Why Vitamin D Reminds Me of Redemption

 This morning I woke from vivid and dark dreams into pain and... gratitude.
This is my brain. This is my brain without Vitamin D. Deprived of D I am not able to process calcium which allows me to think clearly or maintain bone and muscle integrity. Something I don't understand happens to my iron and my heart races. No amount of water quenches my thirst. I feel panicked. My skin is too sensitive. I feel like I am wearing a lead body suit. Every move wearies me.

I am so thankful.

It wasn't long ago that I thought this was normal, that everyone lived this way and I was just not as good at coping as everyone else.
I am thankful that now approximately 95% of the year I don't have to struggle with this because there are supplements I can take to stay balanced, except for around the winter solstice. I have learned many lessons from this experience and I am thankful for most of them. The others I am still working on!

Most of all I am thankful for such a graphic picture of sin and redemption.
I was born into this mess, and I didn't know the truth. People assured me I was perfectly normal, or suggested self-help techniques to elevate my mood, but the truth is that in and of myself there was nothing I could do. I didn't even know that there was a real problem because I was right in the middle of it all and I had experienced nothing else.
That's the way sin is too. I was born into it, suffering from it, but unconscious of the source of my need and the answer to it. Miraculous rescue had to come from outside of myself when all I had earned was death and destruction. Praise be to my Savior!

Since Vitamin D is a tiny little example of the grace of the incarnation to me, maybe being weak during the advent season is not such a bad thing after all.