When Faith, Sarcoidosis, and a Curious Chef Collide

I grew up Roman Catholic, and not casually either—I’m talking the full Catholic starter kit: primary school, secondary school, Irish priests with accents that made guilt sound poetic, and enough ritual to make your head spin. I was the kid who couldn’t just take anything at face value. I questioned everything: doctrine, symbolism, the geometry of halos—nothing was safe. Eventually, I won the honor of being the first student ever in the history of my high school to be kicked out of religious class for an entire term. Not for bad behavior. Not for disrespect. No, no. I was exiled for the crime of thinking too loudly and asking too many questions. If that doesn’t deserve a plaque in the hallway, I don’t know what does.

That dramatic academic banishment kicked off my lifelong love-hate tango with organized religion. I don’t follow any religion now, but I’m a deeply spiritual person in my own peculiar way. My religion is me. My church is Earth. My doctrine changes depending on how much sleep I got. I’m connected to something bigger—I just don’t believe in confining it to a single building or binding it to a single book. Spirituality fits me best when it’s breathable, not starched.

Of course, growing up Catholic means you inherit “Catholic guilt” like an unwanted family heirloom. Everything that goes wrong is immediately framed as divine punishment. Car breaks down? Punishment. You accidentally cussed? Punishment. You ate meat on a Friday in Lent by mistake? Extra punishment. So when I see other people with chronic illnesses writing, “Why do I have sarcoidosis? What sin did I commit? Why is God punishing me?” I get it. That wiring runs deep.

But here’s where I took a different path. From the moment I found out I had sarcoidosis—yes, the chronic illness that comes with its own dramatic flair—I never once asked, “Why me?” Not once. That question never crossed my mind. My approach was always, “Okay, what am I supposed to learn from this?” I wasn’t searching for blame. I wasn’t looking for cosmic wrongdoing. I wanted the lesson, the purpose, the next step—because otherwise the entire situation felt pointless.

In my world, God—whatever form, energy, or cosmic frequency that is—is not some angry inspector handing out diseases like parking tickets. My God is loving, patient, a tiny bit sarcastic (trust me, I feel it), and absolutely not in the business of punishing people by tossing sarcoidosis at them like some heavenly dodgeball. I didn’t get sarcoidosis because I failed a spiritual exam. I got it because I’m human, and human bodies do unpredictable, inconvenient, frequently ridiculous things.

And let’s be honest: if God did give me sarcoidosis, it wasn’t punishment—it was a nudge. A cosmic tap on the shoulder. A spiritual post-it note that said, “Hey, you. Yes, you—the chef with the big opinions and the chronic habit of questioning everything. You’re going to use this. You’re going to help people. You’re going to turn this into something meaningful.” And here I am, writing these posts, connecting with people, building something out of the mess.

I never chased the “why me” narrative. I never believed illness was a divine scorecard. I only ever asked, “Why is this happening, and what am I supposed to learn?” And the lessons always show up—sometimes gracefully, sometimes like a badly parked car rolling downhill. I’ve learned about patience, boundaries, self-compassion, and the deeply underrated art of not overscheduling your medical appointments. Chronic illness has been a harsh teacher, but the lessons have been invaluable.

And that’s the thing: everyone has something. A diagnosis. A heartbreak. A betrayal. A detour so ridiculous it could win an award. Something that arrives uninvited and demands your attention. We don’t get to control the arrival, but we do get to choose the meaning we attach to it. Not in a toxic positivity way—nobody with chronic illness has the energy for that nonsense—but in a way that gives our experiences depth instead of despair.

Life will absolutely throw curveballs. Your body will malfunction at the worst possible time. Faith will wobble. Perspective will shift. But if we approach our challenges—from sarcoidosis to heartbreak to the everyday chaos of being alive—as opportunities to learn rather than punishments to endure, the journey gets lighter. Maybe even meaningful. Maybe even beautiful in its own crooked way.

And honestly, if questioning everything got me kicked out of religious class at sixteen, imagine what it could do for you now.

So tell me—what lessons have your challenges tried to teach you?

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