Lately I have been reflecting on bread. Prior to my coeliac diagnosis, I doubt there were many days that went by when I didn’t have bread for at least one meal. Bread was an essential source of nutrients and calories for energy for us. Since my coeliac diagnosis, we eat a lot less bread. In fact, we eat it so rarely that we don’t even have a toaster anymore. Bread used to be essential to life and for life – it sustained us. Replacing it with gluten free alternatives is expensive, time consuming, less convenient and sometimes less healthy.

As I was thinking about my changed relationship with bread, I started to dwell on Jesus’ description of Himself as the bread of life. In John 6:35, He says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Although I don’t rely on physical bread to sustain my life as I used to, I have felt challenged that I have not always been relying on Jesus, the Bread OF Life to sustain me as I used to. I have fallen into habits of relying on myself and my own strength and abilities and, quite frankly, it is exhausting. I feel the need to make time to read the Bible and to pray and to rest in God and to look to Him for nourishment that never ends and never fails and which will sustain me in my struggles. In Jesus, I find both the Bread of Life and Bread for Life.