with chronic conditions such as diabetes it is crucial to your long term health to understand your illness, and how to manage or control it.  Even when you have a solid understanding of your situation it is easy to fall to the seduction of the forbidden fruit.  In the life of the diabetic one of the the primary challenges is diet.  As someone who thoroughly enjoys food, maintaining complete control of my diet is practically impossible.

Cause and effect.  Eating pasta and breadsticks for dinner at 7:30, followed by a Krispy Kreme doughnut two hours later is wonderful on the tongue, but terrible on the glucometer, and the scales were unkind as well this morning.  The real danger is not in the short term aberration in the blood sugar level, but in the establishment of habits where these poor decisions become routine.  It is in our habits that the hemoglobin A1C levels are set measuring our long-term level of blood sugar.  It is in this level over time that damage can ensue.

Cause and effect.  What is the danger of longer term elevation of blood sugar level?  There are many, I see the examples daily as I go to the office.  In  extreme cases it may be the loss of limbs due to infections or the unrelenting routines of dialysis for those whose kidneys no longer function as is necessary to sustain life.  More common are those who have suffered strokes or lost most, if not all, of their vision.  Diabetes is bad, and uncontrolled you can see that it is really bad.

Bad is something that can be said for several other common conditions as well, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and being overweight or obese.  Here are some links to investigate related to various afflictions:

Mayo Clinic - Diabetes Diagnosis and Treatment

Mayo Clinic - Top 5 Lifestyle Changes to Improve Your Cholesterol

Cleveland Clinic - Weight Management: Special Procedures and Treatment

CDC - Blood Pressure Fact Sheet

It is not my desire for this week's piece to be a downer, but rather to be a wake up call.  Recognize that the decisions we make have an impact.  That impact is different for each decision we make, but the key thing is to know that we have a great deal of control over the future of our health, even if we are afflicted with a chronic illness. 

You might be asking, what does this have to do with my faith?  This is Workout Your Faith isn't it?  Yes this is Workout Your Faith, and yes it does have something to do with our faith.  Two things actually. 

1. The first thing this has to do with our faith is when we are not at our best physically, mentally, or emotionally, then we will have difficulty serving others which is a calling card of our faith.
2. The other thing that is a direct application to our faith is that the same principles apply to our tastes for sin.  God has immense grace to cover our sin, but he does not want to us make those poor choices and dabble with sin.  We must recognize there are consequences that result from our choices.

Life is all about cause and effect.  Decisions influence outcomes.  Make better decisions today and live better tomorrow.  These are a few ideas of how to MAKE TODAY GREAT!