Ten Years Out- Reflections on Hearing Loss

Ten years ago today, after my mother gently dragged me to a local ENT doctor, my life changed when he told me I had bilateral degenerative hearing loss. I was terrified, in shock, unbelieving-not me, disabled? At 2o?!  who will love me now? How can I finish college? What will my life look like now?—ran through my mind as the kind, yet ignorant-of-my-situation nurse who took my blood test told me “not to cry, it’s just a shot”, if only she knew.
But now, a decade later, I can’t help but reflect on how many of those questions and fears have drifted away—I finished college and went back. Disability in one area doesn’t mean you don’t have strong abilities in others. We are each more than a single label or diagnosis.

If I could go back, I would tell my twenty-year-old-self—I know you can’t see past this now. It seems to mar your life, to irrevocably screw up your plans, your dreams.  It seems to shatter every truth you knew about who you are and what you’re capable of. Later that afternoon, as you sit on the beach, pen in hand, pages rippling in the forceful wind—you will make a pivotal choice—to turn to, not away from Jesus in this day of pain and fear. You chose not to get bitter, cynical, or self-pittying—and by His grace you live that out. Sure, you have moments of agony and deep fear—but your roots are strong—to him be the glory.

Ten years from now you will be thankful for this day—you won’t wish it away, dread waking up and putting your aids in, live in constant fear of losing the rest of your hearing or not having batteries for your aids. You won’t hide your aids under your hair—you’ll again experience the freedom of wearing your hair up—exposing those ears, knowing that the people who can’t see past them don’t deserve your energy anyway. Ten years out, you will be so grateful for loss—for you have gained so much-perspective, empathy, compassion for the hurting—that far outweighs any loss of your physical hearing. You’ll smile to think how this was made for you—chosen in love to strengthen, EQUIP—not hinder, the life you live. Your eyes will glimmer as your mind fills with pictures of how this loss is gain—from relating to many scared parents with a fresh Autism diagnosis, to the way your niece gently pulls back your hair and in awe and joy exclaims “you got my ears too!”


Ten years from now you will read scriptures like “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126) and your heart will smile with an understanding and joy—fulfilling this verse and knowing its truth. Ten years from now, the once overwhelmingly painful anniversary will have faded to one of bittersweet gratitude—for now you have those sheaves—the harvest of suffering that reminds you pain in this life is birth pains. Trembling 20-year-old-self—this diagnosis you think is ending your life—is actually the greatest beginning. 

merry manifesto

I want to write with abandon and vigor. Boldly penning words of hope, truth and joy. Words that snap, crackle, and pop as they fly across the page. Words that lead to action. Words like pugnacious, tenacious—opulent grace-filled pages of truth and hope. Words that inspire. Words that convict. Words that rip into the calloused flesh of patriarchal scars while rending to mend. For it is in our brokenness we can be healed. Cracks are how the light gets in—how the festering wound is cleansed as the infection below the surface oozes and is exposed. People may be repulsed—and they should be.

Oppression bends and breaks when the hunched backs begin to straighten. When the burdened cry-ENOUGH, when the marginalized come together. When the silenced shout. When every solitary person finds their “me too”.

For this is what Christmas brings—Christ’s coming signals a revolution—a baby threatened the king, a man—the empire, and yet, all of this was Emmanuel—God with us. My favorite Christmas song reminds us that “His law is love and his Gospel is peace”. Law is loving—boundaries are beneficial—they don’t limit life-they enhance it. Peace isn’t a cease fire-it’s a person—a man who entered into our wounded world. These are the words I want to write- words that may offend and pierce—a mere echo of God who was pierced FOR us.

I don’t know what this process will look like—I’m sure that it will be line any other journey. That my ideas and perceptions as I pen the first words will be a distant memory when I finish. I don’t know where this spark will lead me—but I know this new joy and new freedom will grow—one word, one post, one day at a time.