On Being Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Our five-year old daughter Keisha is hearing-impaired and has to wear hearing aids

Seeing those words I just typed cuts my heart still. It's been almost two years since we found out that she had hearing loss. It was determined that her cochleas, the spiral-shaped part of the inner ear, were never fully developed (see this image of the inner ear from Center for Advanced Computing Research, Caltech, Pasadena, California USA). I bring this up because within the last couple of days we've been reminded of it, and, while we've grown to accept it, it still hurts in our hearts. We realize even more how fragile we human beings are, and how much more we need God:

This past Sunday we spent some time with some friends from church. They have two daughters: one who is eight and one who is eleven months. Rachel, the eight year old, asked me, "When is Keisha not going to have to wear her hearing aids anymore?"

I replied, "Never. She will most probably always have to wear hearing aids for the rest of her life." The finality of that statement struck an emotional chord that hadn't been touched in awhile.

Then, yesterday evening, as my wife was tucking Keisha into her bed, she observed something else. Keisha has to take her hearing aids off before she goes to sleep, and as Jennie was tucking her in, Keisha brought out a stuffed bear. This bear, when you squeeze its hand, sings "Jesus Loves Me" and says the "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" prayer. She received it from her aunt a couple years ago.

Keisha squeezed the bear, and it started playing "Jesus Loves Me". Jennie, my wife, noticed that Keisha had put the speaker part of the bear, from which the music issued, against her ear just so that she could hear it. At first Jennie thought that the batteries might need to be replaced, but when Keisha had it play "Jesus Loves Me" again, Jennie could tell that the batteries were okay. It was just that Keisha needed to have the speaker up to her ear so that she could hear it better. Then she put it up to Jennie's ear as though that was the only way that Jennie could hear it, too.

The doctors have said that Keisha's hearing loss can get progressively worse. This is one of the reasons why we're all learning sign language, even Nana, who has come to live with us recently. I also think that it is great that Keisha herself sees the benefit of having the hearing aids, or "magic ears", as we like to call them. I think she is aware of how special she is, and that she definitely feels everyone's love. We all understand that Keisha is exactly how God wanted her.

Everyone in our household, except for the dog, ails with something. For Keisha, it's her hearing loss. For my Mom and me, it's our mental illnesses. For Jennie, it's probably a hormonal imbalance of some kind. It's very humbling. Not only that, but it's also encouraging as we continue to remind ourselves that, ailments and all, we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:13-14). Seeing myself - ourselves - in this light is definitely a good thing.