How to Hear God When You're Deaf

Would life be better if I could hear better?

Would I notice the subtle differences in people's voices, or the tones used in their speech? Or be able to hear the door bell ring or the microwave beep, or the wall clock tick? Or distinguish instantly who is calling me by listening to voice, not merely glancing at caller I.D.?

Would all the sounds I am no longer able to hear suddenly become recognizable? The sound of my two-year-old son giggling in his room when I am downstairs. The guitar music my husband strums behind closed bedroom doors while I'm standing in the laundry room with a dryer rumbling.

Would I hear the soft voice that doesn't come from anywhere but the heart? God's whispering throughout the day of promises...that He would never leave me, that He has a plan for me beyond what I can hear.

Would I listen to God, or pay attention to all the other noises coming through my ears? Let the shouts from family, television, and radio take priority over holy whispers?

Maybe, just maybe God allowed my progressive hearing loss so I could hear those whispers better.

"The Lord says, 'I will lead (them) by a road they do not know, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground ... I will not forsake them." (Isaiah 42:16)

I don't hear well, but I know this: Life is better BECAUSE I don't hear better.

Writing Detour at Starbucks

All around me at Starbucks are reminders of my children. This is my one free "kid-free" day when all three of my beauties are in school. I look forward to this day. So why am I constantly thinking about my kids?

It started when I stopped to check my mail. In my P.O. box was a copy of a parenting magazine called MOMSense. Sitting at the coffee shop, I flipped to an article titled "Divine Detours." This quote by author Carol Kuykendall made me think:

"I know for sure that my divine detours have shaped my mothering, and kept me from promising our children that they can do or be anything they desire, if they just try hard enough. I know it's not always the depth of our longings or even our determination that controls our outcomes. We sometimes hit barriers that we can't control."

Wow! Talk about a divine reminder of what I am experiencing now.

My own detour is leading me more into the role of mothering. For three years, my mom life competed with other roles: writing, publishing and promoting Lip Reader; traveling for public speaking and teaching events; volunteering with Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) and the Hearing Loss Association of America, co-leading a church Bible study and a prayer ministry for moms.

Over the summer, I sensed God's pull in other directions. For starters, being more attentive to my husband and children. Spending quality time with my kids before and after school. Staying on top of their projects and homework. Calling or texting my husband during the day just because. Having meaningful conversations, listening more, snuggling more. Not being so distracted by my book-in-progress or volunteering or traveling all over the Midwest for book signings.

My divine detour: STOP BEING TOO BUSY FOR MY FAMILY.

This new way of thinking and living draws me less to the computer to work on a book, and more to my family's needs. My kids need their mom. My husband needs his wife.

I'll admit: it feels good to make a difference beyond the four quarters of my home. Yet, I have a 9-year-old boy with special needs who needs constant intervention at school; a 6-year-old daughter with an amazing heart that longs for one-on-one time with mom; a two-year-old son at home; a husband of almost fifteen years who is the most loyal person in the world. If I don't fulfill their longings for a mom and wife, who will?

This fall, my roles have been much more domesticated. Caretaker, meal planner and preparer. Spelling tutor and carpool queen. Potty training instructor. Prayer leader on the way to school and at bedtime. Storyteller. Listener.

As I sit at Starbucks, reading my mommy magazine and thinking about my family, I also people watch...

Look, there's a mom coming in for coffee with her pajama-clad tot in her arms. I smile at her. Since she doesn't know me, she probably thinks I'm a crazy lady.

But I bet if she saw me surrounded by my three kids, she'd know why I grinned. She would probably flash a knowing, mom-to-mom smile back.

Being Still with Thomas

A Personal Note that Has Nothing to Do with Writing

This morning, I got my older two kids ready and off to school. My two-year-old son and I returned home and did our casual routine. Breakfast. Decaf coffee for me. Bible reading time. Checking my e-mail via phone. Routine accomplished by nine o’clock.

I felt a sense of, "Shouldn’t I be going somewhere today?" Then I remembered: It’s Tuesday. MOPS Tuesday.

For six years, I’d attended a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) meeting or Bible study every Tuesday morning at nine o’clock at my church. In recent months, I’d become aware that my time with MOPS was about to be over. I felt God tugging me away from this parenting ministry for unsure reasons. From sitting on the local MOPS steering committee to serving as a citywide MOPS training coordinator, I had lived and breathed the MOPS life – and loved it – for so long.

In my Bible reading today, I read in the fourteenth chapter of Luke about Jesus telling his disciples to "take up your cross and follow me." To do that, the disciples had to put everything else behind Jesus – their parents, siblings, spouses, children and even their own lives.

I heard God speak loud and clear through those verses: TURN AWAY FROM YOURSELF.

Like I so often do, I debated God. "How do you expect me to do that?"

Did God expect me to turn away from my desires, my passions and feelings, my goals and ambitions? That felt like taking a trip and not being able to see the road or maneuver the steering wheel. Like God expected me to turn away from myself while Tuesday moved on and left me not knowing what to do. That felt so odd. To be completely, one-hundred percent selfless.

Before God could answer, my two-year-old son squealed, "Thomas."

I turned around and saw him pushing his beat-up plastic train car on the kitchen floor. His favorite toy. His favorite show: Thomas the Tank Engine.

Left without an answer from God, I felt so unsure of how to spend the day. I didn’t know what to do with a Tuesday morning without a MOPS meeting to attend or a Bible study to co-lead.

"Thomas," my son squealed again. "Wa’ Thomas."

This was two-year-old language for, "I want to watch Thomas. Get up and watch it with me."

I dragged myself from the kitchen table, feeling so unfocused. My two-year-old squealed some more as I reached for the remote, flicked on the TV, and searched for Thomas the Tank Engine On-Demand.

Instead of spending the morning encouraging and being encouraged by my MOPS friends, I spent the rest of the morning watching a dozen Thomas episodes. My son curled beside me, clutching his plastic train to his heart. I lay still and watched the model trains chit-chat with each other. With each “toot-toot” of an engine, I felt my sense of pride disappear.

I didn’t hear God’s audible answer to my question, but I did feel him with me. Cuddled in my arms, holding a train. My son had so wanted me to watch Thomas.

So I did that all morning.

The Life of a Writer Mom

Being a hands-on mom involves sacrifice. Instead of playing on the computer at sunrise and putting the finishing touches on Chapter 10 of the novel, I need to fix my kids breakfast and spend time with them at the table. Instead of traveling this way and that to promote my first book, I need to be present at the kids’ parent-teacher conferences, fun fairs, and homeroom parties.

To some moms, being attentive isn’t a sacrifice at all. It’s what they do naturally and consistently. For me, it can sometimes be a struggle. I love and appreciate my children. I want to be with them at the breakfast table, take them to school, pick them up, and pray with them at bedtime. My favorite moments in life are spent with my children.

But there is also this restless energy inside me that asks me to do more. More writing. More speaking . More book promotion. More social media networking. More of making a mark outside of my home.

So I struggle with fulfilling the responsibilities of an attentive mom with the pent-up energy of creative pursuits. How do I finish writing my novel without sacrificing an important moment with my kids? How do I travel to speaking and writing events without neglecting one of their school events?

Right now, I am in limbo with how to move forward. Should I jump in full-force as a mom and put creative interests on hold? Should I carve out time to do both, forgiving myself for not giving one-hundred percent to either one?

I love my children, and I love being creative outside of the mother realm.

So I must forgive myself for the less-than-perfect outcome of Chapter 10.

A Writer Stuck in Metaphorland

This is the bane of writers I know – to be stuck.

Unable to move a storyline forward, character descriptions and setting details choke the forward momentum of plot. As Character One wonders when Character Two’s dialogue to be written, a book is left with loose ends nowhere close to being tied up.

Take Care of the Birds has become a quilt of various multicolored fabric swatches left unstitched to a backing. Anxious for fingers to push thread through a sewing needle, the pieces wait.

I’m curious when Sapphie Traylor will find out the truth about her mother’s latest crisis. Months of writing a storyline also has me wondering: Do I even know what happened to her mother?

Until then, my plot development hovers inside a dark garage. Not even a cup of super-caffeinated coffee or an interrupted morning can propel this engine to take off. I have a thousand meandering thoughts but can’t take the twenty steps to my computer. While the world outside my brain ticks with adrenaline, I am tempted to take ten steps back to my pillow to, um, ponder.

Shouldn’t I be concerned that a chapter hovers on my computer, waiting for fuel to launch?