What Kefir Taught Me About God

Photo by Anderson Cavalera

Have you heard about kefir? If you haven’t, kefir is basically fermented milk. What does fermented milk have to do with God? For me, quite a lot actually.

Over the last several months my family has dealt with illness after illness after illness. First it was the flu, followed by colds, followed by pink eye, followed by more colds, followed by the flu and then, you guessed it, more colds! I was and am so done with being sick. And so, after months of praying for any guidance on what we could do to not get so sick I felt I should jump into making kefir.

Why kefir? I had tried kefir from the store and liked it. I had heard that it is amazing if you are looking to improve your gut health and it felt right after all that desperate praying. I knew that it was a bit expensive to buy from the grocery store so I ordered some kefir grains off Amazon so that I could make it myself.

It took awhile to get into the swing of making kefir: soak grains for a day, strain, repeat. As I did all that soaking and straining, I became more curious about kefir. I scoured the inter webs for information and learned about the war being waged in my gut.

Essentially, there are good bacteria and bad bacteria, and we actually need both. We need a balance. When there are too many of the bad guys and not enough of the good guy's bad things happen. Enter kefir. Somehow these strange lumpy pieces of bacteria and yeast magically infuse 50 different stains of probiotics into regular old milk. Sometimes called a “super probiotic,” kefir floods the body with an army of good bacteria ready to flush out toxins and keep the bad bacteria in check. Sound violent? It is. And so are the real-life effects of this phenomenon.

The first week and a half of drinking my homemade concoction were brutal. I experienced muscle aches, joint pain, stomach upsets, etc. At first, I was confused. Here I was doing what I felt I had been directed to do by God and I was feeling sick.

After going to the internet again I discovered that I was experiencing something called the Herxheimer reaction. Also called “die off” or a “health crisis.” Basically, when your body is given an army of good guys to clear out dormant toxins, some unpleasant stuff can happen.

I started this whole experiment with the goal being less sick. The results were so much more than that. In order to have a healthy gut and hopefully a stronger immune system my body went through the pain of ridding itself of toxins, dormant viruses, etc. The reactions I experienced to all those nasties flooding my system were not fun to say the least. I did learn, though.

I learned that when we are humble enough to ask God for help cleaning up our lives, He takes that request seriously. True healing, whether physical or spiritual, is all part of a great big whole. We can’t just say, “God, I want to be a better person so please help me be more patient or kind or whatever attribute I think will improve me the most.” Inviting God’s healing grace into our life is not a one and done, patch a leaky drain kind of project.

Have you heard the analogy C.S Lewis wrote about the house? He said:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.” 

(C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan Co., 1960, p. 160).

I love that quote. I feel like I have been living it lately. My achy joints, stuffy nose and other lovely symptoms are definitely evidence of some intense remodeling. Despite the uncomfortable process, I have already noticed progress. Some of the chronic problems I have been dealing with for a decade, or maybe more if I am being honest with myself, are lessening. For the first time I feel hopeful of becoming happier in my body.

God is the ultimate healer. He is the ultimate designer. His ways are simple but also grand. This experience has taught me that He knows everything about me, my life, and what is best for me. Even if the best thing turns out to have a lot of hard mixed in, I am learning that I can trust Him. In the end, He is doing more with me than I could ever do for myself.