Healing the Broken

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 9^th 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.

       The author of this story grew up to become a teacher for over 9 years and is now happily married, a mom of 2, and loves to write about God's love. This girl is me. God took my broken heart and healed it. God didn't heal me the way I expected. You see, I wanted Him to heal the physical part, but He went much deeper and healed the inner part. God is amazing because he knows how to truly fix things. Take a look at people's hearts. Mankind's hearts are truly messed up, full of wickedness and sin after we rebelled from God long ago; as a result, the world is full of pain, death, and tragedy. People look to God to fix all the problems of the world...fix my marriage, fix my broken body, fix my finances, fix my handicap, fix those who are dying, fix the pain and suffering...and he is, but not in the way we think he should. He fixes and heals heart...that is what truly needs fixing. He sent the one he loved the most to fix our hearts, Jesus. Jesus took all of our sin and pain away and gave us a new heart. All you have to do is ask him for it and he will. Why? Because that is what Jesus does, he heals hearts....He healed mine first from its sin and wickedness and second from the pain and hurt involving my handicap. In a world full of brokenness we can only turn to the one who is unbroken, Jesus. He is in the heart business. He healed mine, and He can heal yours. All you have to do is ask....*

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."