Verse of the Week:
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalms 147:3
Healing the Broken
This is a true story of a girl whose heart was black and blue, and God picked up every broken piece and brought her healing. In a world full of brokenness, Jesus is the only one who can bring healing...
"The Healing of My Heart"
When I was
a young girl, my hearing loss never bothered me. My two siblings and I had been born with it,
so it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be deaf in my
family. As a little girl I remember
going to school and playing YMCA sports like any other normal child and
participating right along in family events just like my hearing cousins. As a
child, I had had many ear infections, which made it hard to develop my speech
properly. I never could hear and learn
simple new words like my brother and sister; I seemed to be behind in
everything that my brother and sister did.
I
never understood what my parents had to go through to make sure that I would be
ok in the real world. While I thought
going to speech therapy three times a week and being taught new words daily at
home with my mom was strictly routine, my mom was struggling to make sure that
I would be able to function in the world of hearing. Despite all of mom’s efforts to make sure
that I would succeed in public school, my first grade teacher finally said, “You must do something to help this child. I can’t do anything else to help her.” After weeks of prayer and thinking, my mom
and dad decided to place me in a deaf school, Lamar. However, instead of helping me, Lamar turned
me into this mute child who would not talk to people and caused me to get
behind in learning. I never knew that my
parents went to the extremes to get me out of that deaf school. While teachers and other professionals in the
deaf education program criticized my parents, telling them that they were
making a huge mistake in taking me out of school, my parents stood firm like a
rock and fought for me, believing that I could do better than what some deaf
children did. Doctors told my parents
that if I were placed in a hearing school, I would start failing classes by
fourth grade. However, my parents
believed that I could do better than what people thought I could do. Mom took me home and started teaching me on
her own knowing that my life would be hard for me in the future. She pushed me
hard during those months at home to prepare me for a private school and worked
hard to get equipment such as the FM unit so that I could understand my
teachers easier. I never knew about the
sleepless nights and the tears she poured out for me while praying to God
trying to make sure that she did the right thing. My dad, the leader of the home, stood by her
side being her tower of strength and support and praying along with her for
guidance in what to do about their youngest daughter. I never knew how much my parents sacrificed
for me during those early years and how hard they fought for me.
Perhaps,
that is why I never understood why my parents decided to leave their old church
and search for a new church that believed in the power of healing. They would take me and my brother and sister
to churches that held healing services in hopes that we would be healed. I never understood why we read books on
miracles and scriptures on healings. I
never worried about anything as a little girl because my life was simple,
protected in the arms of my parents… until Jr. High.
In
Jr. High everything changed; innocent children that used to be my friends when
I was younger were now struggling to control the changes in their bodies. Popularity was the thing, and I learned
pretty quickly that if you were different than your peers then you were
considered weird. It was during these
years that my hearing loss became a huge reality for me. I was different from the other kids because I
could not hear; therefore, I was persecuted and ignored. When I tried to fit in with groups, I found
out that it was impossible for me to do so because I could not hear anything
that was being said. When I talked, kids
would make fun of my speech. I never
could do anything that a normal teenager did. I could not talk on the phone to
friends; I could not go to movies because I could not hear what was being said.
As high
school came things got worse, I could no longer sit with kids at lunch; they
would ignore me and make me sit at the end of the table, the loser’s
section. I eventually begin to eat by
myself in a classroom because the kids were so cruel. The only haven I had at
school was sports, particularly basketball during my freshman year.
However, that was taken away when my coach benched me and I didn’t play. I was lonely, and thoughts of suicide consumed my mind. I would
often go to the kitchen by myself at night and take a knife and hold it to my
stomach wondering what it would be like if I pushed it through my abdomen.
My only
place of security was at home where I was loved and accepted. My parents tried to encourage me and comfort
me. Despite their efforts, my
self-esteem dropped so low that one would wonder if I had any self-esteem at
all. I often would cry all night long
until no more tears would come. I finally began to realize why my parents had
always prayed for my healing. In
desperation, I turned to God and asked him to heal me. I wanted to hear like any normal teenager and
be like any normal teenager, but He never answered, or so I thought. In 9th grade, I began to talk to
one of the teachers, Mrs. Davis about my healing. I will never forget what Mrs. Davis
said, “You may want your ears to be
healed but have you asked God to heal your heart?” When I went home that day I was angry and
confused with what she had said. What
did she mean by the “healing of my heart”?
I was a Christian, and I believed and trusted in God. In fact God was the only one at the moment
who I knew I could rely on. In fact, it
was the encouragement from reading God’s word that kept me from giving up. I was confused with those words and quickly
dismissed them from my mind. Little did
I know that in the future these words would change my life.
After the dark days in high
school, my senior year at a new high school and college came, and I was thrilled with the freedom and happiness that
came with it. I was making new friends,
learning new things, and becoming a new person.
My parent’s hard work had paid off, and all the things that people said
that I would never be able to do, I did.
Then towards the end of my first semester in college another bombshell
dropped. I lost a lot of hearing. During high school, I had always lost a
little bit of hearing and it was like a blow to me each time my world grew
quieter, but I would quickly readjust and jump back to normal routine. This time, however, I did not jump back. As
hard as I tried I could not carry a conversation with anyone very well. I would constantly make an idiot of myself
and have people repeat things several times before I got what they said. I began to avoid people on campus and began
to hide back in my little shell. I began
to rely on lip reading and would hope that people would not talk to me. I could no longer hear music and my own
mother’s sweet voice. My job as a junior
high coach became a huge challenge and I found myself struggling to understand
my co-workers and athletes. Whenever
people became frustrated with repeating things to me, it was like a blow to my
heart. How was I going to survive in
this world if I could not even hear my own friends and family? I began to get extremely depressed and would
cry until my head hurt. During Christmas
holidays when my siblings came home they noticed that my sparkly smile and
light from my eyes were gone. My brother
grew concerned when he told me that I did not seem myself, I broke down and
cried not knowing what to do anymore.
Everything seemed hopeless.
Again, I
began to pray and beg to God for a miracle.
In anguish I would pray to God saying, “Please God, Please heal
me!” No healing came.
One day, I
had reached rock bottom. At work one of
my friends had grown very frustrated with me because she had to repeat the same
sentence over six times. In desperation,
I went home that evening and sat down on the couch in the living room. I seeked for comfort from God but none would
come. In desperation, I fell from the couch to the floor my body shaking with
sobs and my hands clinched against my head.
“God,” I cried, “I can’t do this anymore! Take me home to heaven, I can’t keep living
like this anymore.” My heart had taken
all the beatings it could; it was black and blue. My soul was in turmoil. Where was hope? I could not see any.
The next
couple of months were hard. I began to
search for the healing of my ears. I
began to talk to my co-workers about healing, but they had no answer. “Why didn’t God want to heal me?” Then one evening as I was reading a book
called The Case for Faith, I read
about a man who had had a congenital neuromuscular disease that leaves a person
crippled for life. When he was asked if
he had asked God for a miracle, he said, “As a young Christian, I prayed that
God would heal me. But he didn’t.” Then he said with unmistakable wonder, “ As I
look at my life, God has used this disease in so many remarkable ways to shape
me and my personality…as Paul said- his strength was made perfect in
weakness.” After reading, I began to
think about Paul in the Bible and how he asked God three times to heal him of a
handicap that he had, yet even with his handicap God used it to show His
strength and power and help Paul with his life.
I began to thank God for the strength and help he gave me with my
handicap, and I understood now why he did not heal me. God was going to use my handicap for his will
and purpose. Tears of joy streamed down
my face as I read through the scriptures that evening, “I know the plans that I have for you,
declares the Lord. They are plans for
peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.” (Jeremiah
29:11) It dawned me what Mrs. Davis had
been trying to say all along about asking God to heal my heart. I needed to
accept my hearing loss as it was and understand that God had a reason for me to
have this handicap. I bowed my head and
prayed to God. “Lord,” I said, “I may never be healed physically but please
heal my heart from the hurt and pain that I have and strengthen me to do your
will. For the first time in a long time,
peace and strength filled my in-most
being. My heart had begun to heal.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalms 147:3
*If you want to know more about this topic, please feel free to Facebook me a message at "Katrina Garrison Arnold."
