Celiac disease was once considered a relatively rare condition when I was in medical school. Those who live with celiac disease have to be on a strict gluten-free diet, because gluten (a protein that is found in wheat, rye and barley) in the diet somehow confuses their immune systems to cause damage to the intestines. Symptoms of celiac disease include stunting of growth, diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss, and skin problems, and my early mental image of celiac disease was that of a bald, scrawny toddler with tiny bones, virtually no muscle in the arms and legs, and a bloated belly. If I ever see a child who has such an appearance, I certainly will need to rule out celiac disease. However, most other doctors who see such a child would also recognize that something is seriously wrong, and chances are that screening tests for celiac disease would have been done before I ever lay eyes on the child as a pediatric gastroenterologist.
As understanding of this condition and diagnostic tools improved over time, it is now relatively easy to diagnose celiac disease in individuals who are clinically not as ill, and even in those who appear essentially normal. While previous estimates suggested a prevalence of one in a few thousand people, it is now believed that celiac disease may actually be present in one out of every 100-200 persons. Many who have the condition (based on laboratory test results and abnormal findings on biopsies of the small intestine) appeared to have no symptoms, and were quite surprised by the diagnosis. However, some of them, like Mr. James (not his real name), the shock came only a few weeks later.
Mr. James brought his son to see me to rule out celiac disease. He explained that he himself always had stomach trouble as a child, but neither he nor his family paid much attention to it, and dismissed it as being “regular” stomachaches. Over time, Mr. James became accustomed to his frequent discomfort and disregarded it until years later, when, for unrelated reasons, he underwent an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, and was incidentally diagnosed with celiac disease. He started himself on a gluten-free diet, and within a few weeks began to feel dramatically better than at any previous point in his life. The sense of well being was accompanied by a weight gain of twenty pounds, and as I spoke with Mr. James he appeared muscular and fit. He marveled that he never knew that it was possible for him to feel as good as he did after his condition was properly diagnosed and treated, and he wished that he could have known about this many years beforehand.
Mr. James' experience reminds me of my own spiritual condition before I became a Christian at seventeen years of age. I was born of hard-working, responsible parents, and was grateful for their sacrifice in bringing my brother and me from Taiwan to the U.S. to have a better education. I studied hard, somehow managed to get straight As in high school within one semester of being immersed in a new culture and language, and rapidly became popular among my friends in the school band because I played a mean saxophone. While life was often difficult as I rarely saw my father, who mostly remained in Taiwan to support the family, and I suffered many bouts of loneliness despite being surrounded by classmates but few friends, I thought that things were going quite well overall, and had no desire or room in my heart for God. I thought that working hard, achieving success and contributing to society were the chief goals in life, that science was the answer to everything, and that God was an invention of weak minds. It was only after Jesus, the Good Shepherd, claimed me as His own that I realized that there is such greater joy and meaning to my existence when God takes the center of my life. As I come to understand and experience His creativity, righteousness, holiness, love, mercy and grace over the years, the spiritual poverty that I was living in without God has become appalling to me, and I believe that God will never allow me to ever live life in denial of Him again. Jesus gave me this assurance:
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he gas given me, but raise them up at the last day. (John 6:39)
Somehow, I have this feeling that Mr. James will never stray from his gluten-free diet.
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