The Blessing of a Curse

The Blessing of a Curse

I'm sure a lot of you have a puzzled look on your face at this point, and don't worry, I will explain what the devotional title means.

This whole idea of being blessed with a curse is one that still relatively new to me. I don't remember exactly when it came to mind, but I think it was around six months ago or so.

I have struggled with the fact that I have a hearing loss for a long time now. At times its more subdued, and I don't think about it so much, but it has been on my mind a lot more lately after my experiences in asking for prayer for healing while on a missions trip with YWAM.

For those of you that are not aware of that story I'll try to sum it up: I thought God was telling me to ask people to pray for healing for my hearing, so I did so. I didn't get healed. I thought He told me to ask people again, I did. I didn't get healed. I then plunged into a week and a half depression that my outreach leader had to drag me out of (Libby, if you ever get this, know that I am still grateful to you for taking the time to come alongside me and help me through that, it meant the world to me then and it still does. You basically saved the second half of my outreach). Since then there has been one question that surpasses a lot of others in my spiritual walk “why wasn't I healed?” I was absolutely certain that God was telling me that I was going to be healed, and yet I wasn't.

This threw into doubt my ability to hear God, and I still doubt. I still fear to talk to God, because I don't know if what I hear in turn is what Hes actually saying.

I still don't fully understand why I wasn't healed then, but I do think I'm starting to understand why I was given this hearing disability in the first place.

See, who I am today has been affected deeply by my hearing loss, for good and for bad. Moreso for good than bad I think. If I hadn't been born with a hearing loss, I probably wouldn't be writing these devotionals today. Because of my hearing loss I didn't fit in at school, no one really wanted to be my friend. Because of that, I spent a lot of my time alone, and a ton of time reading. Because of those two things I'm a deeper thinker than most, I've found I have a much better ability to link ideas together, and I have a pretty rich vocabulary. How I ended up so verbose by never talking to people I'll never know though, I figure God was probably involved in that.

While the isolation and loneliness at the time was painful, God used that time to shape who I am today, to guide me, and to make my mind the way it is now. I don't see myself as better because I'm smart or because I'm good at writing, thats just the way I am, and I don't think that would have happened. I am who I am today because of my hearing disability. That curse has resulted in blessing in who I am intellectually and as a person.

Another area which is truly remarkable is my compassion. God has given me an enormous measure of compassion for other people. It amazes me at how quickly I respond in prayer to hearing of or seeing someone else in pain and difficulty. Even more amazing, is that I am compassionate even though I received treatment when I was younger that, by all accounts, should have made me bitter and angry towards the world. I know my mom said it was a miracle to her that I ended up with a heart of compassion rather than one of bitterness, and she thanks God for it.

So whats the point behind all these stories? Simple: God takes the worst of things and uses them for good, and sometimes brings amazing good out of the worst of situations. I can't say whether or not God wanted me to have a hearing loss, or if that was simply “one of those things that happens.” Nor can I say if the pain you might be experiencing now is something God planned, or “one of those things.” I can assure you that God is good beyond measure, and that He is more than able to take the pain you are experiencing today and use it to bring about so much good, if you'll let Him.

Blessings.

-Ricky/Yoda