Communion

For those who aren't aware, the hubs and I currently attend two churches--we alternate every week. We're still praying and trying to figure out where God wants us permanently.

(I say "we're"--I mean, J is praying....I'm trying to pray, but my attitude keeps getting in the way. I'm working on it.)

BUT two churches means double the communion services. I usually enjoy the communion services, but it seems like I've been in an awful lot lately. "My" church does communion once a quarter. J's church has communion the first Sunday of the month. In all the months we've been attending both churches, we've only hit on his church's communion service once about a month ago.

But last Sunday, at my church, was communion.

Then this Sunday, being the first Sunday of the month, we did communion again at J's church. I think Easter threw us off somehow because now we're on track to hit J's church again at the first of next month.

Ok, I grew up Baptist. The order for the communion service was, we pray, then the crackers get passed out first, the pastor says a word from Scripture then says "Let's take together" and we all eat the cracker. Repeat for the wee cup of Welch's.

So about a month ago, my first experience at J's church went a little differently. They're Church of God and a bit more....enthusiastic....about things than us Baptists. Not that I mind. Us Baptists need a little more oompf most of the time.

Having worked at LifeWay for too long several years, I knew there were these convenience packs of communion wafer and juice together....

...and that the concept was pretty simple. The execution during the church service, however, was a little quicker than I'd expected.

Suffice it to say, I missed whatever verbal cue there was to open the top of the wafer and eat it, then immediately drink the juice. If there was a prayer, I'd missed it while admiring the tidy little packaging that I'd sold for so many years, but had never actually been handed in church. So I quickly stuffed the wafer in my mouth and immediately wanted to spit it out. Bleck! It tasted like plastic (sorry Celebration Cup, but it's true). The hubs looked at me funny. I guess I made a weird face. The juice tasted like typical juice, but then I got to wondering....

...how many carbs are in that??

I understand the symbolism of the elements being the body and blood of Christ.

But I'm also trying to take better care of my temple. I've stopped drinking soft drinks. I've quit anything with aspartame and fake sweeteners and I'm trying to limit my HFCS intake to as little as possible. Juice is medicine, not breakfast. Also, what kind of preservatives are in those prepackaged coffee creamer-shaped buckets of spirituality? (They have a shelf life of 6 months. Short, as shelf-lives go.)

An 8 oz serving of Welch's grape juice is 42 grams of carbs. How much of that juice does a communion cup hold? No idea. Half an ounce maybe? A quarter?

Maybe a quarter of an ounce. Those things are pretty tiny. So, that would be about 1.3 grams of carbs (42 grams divided by 32), plus whatever is in the wafer or cracker. Probably 1 gram. So communion = 2.3 grams of carbs. Enough to take insulin for? Not really.  

Enough to raise my blood sugar outside of the range I want it in? Maybe. My insulin correction factor (ICF) is 40. Meaning 1 unit of insulin will bring my sugar down 40 points. So it depends on what my sugar is to start with. By that time of day (usually the end of the church service = noonish) my breakfast (if I managed anything other than just coffee) is about worn off, the tummy is ready for lunch and my sugar could already be dropping....or it could be rising. Do I want to take a minute in church, pull out my meter, test, and bolus for communion? Not really.

Should I? Probably, if I want the tighter control I've been dreaming of.

This Sunday, when the tray came around, I admit, I was seriously tempted not to partake. The girl beside me passed it up. But there's kind of a social stigma surrounding that as well.

Just another example for all you Nons out there of how diabetes infringes on everyday life and wreaks havoc in places you least expect it.

The Baptist Faith and Message by the Southern Baptist Convention (the affiliation I'm closest to, even though I'm not entirely committed to them) explains the Lord's Supper this way:

The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.

I've been participating in communion since before diabetes diagnosis....but I've only been really trying to handle the diabetes for about 3 months now. I know there's bound to be struggles as I figure it out. Yesterday afternoon, as I was pondering this, a verse popped into mind. Philippians 2:12-14 says (NKJV):

"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing,"

Will the little bit of juice and cracker hurt me? Not really. Mentally, it's not quite the same as it was though--an extra effort that non-d's will never worry about. But like the SBC's statement above, it's about obedience. And obedience to God cannot backfire on you.
Now to work on verse 14 above and start taking communion without complaining, focusing on the obedience aspect, rather than the taste of the cracker or whether there was a prayer or not or what everyone else around me is doing.

I'm also entering an alarm on my phone to remind me on July 1st that it's communion Sunday and to be prepared to test my sugar in church before the tray is passed....