Gluten-Free Dinner Redemption
How our struggles and limits can help us set a new kind of table.
“It’s so nice having dinner here…because here I know things are actually safe for me to eat!” My friend laced and unlaced her fingers together in anticipation, a radiant smile on her face.
“I’m so glad,” I said—and I meant it. But it wasn’t an easy road getting here.
It started when she was only a few days old. Brand new parents wide eyed at midnight with a screaming baby who hadn’t slept in hours because of the pain in her tummy. I sent my husband Willy out for baby gas drops at 12:30 am.
For months we experimented with my diet, removing categories of foods that seemed to trigger my baby’s extreme discomfort, until finally, when she was almost three months old, I cut out gluten too. Within days we saw the improvement—our fussy baby had become happy and content seemingly overnight.
We were careful with her diet throughout her toddler years, but by her second birthday we had added every category of food back in to our diet and hers—and all seemed well for a couple years. But then she started having fits of tummy pain and vomiting. And then, for three weeks, she threw up every day and refused to even get up to play. I knew something was seriously wrong.
“Try taking out gluten and dairy; since you know those bothered her before,” our doctor advised. And I did, and it seemed to help. Just as she had as a young baby, she seemed to go back to a state of normal for a time. But it wouldn’t last. She kept having these flares. She’d eat something on accident. There was cross contamination. An ingredient label had not been properly read. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. For two years we fought to keep our daughter healthy, but each flare up only got worse. What started as a few hours of discomfort quickly grew to a pain so severe that I would have considered taking her to the hospital if I hadn’t already known what was causing it.
I began to be afraid of leaving the house. I feared walking down the baking aisle at the grocery story because my toddler might thoughtlessly rake her hand along the flour sacks, and become sick. Birthday parties were out of the question. The stray goldfish left behind on the bleachers at the hockey rink looked to me like a minefield.
I thought I had eliminated every possible cross contaminant from her diet already, and yet still she was getting sick. I was at my wits end, and was begging God daily for wisdom on how to help my daughter be well, when the Lord kindly brought a friend alongside me who also suffered from Celiac disease. She was able to shed some light on possible contaminants I had never even considered before. Spices, bulk items, and brands that, though they claimed to be gluten-free, did not actually test their products for trace amounts of gluten.
Finally, after two long years, my daughter finally got better. I was overjoyed. I felt like I was finally breathing again after being underwater. This friend with wise eyes and wavy chestnut hair, who was standing in my kitchen and clasping and unclasping her long, narrow fingers was the reason. I couldn’t have done it without her. God brought her to me at just the right time, and now here I was, in my safe and thoroughly, truly, gluten-free kitchen, and I was able to thank her by serving her food that was safe for her to eat too because we were both living within the limits of strict dietary needs.
It wasn’t the only time, but it was the first time that I realized how this limit which I found so challenging and irksome to say the least, had become already a place of redemption and blessing in our life and in the life of someone else. I was learning to set a different kind of table. And someone who would have been afraid to share a meal with me before, now felt the warmth of my welcome.
Nowadays, I count it as an honor and a privilege that I can cook for nearly anyone, no matter their food requirements. Gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, nut allergies? I got you. I can read food labels like nobody’s brother’s business. I know which brands to trust and which ones only changed their labels because they didn’t want to miss out on the gluten-free hype. If you try to intimidate me into not cooking for you, it probably won’t work. My friends will tell you it’s true.
Of course, there are things I miss. I miss baking sour dough bread. I miss my perfectly perfected recipe for double chocolate spelt flour muffins. I miss ordering pizza.
But my prayer for wisdom for my daughter’s health was answered. And my ability to be hospitable and love people with food has been expanded, and that too is in many ways, an answer to prayer. Even if, perhaps, it was an answer to a prayer that I had not yet prayed.
The redemption of this hard thing in our lives is far from over—this I know truly when I am approached by the Mom at the child’s birthday party, who doesn’t know me at all, but has heard that I am the mom with the gluten-free kid. She comes to me for advice because her child too is struggling, and she doesn’t know where to begin.
“Ask me anything,” I say. “I’m your girl.”
As a family, we have these limits, and it’s hard. The mental load of cooking nearly every single meal from scratch is heavy. The need to memorize brand names and hidden ingredients and weigh risk factors weighs on me. I’d be lying if I said I don’t sometimes wish I could go back to the blissful days of eating out and ordering pizza, especially after a tough day as a mom with five little kids.
But more than that, I am grateful for the opportunity to set a different kind of table, to serve different kinds of people than I ever would have otherwise. Our struggle has become for us, a place of ministry—and that is a beautiful thing.
Oh Grace, I think I could have written this whole post! It was me, not my kiddos that first sent us down the crazy diet, label reading fiend, path, and now 6 years later I forget how overwhelming it was at the beginning. But there’s definitely a grace to having the knowledge to offer other people, even when it’s still hard to miss out, and even harder to *always* be the one cooking (some days I literally fantasize about ordering pizza or takeout. And what we save on takeout we spend on GF groceries for sure... sigh). Still so grateful for the ability that the right food has to keep us mostly healthy & symptom free.