One Bread. One Body.

1 Corinthians 10:15-17

American Standard Version (ASV)

 ¹⁵ I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.

 ¹⁶ The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?

 ¹⁷ seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we are all partake of the one bread.

When I first found that I was truly gluten intolerant the whole extent of what was to happen in life had not yet hit me. I was, truly, focused on the "poor me, I can't eat cookies, brownies and baguettes." It was a selfish focus, understandable, but selfish. As time wore on I began to find GF substitutes for some of my favorite things, although brownies were hard to come by. However, the true thing I would miss didn't become evident till this fall. 

You see, as the first time for communion rolled around after going GF I realized there would be a problem. My husband and I talked it over and it was determined that I would take a VERY VERY VERY small piece of bread to dip in the cup. And, before all you GF eaters tell me that even one crumb can cause damage, let me assure you I was aware of this. But, we were moving forward and trying to find what God would have us to do. 

Fast forward to this past fall after my fall into poison ivy. At that point my gluten free life style took a HUGE step in a new direction. It turned out that I was not only needing to eat GF, but that I did, in fact, also have a true wheat allergy. As in... wheat touches me and I break out in hives, extremities swell, etc. How did this come to light? Well, the poison ivy was bad enough, but coupled with taking communion and getting my hair colored (who know hair coloring had wheat products? Seriously!) and my body went into allergic overdrive. 13 days of prednisone, prescription strength anti-histamines (benadryl didn't even begin to touch it!), and cold wraps and sitting very very still with NOTHING touching my arms helped me to deal with the 30+ day reaction. The dermatologist deemed it a "life altering" allergy. And, her next statement... "No more communion bread for you"... really left me reeling. But, at least we knew what God wanted. 

So, I'm now going to start working on a recipe for some sort of Italian or French bread that the church can use. As I spoke with one of the elders yesterday he thought for a few hours and then suggested that his wife and I work on this. Now, knowing how expensive the flours are I suggested they not add this to their expenses when I already had so many flours (Thanks McCardle family!!!) either through gifts or purchase. 

Now I need to find a good base recipe and then work on it a bit to see how cost effective and also how suited for the purpose I can make it. I'd love to have your input. (We also have some with dairy and corn allergies in the church body, so I need to make it dairy free as well. I'm hoping the use of canola oil will work...) I think I'll start with Bette Hagman's GF flour mixes since they worked so well for the GF donuts on New Year's Day. Not sure which recipe base I'll start with though. 

So, one body... the body of Christ, the church... one bread... and that's the aim . I'd appreciate your prayers as I work through this. I'd like to have something ready to show in a couple weeks at most. I may be eating a lot of GF loaves in the next few weeks. Glad I've got some homemade jams to eat with them. 

Shalom, 

Kim